Simmons v. United States
- Colleen McMahon
- 1:18-cv-00843-CM
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Simmons v. United States, Judge McMahon vacated and dismissed one firearm conviction under Davis and ordered resentencing on the remaining convictions.
Justin Simmons’s Count Seventeen firearm conviction and sentence were vacated and that count was dismissed. His sentence on the remaining convictions was also vacated for resentencing; the opinion does not state the outcome of that later resentencing.
What happened
In Simmons v. United States, Justin Simmons challenged his federal convictions and 50-year sentence under a law allowing federal courts to correct unlawful convictions or sentences. He argued that one firearm conviction was invalid after the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Davis.
The challenged conviction involved possessing a firearm in furtherance of a racketeering conspiracy. Davis held that part of the federal firearm law was unconstitutionally vague. The government agreed that this conviction should be vacated and that Simmons should be resentenced on his remaining convictions. Simmons also asked to withdraw his other claims.
Judge McMahon granted Simmons’s request to drop those other claims but denied the claims unrelated to the challenged conviction. She vacated and dismissed the firearm conviction and sentence, vacated the sentence on the remaining convictions, and ordered resentencing on those convictions.
The detailed version
- Simmons v. United States · No. 1:18-cv-00843-CM
- Colleen McMahon
- June 9, 2021
Background
A jury found Justin Simmons guilty of several federal offenses. On March 18, 2014, the court sentenced him to the mandatory minimum of 50 years in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release, and imposed a $10,000 fine and a $400 special assessment.
Simmons filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a law allowing a federal prisoner to ask the sentencing court to vacate, set aside, or correct a conviction or sentence. His motion raised several arguments, most involving a firearm conviction identified in the opinion as Count Seventeen.
Issue
Simmons supplemented his motion to argue that Count Seventeen should be vacated under the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Davis. Davis held that the so-called risk-of-force clause in 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(B) was unconstitutionally vague. The government agreed that Davis and a related Second Circuit decision required vacating Count Seventeen and resentencing Simmons on his remaining convictions.
Simmons later asked to withdraw claims concerning another firearm conviction and claims alleging ineffective assistance of counsel at trial, sentencing, and on direct appeal. The opinion states that the motion to drop those claims was granted and that the claims unrelated to Count Seventeen were denied.
Ruling
The court agreed with Simmons and the government that Davis required vacating the conviction and sentence on Count Seventeen. The court also dismissed Count Seventeen.
The court ordered that Simmons be brought to court on September 22, 2021, to vacate the Count Seventeen conviction and sentence, dismiss that count, vacate the sentence on the remaining convictions, and resentence him on those remaining convictions. The court directed the Probation Office to prepare a supplemental presentence investigation report and set deadlines for sentencing submissions.
The opinion also warned that vacating a firearm conviction does not necessarily result in a shorter overall sentence. It explained that a court may reconsider the sentences on the remaining counts when resentencing is required.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.