Supreme Court Decision in Woodenvs.the United States

Woodenvs.the United States

Case Brief

In 1997, William Wooden Broke into a storage facility in Georgia and stole ten different units, resulting in a guilty plea to 10 counts of burglary. In 2014, a plainclothes officer visited Woodens home where he asked to see his wife and was invited in and realized Wooden had a riffle. Soon after, he was arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm (Harawa, 2021).

A district court terminated the case for lack of probable cause for Woodens arrest. Afterward, Wooden was charged with a federal indictment for being a felon and possessing a firearm with ammunition, which was a violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) and 924(e). Wooden was found guilty in a district court after being considered a career criminal under the 18 U.S.C. 924(e) and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment (Green & Markus, 2021).

The decision was affirmed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit based on the account judgment that Woodens prior burglaries were separate from each other; albeit, occurring as a single criminal incidence.

Woodens case was appealed at the court of appeal that counted each of the mini-storage units in a single storage facility. Consequently, the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) for the possession of the riffle that meant the mandatory minimum of 15 years sentence was applied. However, the ACCA was reserved by Congress for criminals for individuals who were habitual lawbreakers and demonstrated a life committed to crime.

The case involved the decision of Woodens case relies on the definition of occasion in the supreme court judges (Harawa, 2021). Therefore, the court has to decide whether the 10 storage units Wooden robbed in a single unit were on occasions different from one another.

Consequently, the legal question presented to the supreme court judges is whether offenses committed as part of a crime spree and in a sequential time series satisfy the committed on occasions different from one another provision in the ACCA to determine the sentencing, lack thereof, of Wooden.

Arguments

The questions given to the supreme court by the petitioner, William Dale Wooden, raises the need not only for the determination of the meaning of occasion and the interpretation of 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1), committed on occasions different from one another; but also, the determination if Woodens fourth amendment were violated in the incident with the plain cloth officer.

The plain interpretation of the ACCA holds that the offenses were committed on different occasions if they arise from independent criminal opportunities and intervening instance occurs between the instances. Consequently, to qualify an individual as a career criminal has to participate in a minimum of three or more different criminal opportunities (The Supreme Court of the United States, 2021).

The intervening event could be an arrest, but the individual proceeds to re-offend. Notably, upon arrest following the burglary, Wooden pleaded guilty to all ten counts of burglary and was sentenced to 8 years for other offenses and served the sentence co concurrently.

During the plea hearing, Woodens defense explained that the burglary charges emerged from a mini-warehouse and in one event. The prosecution conceded that the offense occurred in a mini-warehouse adjacent to Woodens residence. Mr. Wooden accepted that once they made it into the ware warehouse, they penetrated through other walls into other units within the warehouse.

These facts are critical in determining whether the conduct of Mr. Wooden qualified as that of a career criminal who was targeted by the Act (Kopp, 2016). Mr. Woodens arguments are grounded in the occurrence of the offense, and he does not qualify as...

Supreme Court Decision Prediction

The supreme court decision will overturn the ruling of the court of appeal since the arguments made by the prosecution are oblivious to the violations of the petitioners violation of the fourth and fifth amendments. Other factors informing the overturning of the court of appeals ruling include the unwarranted application of the ACCA done by the judge rather than the jury contrary to the directions of the Act.

The search leading to the discovery of the ammunition and arms was not done accordingly since the plain cloth officers did not have a warrant to search Mr. Woodens house. The courts in the sixth circuit and the court of appeal flagrantly apply the ACCA without the foresight of examining the defendants criminal record and facts in their past and current offenses. While there is ambiguity in the interpretation of occasion, the dismissive approach to its interpretation in the courts in the sixth district circuit and the court of appeal requires a directive on its interpretation and the application of the ACCA.

Notably, the circumstances leading to the mini-storage burglary do not provide substantial evidence beyond reasonable doubt that he is a career criminal. The facts presented by the prosecution were biased since they were more focused on the details of the time and sequence of the offenses rather than interrogating the behavior of M.R. Wooden to determine if he was a career criminal as stipulated by Congress while creating the ACCA legislation.

The argument held by the court of appeal was predicated on the premise involved in the entry into mini-warehouse and making distinct entries into separate locations, storage spaces, and building numbers. However, this argument was disputed and was constitutionally impermissible.…