United States v. Wesley, No. 10-2911 (8th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseDefendant was convicted of two counts of bank robbery and two counts of brandishing a weapon in furtherance of a crime of violence where the convictions placed defendant in violation of two concurrent terms of supervised release he was serving at the time of the robberies. Defendant appealed his convictions, the supervised release violations, and his 512 month prison sentence, arguing that the district court erred in admitting evidence from a third bank robbery and imposed an unreasonable sentence. The court held that the district court did not err in admitting the automatic pistol but that it did err in admitting the $14,000 seized in cash into evidence. The court held, however, that because the other evidence of defendant's guilt was overwhelming, defendant was not prejudiced by the district court's evidentiary ruling. The court further held that disparities between defendant's sentence and co-defendants' were permissible as they were related to valid distinctions. The court finally held that the district court did not err in sentencing defendant where the length of defendant's sentence was derived from 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(1)(C)(i)'s mandatory sentencing provisions. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction and sentence.
Court Description: Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. District court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence of a handgun; however, the court erred in admitting evidence that $14,000 in cash was seized from defendant as the evidence indicated that money was from an unrelated robbery that the court had excluded from evidence; the error could not have had more than a slight impact on the case, in light of the overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt, and the admission of the evidence did not require a new trial; disparities between defendant's sentence and co-defendants' were permissible as they were related to valid distinctions, such as cooperation with the government; district court considered the 3553(a) factors in determining sentence.
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