Thursday, June 28, 2018

United States v. Naylor


            On November 25, 2015, Charles Naylor II pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.[1]  The district court found that Naylor’s four prior convictions for Missouri second-degree burglary qualified as violent felonies, so it subjected him to enhanced sentencing under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) and imposed a sentence of 180-months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.[2]  The enhanced sentence was affirmed by a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in March 2017.[3]  On subsequent appeal, the Eighth Circuit, en banc, vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing, holding that second-degree burglary, as defined in Missouri’s statute, does not constitute a violent felony under the ACCA, overturning the precedent of United States v. Sykes.[4]