Roderick Gunn v. United States

The language and underlying rationale of 18 U.S.C. § 3584(a) considered together with 28 U.S.C. § 994(1)(2) support the position that concurrent rather than consecutive sentences must be. applied for the crime of conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery [18 USC § 1951(a)], and the substantive offense of Attempted Hobbs Act robbery [18 USC § 1951(a)], when the attempt was the sole objective of the conspiracy. The concurent-vs-consecutive sentencing decision has been addressed by § 212(a) of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (reprinted in 18 USC § 3584(a)) twenty-three years after this Court's decision in Callanan v. United States, 364 U.S. 587 (1961). Section 3584 is framed as a conferral of limitation of authority to impose consecutive sentences [when] one offense is an attempt and the other the sole objective of the attempt. After this Court pronounced its retroactive decisions in United States v. Davis, 588 U.S. 445 (2019), and United States v. Taylor, 596 U.S. 845 (2022), multiple firearms conviction and sentences have been vacated and the cases remanded for resentencing. However, courts are in conflict as to whether remaining predicates of conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery and Attempted Hobbs Act robbery warrants concurrent-vs-consecutive sentences, a federal question Callanan left open, thus triggers the question presented here: Whether 18 U.S.C. § 3584(a)'s "except clause" forbids consecutive sentencing for an attempted Hobbs Act robbery and conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery, where the conspiracy is the sole object of the attempt, arising fpom the same statutory text, and thereFcre warrants d Prince v. United States application.