Opinion
22-2239
07-29-2024
United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Angelo Johnson, Defendant-Appellant.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
Argued September 14, 2023.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:20-cr-00755-1 Robert W. Gettleman, Judge.
Before ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge, DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge, MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Circuit Judge.
ORDER
Defendant-appellant Angelo Johnson appeals the 108-month sentence he received for knowingly and intentionally possessing, with the intent to distribute, cocaine base, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), and unlawfully possessing a firearm following a felony conviction, see 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). We affirm.
Based on Johnson's 2014 Illinois convictions for robbery and kidnapping (which qualified as crimes of violence, see U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(2) (Nov. 2021)) along with a 2018 Michigan conviction for delivering less than 50 grams of cocaine (which qualified as a controlled substance offense, see § 4B1.2((b)), he was deemed a career offender under the Sentencing Guidelines, see § 4B1.1(a), and his offense level was set at 32 (adjusted to 29 after he was given credit for acceptance of responsibility pursuant to section 3E1.1). Johnson contended that his Illinois convictions for robbery and kidnapping do not qualify as crimes of violence, given the possibility that he might have been convicted as an aider and abettor to robbery and kidnapping rather than as a principal and given what Johnson argues is the unique breadth of an Illinois rule of aiding and abetting liability known as "common design." See 720 ILCS 5/5-2(c); People v. Fernandez, 2014 IL 115527, 6 N.E.3d 145 (2014); Gonzalez v. Duenas-Alvarez, 549 U.S. 183, 193-94 (2007). Johnson also argued that his Michigan conviction for delivery of cocaine does not qualify as a controlled substance offense because the Michigan controlled substance statute under which he was convicted was "overbroad" in comparison with its federal counterpart. The district court rejected both arguments. R. 78 at 2-3.
Johnson renews these arguments on appeal, but we find no merit to either one. His argument as to the breadth of Illinois accomplice liability is resolved by our recent opinion in United States v. Carr, No. 22-1245, -F.4th-, 2024 WL 3324727 (7th Cir. July 8, 2024), which concludes that Illinois common-design liability is not out of step with mainstream accomplice liability. His argument as to the overbreadth of the Michigan controlled substance statute is foreclosed by United States v. Ruth, 966 F.3d 642, 651-54 (7th Cir. 2020) ("controlled substance offense," as used in sections 4B1.1(a) and 4B1.2(b) of the Guidelines, is not limited to the federal definition of such offense but extends to felony state-law offenses related to controlled or counterfeit substances), and although Johnson urges us to revisit Ruth, we have reaffirmed the relevant holding of Ruth on multiple occasions, e.g. United States v. Ramirez, 52 F.4th 705, 711-16 (7th Cir. 2022), cert. denied, 143 S.Ct. 2480 (2023), and most recently in United States v. Holder, 94 F.4th 695, 699 (7th Cir. 2024). Ruth remains the law of this circuit.
AFFIRMED.