UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.                                                                      No. 98-4924

JAMES HARRISON SINGLETARY,
Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of South Carolina, at Florence.
Cameron McGowan Currie, District Judge.
(CR-98-240)

Submitted: June 29, 1999

Decided: August 2, 1999

Before WIDENER and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and PHILLIPS,
Senior Circuit Judge.

_________________________________________________________________

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

_________________________________________________________________

COUNSEL

William F. Nettles, IV, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Florence,
South Carolina, for Appellant. J. Rene Josey, United States Attorney,
Alfred W. Bethea, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Florence,
South Carolina, for Appellee.

_________________________________________________________________
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See
Local Rule 36(c).

_________________________________________________________________

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

James Harrison Singletary appeals from a 216-month sentence
imposed following his guilty plea for being a felon in possession of
a weapon, 18 U.S.C.A. § 922(g)(1) and § 924(e) (West Supp. 1999).
He claims that the district court erred when it sentenced him as an
armed career criminal. We have reviewed the record and find no
reversible error. Singletary concedes on appeal that his two prior con-
victions for escape and manslaughter qualified as predicate offenses
for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C.A.
§ 924(e). The district court properly found that Singletary's South
Carolina conviction for possession with the intent to distribute a con-
trolled substance was a predicate offense for purposes of the ACCA
because it is a serious drug offense punishable by a maximum term
of imprisonment of ten years. See S.C. Code Ann. § 44-53-370(b)
(West Supp. 1997). Thus, Singletary was properly sentenced as an
armed career criminal on the basis of these three predicate offenses.

Because we find no error in the district court's determination that
the drug offense qualified as a predicate conviction, we decline to
address Singletary's other contention that the district court erred in
finding that his two South Carolina convictions for failure to stop for
a signaling law enforcement vehicle were violent felonies. We further
grant Singletary's motion to file a supplemental pro se brief but find
no meritorious arguments in that brief.* We therefore affirm Single-
tary's conviction and sentence. We dispense with oral argument
because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the
materials before the Court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.

AFFIRMED
_________________________________________________________________
*We find that Singletary's ineffective assistance of counsel claims are
not cognizable on direct appeal. See United States v. Hoyle, 33 F.3d 415,
418 (4th Cir. 1994).

                    2
