United States v. Palmer

The court affirmed defendant's convictions on direct appeal for convictions of conspiracy and related offenses involving the large-scale distribution and sale of unlawful drugs in Washington, D.C. Defendant then filed a series of motions collaterally attacking his convictions. This appeal challenged the amended judgment entered by the district court following the partial grant of defendant's motion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255. The court explained that it need not decide whether the Fair Sentencing Act, Pub. L. No. 111-220, 124 Stat. 2372, 2372, 2374, applies to a resentencing upon a successful collateral attack pursuant to Section 2255; the district court left intact defendant's original trial sentence in 1989 except to apply intervening changes in the law on the merger of offenses; the district court's limited revision to an otherwise final judgment was not a reevaluation of the appropriateness of defendant's original sentence; as a Section 2255 "correction" and not a "resentencing" at which the government has acknowledged the more lenient penalties under the Fair Sentencing Act would apply, this entitled defendant to no relief under the Act; and therefore, the court affirmed the judgment because defendant's due process challenge to his continuing criminal enterprise conviction also afforded no relief. View "United States v. Palmer" on Justia Law