United States v. Tremayne Collins, 600 F. App'x 433

Background

Tremayne Collins pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute less than 100 grams of heroin (federal count 1); other charges were dismissed under the plea agreement.
Presentence Report (PSR) assigned Collins a total offense level of 21 and criminal history category V, yielding a Guidelines range of 70–87 months; the district court sentenced him to 70 months.
Collins objected to three criminal-history points: two state heroin-possession convictions (Oct 1, 2010 and Oct 29, 2011) as improperly counted instead of being treated as relevant conduct, and one point for a 2000 minor-misdemeanor marijuana possession conviction (arguing it falls within §4A1.2(c) exceptions).
The government argued the state heroin possessions were isolated/personal-use arrests not tied to the conspiracy and confirmed the amounts at issue were not used to calculate the base offense level.
The district court rejected Collins’s relevance argument for the heroin possessions (finding insufficient evidence tying them to the conspiracy), upheld the PSR, and Collins lodged a continuing objection; he did not expressly raise the marijuana-point argument at sentencing.
On appeal, the Sixth Circuit reviewed the marijuana argument for plain error and reviewed the relevant-conduct determination de novo, affirming the district court’s criminal-history calculations and Collins’s sentence.

Issues

Issue	Collins's Argument	Government's Argument	Held
Whether two state heroin-possession convictions should be treated as relevant conduct (not counted separately in criminal history)	The 2010 and 2011 possession offenses were part of a common course of conduct with the federal conspiracy and thus should be grouped as relevant conduct	The arrests were isolated, indicia of personal use, and not tied by direct evidence to the federal conspiracy	Held: Not relevant conduct; district court did not err in counting them in criminal history
Whether the 2000 minor-misdemeanor marijuana conviction should be excluded from criminal history under U.S.S.G. §4A1.2(c) exceptions	That the minor-misdemeanor conviction is like a minor traffic infraction or disorderly conduct and thus should not produce a criminal-history point	PSR and district court treated it as a valid prior conviction for criminal-history scoring	Held: Reviewed for plain error; no obvious/clear error — point properly assigned
Whether any error in treating the 2010 heroin conviction mattered	Collins contended at least one of the heroin possession points was improperly counted	Government noted even excluding one would not change the capped calculation under §4A1.1(c)	Held: Harmless — even if 2010 point were excluded, total criminal-history score would remain the same
Procedural/substantive reasonableness of the sentence	Collins argued sentencing calculation flawed by criminal-history errors	Government defended calculation and sentence within Guidelines	Held: Sentencing was procedurally and substantively reasonable; sentence affirmed

Key Cases Cited

Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38 (establishing review for procedural and substantive reasonableness of sentences)
United States v. Bostic, 371 F.3d 865 (6th Cir. 2004) (preservation rule for sentencing objections; forfeiture leads to plain-error review)
United States v. Vonner, 516 F.3d 382 (6th Cir. 2008) (plain-error standard for preserved vs. forfeited sentencing objections)
United States v. Phillips, 516 F.3d 479 (6th Cir. 2008) (standard of review for district-court factual findings and relevant-conduct determinations)
United States v. Escobar, 992 F.2d 87 (6th Cir. 1993) (possession for personal use during a conspiracy is not automatically relevant conduct)
United States v. Stubblefield, 265 F.3d 345 (6th Cir. 2001) (rejecting §4A1.2(c) exclusion for minor misdemeanor drug possession)
United States v. Brooks, 628 F.3d 791 (6th Cir. 2011) (sentences within Guidelines are presumptively substantively reasonable)
United States v. Foote, 705 F.3d 305 (8th Cir. 2013) (Sentencing Commission findings on narcotics convictions correlating to recidivism)
United States v. Ruacho, 746 F.3d 850 (8th Cir. 2014) (applying §4A1.2(c) factors and rejecting minor-infraction treatment for drug possession)