Opinion ID: 2805936
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: In the late evening of October 27, 2002, several Philadelphia Police officers were patrolling a neighborhood after a robbery. They noticed Vas standing near a parked car wearing sunglasses and approached. Vas immediately took off running. Officer Eric Riddick pursued Vas and saw Vas place a handgun onto the front tire of a car parked in a driveway. The officers eventually cornered Vas on a nearby porch. Officer Riddick then returned to the car parked in the driveway and recovered from the front tire the handgun he had seen Vas deposit there as well as a second handgun. Vas was indicted for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Vas proceeded to trial pro se and the jury convicted him. At his initial sentencing in 2009, the District Court sentenced Vas to 120 months’ imprisonment and three years’ supervised release. Based on Vas’s criminal history and the offense characteristics, Vas’s advisory Guidelines range was 120-150 months’ imprisonment. The District Court considered Vas’s extensive “history of arrests and . . . 2 convictions” and determined that a sentence less than the statutory maximum of 120 months’ would be “egregious.” App. 220-21. In March 2012, the Pennsylvania Superior Court reversed Vas’s prior homicide conviction and two related gun convictions. On remand to the Court of Common Pleas, Vas pled guilty to the two gun-related charges. In light of this reversal, the District Court granted Vas a resentencing hearing based on Vas’s argument that the District Court had strongly relied on the murder conviction in determining an appropriate sentence. Even without the homicide conviction, Vas’s lengthy criminal record1 still placed him in the highest criminal history category, and his advisory Guidelines range remained at 120-150 months’ imprisonment. The District Court again imposed the maximum sentence of 120 months’ imprisonment and three years’ supervised release. The District Court properly considered each of the § 3553(a) factors, and noted that, even without the homicide conviction, the maximum sentence was “just and reasonable” in light of Vas’s prior history of violence, weapons possession, and failure to rehabilitate. App. 390.