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Juvenile Priors Without Jury Right Can Trigger ACCA

By Jonathan Byrne

US v. Wright: Wright got involved in a fight at a nightclub in South Carolina, which led the crowd inside to pour out into the parking lot. Wright grabbed an AK-47 from a car and "sprayed 22 rounds" into the parking lot, wounding one person and killing another (who was asleep in his car at the time). Wright was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, determined to be an Armed Career Criminal, and sentenced to life in prison.On appeal, Wright raised several challenges to his sentence, all of which the Fourth Circuit rejected. First, Wright argued that prior juvenile convictions that were used to trigger the ACCA enhancement violated Apprendi because the juvenile proceedings did not involve the right to a jury trial. Because a jury trial is not Constitutionally required in juvenile proceedings, there was no error in using the results of those proceedings to increase a later sentence...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Circuit Blog on February 18, 2010 (boomark / email).