By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//June 7, 2011//
Sentencing
ACCA
A federal sentencing court must determine whether “an offense under State law” is a “serious drug offense” by consulting the “maximum term of imprisonment” applicable to a defendant’s prior state drug offense at the time of the defendant’s conviction for that offense.
ACCA’s plain text requires this result by mandating that the court determine whether a “previous conviction” was for a serious drug offense. The only way to answer this backward-looking question is to consult the law that applied at the time of that conviction. ACCA’s use of the present tense in defining a “serious drug offense” as, inter alia, “an offense … for which a maximum [10-year] term … is prescribed by law” does not suggest otherwise. McNeill’s argument that this language looks to the state law in effect at the time of the federal sentencing ignores ACCA’s focus on convictions that have already occurred.
598 F. 3d 161, affirmed.
10-5258 McNeill v. U.S.
Thomas, J.