United States v. W.M. (8th Cir. 2016)

The client was convicted of several felony counts, including Felon in Possession of a Firearm. He was sentenced to 360 months in prison under the Armed Career Criminal Act, which applies special punishments to defendants with certain prior criminal convictions when they are later found in possession of firearms. Brought in on appeal, I raised several challenges to the client’s convictions and sentence. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals accepted my argument that his Armed Career Criminal Act sentence needed to be recalculated, and they sent the case back to the trial court to see if his 360-month sentence could stand. As part of a team, I petitioned the Eighth Circuit to reconsider its decision based on a new U.S. Supreme Court decision. The Eighth Circuit, in a highly unusual move, withdrew its prior decision and issued a new one in its place, ruling that the defendant’s prior convictions for burglary could never be used to enhance sentences under the Armed Career Criminal Act. And, because of how the Armed Career Criminal Act is interpreted, this decision means that no other defendants will see their sentences enhanced based on their prior convictions for burglary in Minnesota. In this case, that means that the defendant’s original 360-month sentence will be reduced to no more than 120 months.