Nathaniel Durham v. United States

This case presents two important repeatedly occurring criminal-law questions that affect many defendants and have divided judges within the same circuit and divided other circuits as well. Nathaniel Durham was found guilty by a jury of being in possession of a firearm as proscribed by 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court had denied the Government’s pretrial motion to bifurcate the Armed Career Criminal Act charge (18 U.S.C. § 924(e)) and sentenced him to the mandatory 15-year sentence of incarceration. After Erlinger v. United States, 602 U.S. 821 (2024), the Sixth Circuit agreed that it was error for the district court find that Mr. Durham’s qualifying prior felonies were committed on different occasions by relying upon Shepard1 documents introduced by the United States at his sentencing hearing, as well as the information about his prior criminal history in his Presentence Investigation report. The questions presented are the following: (1) Does the ACCA occasions-different determination, requiring a multifactored analysis of the factual circumstances involving at least three prior qualifying offenses, make the error in Erlinger structural? 1 Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13 (2005).