The Need for Sneed : A Loophole in the Armed Career Criminal Act

IntroductionThe federal Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) imposes a fifteenyear mandatory minimum sentence on habitual offenders who have three prior convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses.1 The ACCA's purpose is to create consistent federal penalties to reduce crimes committed by armed, career criminals.2 It was passed in 1984 and Congress amended it twice before arriving at the current definition of a career criminal, in 1988.3 This definition requires offenders' previous offenses to have been committed on different occasions.4In March 2010, in United States v. Sneed, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit addressed the sources a sentencing judge may use to determine whether an offender's previous offenses meet this ACCA requirement.5 The Eleventh Circuit ruled that a sentencing judge may not use police reports to determine if previous crimes occurred on different occasions.6 The court thereby narrowed the class of persons in that circuit identified as career criminals under the ACCA because offenders, such as the defendant in Sneed, will not qualify as career criminals when prosecutors do not document the crimes in sufficient detail in judicial documents.7 Sneed creates, in effect, a loophole that allows offenders who would otherwise be labeled career criminals to avoid the mandatory minimum sentence if their previous offenses were not well documented in sources approved by the court.8Part I of this Comment gives an overview of the history of the ACCA.9 Part II then examines and discusses why the Sneed loophole exists.10 Finally, Part III explores the problems created by the Sneed loophole and argues that, in order to correct those problems while remaining within the bounds of the Constitution, Congress should amend the ACCA to define when crimes occur on different "occasions."I. Sneed and the History of the ACCAFor the ACCA to fulfill its purpose of achieving consistent sentencing for repeat offenders,11 the statute must accurately define "career criminals." In the original 1984 version of the ACCA, Congress defined the term narrowly.12 Offenders were required to have "three previous convictions . . . for robbery or burglary, or both," because it was found that a high percentage of robberies and burglaries were committed by a limited number of repeat offenders.13The ACCA was amended by the Career Criminals Amendment Act of 1986, which broadened the requirement for the three previous convictions from "for robbery or burglary, or both" to "for a violent felony or a serious drug offense, or both."14 Senator Arlen Specter, who introduced the Senate bill, said that it would "broaden th[e] definition [of career criminal] so that we may have a greater sweep and more effective use of this important statute."15In 1988, in response to an Eighth Circuit decision in which the simultaneous robbery of six people was held to satisfy the ACCA requirement for previous convictions, Congress amended the ACCA a second time.16 This amendment narrowed the class of offenders identified as career criminals by adding the requirement that the offender's previous convictions be committed on separate occasions.17Since 1988, the only changes regarding the definition of a career criminal have come from judicial interpretation of the statute.18 Both of the ACCA's predicates for previous convictions-that they be violent felonies or serious drug offenses, and that they be committed on different occasions-have been the subject of litigation.19One refinement to the ACCA came in Sneed.20 The defendant in Sneed was sentenced to 180 months under the ACCA after being convicted of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of marijuana.21 Two of his prior convictions were for selling crack cocaine on the same day, thirty-nine minutes apart.22 The defendant argued on appeal that these two convictions did not occur on different occasions, and that the court was prohibited by a 2005 U. …