Background
The appellant was indicted for possessing ammunition as a felon and charged with an Armed Career Criminal Act enhancement requiring three prior violent felonies on separate occasions. The district court instructed the jury only on possession and felon status, not on the separate occasions element, and later found the enhancement at sentencing based on four prior armed robberies. The Supreme Court later ruled in Erlinger that the occasions inquiry must be submitted to a jury, prompting this appeal.
The court’s reasoning
The court acknowledged the district court committed a constitutional error by failing to submit the occasions inquiry to the jury. However, applying harmless-error review, the court determined the government met its burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the result. The court found that the four prior robberies involved different victims, weapons, and dates separated by at least six days, with no evidence of a common scheme or uninterrupted course of conduct. Consequently, the court held there was no reasonable doubt that a jury would have found at least three qualifying occasions.
What it means going forward
This decision clarifies that while Erlinger requires jury submission for ACCA occasions, convictions may still stand if the record overwhelmingly supports the separate-occasions finding.