United States v. Jones, 4th Cir. (2000)
United States v. Jones, 4th Cir. (2000)
No. 98-4548
distribute cocaine base, see United States v. Baker, 985 F.2d 1248,
1259 (4th Cir. 1993), and that, because Jones was charged with and
convicted of the two offenses with regard to the same 3.4 grams of
cocaine, the possession conviction must be merged into the possession with intent to distribute conviction for sentencing purposes, see
Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 169 (1977). As such, the district court
erred in imposing on Jones a separate twelve-month sentence for possession of cocaine base, and we therefore vacate that portion of Jones'
sentence.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district
court with respect to the denial of Jones' motion to suppress and the
sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction. However,
because we conclude that Jones' cocaine possession conviction
should have been merged into the possession with intent to distribute
conviction, we vacate the separate twelve-month sentence for the possession of cocaine base.
IT IS SO ORDERED
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