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Notable Second Circuit ACCA ruling

By Douglas A. Berman

The Second Circuit today has an interesting ruling about the application of the Armed Career Criminal Act in US v. Darden, No. 06-4567 (2d Cir. Aug 15, 2008) (available here).  Here is how the decision starts: These four appeals, heard in tandem and consolidated for disposition, raise the same legal question: whether a prior conviction for a New York drug offense can serve as a predicate ?serious drug offense? under the Armed Career Criminal Act (?ACCA?) where New York?s Rockefeller drug laws prescribed a maximum sentence of at least ten years for the offense at the time it was committed, but where New York non-retroactively amended the Rockefeller drug laws, prior to the federal sentencing in these cases, to reduce the maximum sentence for the same offense conduct to less than ten years...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on August 15, 2008 (boomark / email).