Background
Jamaal Hameen was convicted of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and sentenced to 180 months in prison plus five years of supervised release. The sentence included an enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act based on three prior predicate offenses committed in 1990, 2008, and 2016. The district judge found these offenses occurred on different occasions by a preponderance of the evidence. The Supreme Court later vacated the Eleventh Circuit’s prior decision in this case, remanding it for reconsideration in light of Erlinger v. United States, which requires a jury to find different occasions beyond a reasonable doubt.
The court’s reasoning
The court agreed that it was error for the judge, rather than the jury, to determine that the predicate offenses occurred on different occasions. However, applying the standard from United States v. Rivers, the court concluded the error was harmless. The Presentence Investigation Report listed the offenses as occurring on February 27, 1990, February 6, 2008, and April 26, 2016. Citing Wooden v. United States, the court noted that courts nearly always treat offenses as separate occasions if committed a day or more apart. Given the eighteen-year and eight-year gaps between Hameen’s crimes, the court found it inconceivable that any two offenses occurred on the same occasion.
What it means going forward
The ruling clarifies that while Erlinger errors require harmless-error review, significant time gaps between prior offenses can easily satisfy the burden of showing that a rational jury would have found the offenses occurred on different occasions.
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