United States v. Robert R. Curtis

Robert R. Curtis appeals his 169-month sentence for the distribution of cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841. Curtis entered a guilty plea without a plea agreement, which the district court accepted. At sentencing, the court calculated Curtis’s base offense level on the basis of (1) his three prior convictions for the sale of cocaine, which qualified him for career offender status under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1, and (2) the fact that Curtis’s instant offense of conviction carried a maximum sentence of 20 years. See U.S.S.G. § 4Bl.l(b) (instructing that the offense level be set at the greater…