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Firearms – sentencing — using firearm in connection with a felony

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//March 7, 2012//

Firearms – sentencing — using firearm in connection with a felony

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//March 7, 2012//

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Firearms – sentencing — using firearm in connection with a felony

Where the defendant was the aggressor in a confrontation involving a firearm, his sentence was properly enhanced for using a firearm in connection with a felony.

“The clear error standard of review on this appeal is decisive. We believe the evidence establishes a permissible inference that Rice was the aggressor and initiated the confrontation. After he fled Davis’s home, Rice went looking for and retrieved a gun without knowing whether Davis had in fact followed him. Only after Rice armed himself in preparation to be the aggressor did he learn that Davis had been spotted in the neighborhood. Moreover, when Rice walked out of the home he did not see Davis and there was no gunfire. Instead, Rice walked almost sixty feet from the home and waited outside for no less than three minutes before he eventually spotted Davis some distance away in a car with a firearm hanging out of the window. These facts unequivocally established that Rice left his mother’s home with gun in hand looking for Davis. Rice was the aggressor here—creating the confrontation rather than unavoidably responding to it.”

Affirmed.

11-1941 U.S. v. Rice

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Stiehl, J., DeGuilio, J.

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