United States v. Span, No. 14-4655 (4th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to a mandatory minimum fifteen-year term of imprisonment under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. 924(e). On appeal, defendant argued that the Shepard-approved documents upon which the district court relied for the ACCA enhancement are fatally ambiguous as to whether he committed his predicate armed robbery offenses on different occasions. The court held that the government failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that defendant’s prior felonies were separate and distinct criminal episodes for purposes of the ACCA because there are patent internal inconsistencies infecting the underlying state court documents as to the dates when the robberies occurred. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for resentencing. The court need not address defendant's alternative argument.
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