United States v. Aloniza J. Williams , 691 F. App'x 905 ( 2017 )

Case: 14-10569 Date Filed: 03/28/2017 Page: 1 of 3
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 14-10569
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 8:13-cr-00038-JSM-TBM-2
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
ALONIZA J. WILLIAMS,
a.k.a Cat,
Defendant - Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
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(March 28, 2017)
ON REMAND FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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Before MARCUS, JULIE CARNES and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
After Aloniza Williams pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a
firearm, the district court imposed an enhanced sentence under the Armed Career
Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). Williams appeals the district court’s
decision to classify and sentence him as an armed career criminal, contending that
the district court erred in finding that three of his prior criminal convictions were
violent felonies under ACCA. The district court predicated Williams’s ACCA
enhancement on four convictions for burglary under Florida law. 1 On appeal, we
affirmed Williams’s sentence, concluding that Florida burglary qualified as an
ACCA predicate under that statute’s so-called residual clause, United States v.
Williams, 603 F. App’x 919 (11th Cir. 2015) (unpublished), which the Supreme
Court subsequently held violated the Constitution’s guarantee of due process, see
Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015). Williams petitioned the
Supreme Court for certiorari, and that Court granted his petition, vacated our
opinion affirming his sentence, and remanded for further proceedings.
The government now concedes, and we agree, that Williams’s ACCA-
enhanced sentence must be vacated because Williams has no predicate convictions
that support the enhancement. In United States v. Esprit, 841 F.3d 1235, 1240–41
1
Only three convictions are required to trigger the ACCA enhancement. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(e)(1).
2
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(11th Cir. 2016), decided after Johnson, this Court held that Florida burglary is not
a violent felony under ACCA. Williams’s only potential predicate offenses were
Florida burglary convictions. In light of Esprit, these convictions can no longer
serve to enhance his sentence.
Accordingly, Williams’s ACCA sentence is vacated, and his case is
remanded to the district court for resentencing without the ACCA enhancement.
VACATED AND REMANDED.
3