The Sentencing Guidelines
Raquan Scott gets resentencing after guideline error
The Fourth Circuit said an old Virginia firearm conviction was counted under the wrong crime-of-violence test. That pushed his advisory range up before he got 33 months.
A federal appeals court vacated Scott’s sentence and sent the case back to Richmond for a new look at the guideline range. The panel said the prior offense did not fit the enhancement the district court used.
- Scott’s sentence was vacated.
- The court said the prior conviction was misclassified under the guidelines.
- He will be resentenced in federal court.
- The ruling could affect similar sentence enhancements built on old state convictions.
- In federal court, an old Virginia conviction will no longer justify a longer prison term for Raquan Scott
In federal court, an old Virginia conviction will no longer justify a longer prison term for Raquan Scott. The Fourth Circuit said the district judge used the wrong test when he treated that prior offense as a “crime of violence” under the sentencing guidelines, which pushed up Scott’s advisory range before he was sentenced on a felon-in-possession charge.
Scott had pleaded guilty to violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), the federal felon-in-possession offense. In a published opinion on May 26, the panel vacated the sentence and sent the case back for resentencing.
Why the extra years fell away
At the sentencing hearing, the district court relied on a prior conviction to increase Scott’s guideline range. That kind of label can matter even when the underlying crime is old, because the advisory range often shapes the prison term a judge starts from.
Judge Toby Heytens wrote for the court that the analysis was flawed, and the government did not show the mistake was harmless. Judge Niemeyer dissented. The result is not an acquittal or a fresh trial. It is a new look at how long Scott should serve under the federal sentencing rules.
Why the ruling reaches beyond one case
The practical force of the decision is in the label, not the firearm charge. Federal sentences rise and fall on whether past state convictions fit the guidelines’ violence definition, and that question comes up often when judges calculate the range.
For Scott, the immediate effect is simple. His sentence is gone, and he gets resentenced. For defense lawyers and prosecutors in the Fourth Circuit, the opinion is another reminder that the way an old conviction is classified can change the stakes by years, not months.