Evans was convicted of conspiracy to distribute and distribution of a controlled substance, offenses that carry an enhanced mandatory minimum if the government proves he had a prior “serious drug felony.” Under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A), that status requires proving two “incarceration-related facts”: that Evans served more than 12 months in prison for the prior offense and was released within 15 years of the current crime.
The government filed an information seeking the enhancement, and both sides proposed jury instructions to submit those facts to the jury during trial. The district court did not do so. After Evans’s conviction, the Supreme Court decided Erlinger v. United States, holding that a jury, not a judge, must find those incarceration-related facts.
Evans objected to the enhancement, arguing it could not apply without a jury finding. The district court initially scheduled a trial for those facts but then vacated the order, citing a “catch-22.” Applying the enhancement without a jury violated Evans’s Sixth Amendment rights; empaneling a jury violated 21 U.S.C. § 851(c)(1), which requires the court to resolve objections to prior convictions “without a jury.”
The government appealed, arguing the district court had “inherent power” to empanel a jury to resolve the facts.
The Eighth Circuit rejected that argument, writing that the Constitution promises the government neither sentencing enhancements nor a forum to try them.
“Congress is free — subject only to constitutional constraints — to frame its sentencing enhancements,” the court wrote, citing United States v. Liestman. “While the federal courts do ‘possess[] inherent powers that are “governed not by rule or statute but necessarily vested in courts to manage their own affairs so as to achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition of cases,”... these do not include the power to do the opposite of what Congress mandates.”
The court distinguished the dissent’s view that the Sixth Amendment automatically displaces § 851. The majority held that § 851 is facially constitutional because it can be applied in other scenarios without defying the Sixth Amendment, such as when a jury finds the facts during trial or when the objection concerns the elements of the prior conviction rather than the incarceration dates.
“Section 851 is therefore facially constitutional, and it was not automatically displaced by the Sixth Amendment, as the dissent suggests. Rather, it is only unconstitutional as applied to Evans,” the court wrote.
Judge Stephen Stras dissented, arguing that the Sixth Amendment and Article III guarantee a jury trial for any fact that increases a statutory minimum.
“The same section that defines the scope of federal ‘judicial Power,’ U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1, declares that ‘[t]he Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury,’... Federal courts have a duty to ensure that one is available, regardless of what a criminal statute says,” Stras wrote.
Stras argued the district court should have empaneled a jury pursuant to the Constitution, noting that other circuits have done so when the Constitution calls for it.
“The impact of the court’s holding is more than just theoretical. Under its logic, a district court will never be able to impose the enhancement if a defendant contests the ‘term of imprisonment’ or the date of ‘release’ for a prior conviction,” Stras wrote.
The majority also noted that the government never raised the issue of inherent judicial power in the district court or on appeal, adding that “woefully inadequate” briefing creates a risk of bad decisionmaking.
Evans was represented by the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Northern District of Iowa. The government was represented by attorneys from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa.
The panel included Judges Benton, Grasz, and Stras.