Whether the Ninth Circuit ruling is inconsistent with prior rulings and ignores Supreme Court precedent

QUESTION PRESENTED The District Court Judge sentenced the Petitioner to life in prison for Possession with Intent to Distribute Methamphetamine, 21 U.S.C. Sect. 50 grams). At sentencing the District Court found that the Petitioner had at least two prior “felony drug offenses”, three of which involved Washington state convictions for possession of Methamphetamine (2 cases), and one involving Cocaine, in violation of Revised Code of Washington (RCW) 69.50.401(d), respectively. In all three cases, the mandatory Washington State sentencing guideline range and sentences were 12 months, or less, since none of the State Judges made required findings to exceed the applicable mandatory range. See, Judgment in a Criminal Case, app. 18a-30a. In Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder, 569 U.S. 184 (2013), and Moncrieffe v. Holder, 569 U.S. 184 (2013), this Court held that when considering whether a crime is “punishable” by more than one year, the Court must examine both the elements and the sentencing factors that correspond to the crime of conviction. In United States v. Valencia-Mendoza, 912 F.3d 1215 (9th Cir. 2019), the Ninth Circuit rejected its “earlier precedents that eschewed consideration of mandatory sentencing factors” when determining if a prior state conviction qualified as a felony for purposes of the federal Sentencing Guidelines. /d, at i 1224. The court concluded, rather, that “the Supreme Court has held that courts must consider both a crime's statutory elements and sentencing factors when determining whether an offense is ‘punishable’ by a certain term of imprisonment.” The Ninth Circuit followed this precedent in United States v. McAdory, 935 F.3d 838 (9" Cir. 2019), when it held “we consider McAdory’s prior convictions to have been “punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year,” such that they would serve as predicates under § 922(g)(1), only if McAdory’s convictions actually exposed him to sentences of that length. None of McAdory’s prior convictions had standard sentencing ranges exceeding one year, nor were any accompanied by written findings of any of the statutory factors that would justify an upward departure”. The question presented is: Whether the Ninth Circuit ruling below is internally inconsistent with prior rulings of the Ninth Circuit, and is in blatant disregard of and ignores the holdings of this Court in Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder, 569 U.S. 184 (2013), and Moncrieffe v. Holder, 569 U.S. 184 (2013) when the Court below held that because the then existent Washington sentencing statutes allowed an “open-ended” inquiry with respect to making the findings to allow a judge to exceed the mandatory guideline range that the conviction counted as a predicate, “felony drug offense” pursuant to 21 U.S.C. Sect. 802(44), even though the sentencing judge did not comply with Washington law and never made the i findings of fact and conclusions of law necessary to exceed the mandatory guideline range of 12 months or less in all three cases under review.