We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

TENNESSEE SENTENCING SCHEME MAKES SOME STATE DRUG CONVICTIONS INELIGIBLE FOR ACCA

Dwayne Rockymore, who had some prior felonies, got caught with a gun. His three prior Tennessee delivery-of-cocaine convictions seemed to qualify him for a 15-year Armed Career Criminal Act conviction. But the district court refused.

Last week, the 6th Circuit agreed. Complaining that “Tennessee’s criminal sentencing scheme is sufficiently complicated that even Tennessee courts have experienced difficulty in understanding the different classes, ranges, and tiers involved in making a sentencing determination,” the Circuit decided that while the cocaine charges were punishable by more than 10 years in prison, a separate statute “takes each felony class’s authorized sentence and narrows those sentences into ‘ranges’ that correspond with the defendant’s prior record.” A defendant with no criminal background who commits a Class C felony like Dwayne’s must be sentenced to no more that 6 years in prison.

The ACCA classifies a serious drug offense as one with a max sentence of more than 10 years. The 6th said it has to look at “all the relevant law that Tennessee applies to sentencing,” and because Dwayne faced a six-year-maximum sentence for two of the cocaine charges, those priors did not qualify him for ACCA.

United States v. Rockymore, Case No. 18-5148 (Nov. 20, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root