UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 19-4796

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v. BRYAN JAVON WILLIAMS,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Columbia. Joseph F. Anderson, Jr., Senior District Judge. (3:16-cr-00248-JFA-1)

Argued: January 29, 2021 Decided: May 13, 2021

Before DIAZ, FLOYD, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Floyd wrote the opinion in which Judge Diaz and Judge Harris joined.

ARGUED: Daniel Charles Leonardi, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellant. Katherine Hollingsworth Flynn, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Florence, South Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Peter M. McCoy, Jr., United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. FLOYD, Circuit Judge:

Bryan Javon Williams pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). At sentencing, the district court ruled that Williams had two prior convictions for controlled substance offenses and accordingly imposed an increased base offense level pursuant to section 2K2.1 of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual. See U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(a)(2). On appeal, Williams contends that one of his prior convictions is not categorically a controlled substance offense, so the district court improperly applied section 2K2.1(a)(2) when calculating his Guidelines range. Upon review, we conclude that Williams’s prior conviction is categorically a controlled substance offense. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.

I.

On October 8, 2019, Williams waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information, which charged him with being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The U.S. Probation Office prepared a presentence investigation report (PSR) in advance of Williams’s sentencing hearing. Relevant here, the PSR included two prior convictions involving controlled substances: (1) a February 2003 conviction for possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine in violation of section 44-53-375(B) of the South Carolina Code, and (2) an August 2003 conviction for distribution of marijuana and distribution of crack cocaine in violation of sections 44-53- 370 and 44-53-375(B) of the South Carolina Code.

2 Williams’s February 2003 conviction—the prior conviction at issue in this appeal 1—arose from an arrest in Lancaster County, South Carolina. The resulting state- court indictment charged Williams with trafficking in crack cocaine in violation of section 44-53-375(C)(1)(A). According to the state-court sentencing sheet, Williams pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine in violation of section 44-53- 375(B). Relevant to this appeal, the sentencing sheet also checks a box labeled “[l]esser [i]ncluded [o]ffense.” J.A. 135.

The PSR classified Williams’s February 2003 and August 2003 convictions as controlled substance offenses pursuant to section 2K2.1 of the Guidelines, triggering an increased base offense level of twenty-four. See U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(a)(2) (establishing a base offense level of twenty-four for a defendant convicted of a § 922(g) offense who previously “sustain[ed] at least two felony convictions of . . . a controlled substance offense”). Williams did not receive any adjustments or enhancements to this base offense level. His total offense level of twenty-four and criminal history category of five yielded an advisory Guidelines range of 92 to 115 months of imprisonment.

At his sentencing hearing, Williams objected to