US v. Newbold: Once again, we have a question of how the Fourth Circuit's decision in Simmons impacts a sentence imposed before that case was decided. In this case, Newbold pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced under ACCA to a 225-month sentence. After a convoluted procedural path (the Fourth calls it "miraculous"), Newbold was present before the Fourth Circuit after filing a timely 2255 motion seeking the vacation of his sentence, based on the retroactivity of Simmons.
The Fourth Circuit vacated Newbold's sentence. Although the Government agreed that Simmons was retroactive, the court nonetheless had to "ensure that the sentencing error Newbold seeks to challenge is cognizable on collateral review." It was because, unlike the recent cases involving retroactive Simmons challenges to career offender calculations, the application of ACCA in this case increased Newbold's statutory sentence. Thus this was one of the limited universe of "fundamental defects" that could be corrected in 2255 proceedings. The court then examined Newbold's priors, found that he could not have received sentences of more than one year for them, and concluded he should not have been sentenced under ACCA.
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