Calvin Smith, who committed the charged offenses as a teenager, was originally convicted in 2003 of multiple counts including drug conspiracy, racketeering, and several murders. After a decade-long delay, a district court found his trial counsel ineffective regarding two murder convictions and vacated them. At a resentencing hearing in 2024, the district court imposed new life sentences for drug conspiracy and racketeering, and sentences of 25 years to life for the remaining murder counts. Smith appealed, arguing the drug sentence exceeded the statutory maximum, that convicting him of both premeditated and felony murder for the same victim violated double jeopardy, and that the court improperly relied on an acquitted murder to enhance his racketeering sentence without making the necessary factual findings.
The panel addressed three distinct legal errors. First, regarding the drug conspiracy sentence, the court held that the statutory maximum is determined by the quantity of drugs found by the jury. The jury found Smith responsible for amounts that made him eligible for a five-to-forty-year sentence, not life imprisonment. The district court's reliance on prior affirmance of the conviction or the existence of other life sentences did not justify exceeding the express statutory limit for that specific count. Second, on the double jeopardy claim, the court applied D.C. law, which holds that first-degree premeditated murder and first-degree felony murder of the same victim are the same offense. Convicting and punishing Smith for both violated the Fifth Amendment's protection against multiple punishments for the same offense. Third, concerning the racketeering sentence, the court explained that while courts may consider acquitted conduct at sentencing, they must do so only if they make specific factual findings by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant committed that conduct. The district court relied on the murder of Anthony Dent to justify a life sentence for racketeering but failed to make the required preponderance finding, rendering the sentence reversible error.
The case is remanded to the district court for a new sentencing hearing. The district court must resentence Smith on the drug conspiracy and racketeering counts within the correct statutory limits and must make specific factual findings if it chooses to rely on the acquitted murder conduct. The felony murder conviction is vacated, leaving Smith with the premeditated murder conviction and the other murder counts. The court denied Smith's request to reassign the case to a different judge, noting the district judge's errors appeared to stem from a misunderstanding of the law rather than bias.
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