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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
WILLIAM C. ROGERS,
Defendant-Appellant. |
No. 22-5837 |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky at London.
No. 6:22-cr-00005-1—Robert E. Wier, District Judge.
Argued: October 25, 2023
Decided and Filed: November 6, 2023
Before: McKEAGUE, READLER, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. William Rogers has a history of drug offenses. He
challenges the way that history was treated in calculating his most recent criminal sentence.
Six years ago, Rogers was caught in a motel room with methamphetamine. A year later,
he was found in possession of the same drug during a traffic stop. For these two incidents,
Rogers was indicted for violating Kentucky drug trafficking laws, eventually receiving separate,
concurrent sentences for each offense. More recently, Rogers pleaded guilty to possessing
methamphetamine with the intent to distribute the drug in violation of federal law. Based on
Rogers’s two prior offenses, the district court classified Rogers as a career offender, which raised
his sentencing range and, with it, his ultimate sentence.
Rogers believes that his earlier offenses should be treated as a single prior sentence,
rendering the career offender enhancement inapplicable. On this point, all agree that, in the
Guidelines context, prior offenses separated by an “intervening arrest” result in distinct sentences
for purposes of career offender status. See U.S.S.G. §§ 4A1.2(a)(2), 4B1.2(c). And because
Rogers was arrested (as the term is used in the Guidelines) after the motel incident but before the
traffic stop, we affirm. |
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JILL HILE; SAMANTHA JACOKES; PHILLIP JACOKES;
NICOLE LEITCH; MICHELLE LUPANOFF; GEORGE
LUPANOFF; PARENT ADVOCATES FOR CHOICE IN
EDUCATION FOUNDATION; JOSEPH HILE; JESSIE BAGOS;
RYAN BAGOS; JASON LEITCH,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
STATE OF MICHIGAN; GRETCHEN WHITMER, Governor,
in her official capacity; RACHAEL EUBANKS, Michigan
Treasurer, in her official capacity,
Defendants-Appellees. |
No. 22-1986 |
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Michigan at Grand Rapids.
No. 1:21-cv-00829—Robert J. Jonker, District Judge.
Argued: August 2, 2023
Decided and Filed: November 6, 2023
Before: STRANCH, BUSH, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
JANE B. STRANCH, Circuit Judge. Plaintiffs-Appellants are individuals, including Jill
and Joseph Hile, and the organization Parent Advocates for Choice in Education (PACE)
Foundation (collectively Plaintiffs). They have sued the State of Michigan and its Governor and
Treasurer (collectively the State), raising free exercise and equal protection claims to challenge a
1970 state constitutional amendment that they claim had anti-religious origins. The amendment
prohibits payment of “public monies” to “any private, denominational or other nonpublic”
school. See Mich. Const. art. VIII, § 2. The State successfully moved to dismiss all claims in
the complaint, and Plaintiffs appeal only the dismissal of their equal protection claim, which is
based on a political process theory. They claim that because of the amendment, religious
persons and schools cannot lobby their state representatives for governmental aid or tuition help
without first amending the state constitution, which they argue disadvantages them in the
political process. For the following reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal of this
claim. |
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