United States v. Rivera-Berrios, No. 19-1467 (1st Cir. 2020)
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The First Circuit vacated Defendant's sentence of forty-two months' imprisonment, a year above the top of the guideline sentencing range, for illegal possession of a machine gun, holding that the sentencing court erred by varying upward from the range without adequately distinguishing Defendant's case from the mine-run machine gun possession case.
Defendant entered a guilty plea to a single count charging him with illegal possession of a machine gun. The trial court sentenced Defendant to an upwardly variant term of forty-two months' imprisonment. The First Circuit vacated the sentence, holding that the sentencing court abused its discretion in varying upward from a property calculated guideline sentencing range without identifying some special characteristic attributable either to Defendant or to the offense of conviction serving to remove this case from the garden-variety machine gun possession case.
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