Whether a sentencing court should apply the plain meaning of 'expunged' when calculating a defendant's criminal history under the Sentencing Guidelines, and whether a district court's blanket statement that it would impose the same sentence renders procedural errors harmless

In 2022, the citizens of Missouri adopted an amendment to the Missouri Constitution that legalizes marijuana consumption and mandates the retroactive expungement of most prior marijuanarelated convictions. Although the Missouri courts have expunged and vacated Petitioner’s prior marijuana convictions pursuant to the Amendment, the Eighth Circuit nevertheless affirmed a federal sentence that counted the now-expunged marijuana offenses in calculating the Sentencing Guidelines’ range for a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Petitioner is subject to a Guidelines range of 41 to 51 months without counting the vacated convictions. The district court imposed a 120-month sentence. The questions presented are: 1. Whether a sentencing court, in considering whether a prior state-law conviction has been “expunged” within the meaning of Sentencing Guideline § 4A1.2(j), should apply the plain meaning of that term. 2. Whether a district court’s statement that “it would impose the same sentence” regardless of the correct Guidelines range is sufficient to render any procedural error harmless, even when (1) the court did not rule on a defendant’s Guidelines objection, and (2) the sentence imposed was several times greater than the applicable Guidelines range.