United States v. Thompson , No. 11-3076 (8th Cir. 2012)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed the sentence he received after pleading guilty to one count of possessing with intent to distribute five grams or more of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine base. Defendant committed his offense prior to passage of the Fair Sentencing Act but was indicted, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced after the Act's passage. Defendant argued at sentencing that he should be sentenced in accordance with the Act. The district court, following the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals' precedent in United States v. Sidney, held the Act did not apply to Defendant. As such, the court imposed a sixty-month mandatory minimum term of incarceration and a four-year mandatory minimum term of supervised release. Subsequent to Defendant's sentencing, the Supreme Court abrogated the Eighth Circuit's precedent, finding the Act applicable to defendants in Defendant's position. The Eighth Circuit (1) affirmed the imposition of the sixty-month term of incarceration, holding it was neither unreasonable nor unsupported by adequate explanation; and (2) reversed for reconsideration the term of supervised release. Remanded.
Court Description: Criminal case - Sentencing. While the district court's refusal to sentence defendant under the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 was error under the Supreme Court's recent decision in Dorsey v. United States, 132 S. Ct. 2321 (2012), the court's alternative sentence was reasonable and supported by adequate explanation; however, the matter must be reversed and remanded for further proceedings on the alternative term of supervised release imposed in the case.
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