Background
In July two thousand twenty, law enforcement responded to a shooting in Chilton County, Alabama, where the victim, Keith Baker, survived multiple gunshot wounds. Police located the defendant, Alvin Lee McCary, and recovered a twelve-gauge shotgun from a well on his property. McCary was charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon. At trial, evidence showed McCary had three prior felony convictions, including bank robbery and aggravated battery. The district court sentenced him to three hundred months, applying an armed career criminal enhancement after determining his prior aggravated battery conviction qualified as a violent felony.
The court’s reasoning
The court reviewed the district court’s factual finding regarding the prior conviction for clear error. It found no error in concluding the conviction arose under the subsection defining a categorical violent felony, as the record indicated a plea to aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Regarding sufficiency of the evidence, the court found the government proved all elements of the statute, including the defendant’s felon status, knowledge, possession, and the firearm’s connection to interstate commerce. Finally, the court applied its prior precedent to reject the defendant’s constitutional challenge under the Bruen framework, declining to reconsider the issue.
What it means going forward
The decision reinforces the Eleventh Circuit’s application of the Bruen framework to uphold federal felon-in-possession statutes and clarifies that clerical inconsistencies in prior judgment forms do not automatically preclude armed career criminal enhancements if the underlying record supports the violent felony classification.
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