United States v. Rollins

Rollins pleaded guilty to selling crack cocaine and was sentenced to 84 months in prison and four years of supervised release. The Seventh Circuit vacated the sentence on limited grounds, noting that the government agreed that the district judge was likely unaware of a change in the recommended term of supervised release brought about by the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. The court noted that the Supreme Court holding, Johnson v. United States, (2015), that the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), is vague, does not affect this case. While the residual clause in the career-offender guideline is materially identical to the residual clause in the ACCA, Circuit precedent holds that the Guidelines cannot be challenged as unconstitutionally vague. The court noted that the U.S. Sentencing Commission has begun the process of amending the career-offender guideline to delete the residual clause, bringing the Guidelines into alignment with Johnson. Rollins’s challenge to the application of the career-offender guideline failed on plain-error review. The application notes to section 4B1.2 specifically list possession of a sawed-off shotgun as a qualifying crime of violence. View "United States v. Rollins" on Justia Law