The Armed Career Criminal Act

That last row is the one nobody else is writing about, and it deserves its own section.

After Erlinger: how the circuits are actually handling it

An Erlinger violation is a constitutional error. It is not, in the view of every court of appeals to have reached the question, a structural one — which means an appellate court will ask whether the error made a difference rather than vacating automatically.

The Eleventh Circuit stated the consensus in United States v. Rivers, 134 F.4th 1292 (11th Cir. 2025): “We reject Rivers’s suggestion that Erlinger error is structural. Rather, we hold, as all our sister circuits to address the issue have, that we review Erlinger errors for harmlessness.” It cited United States v. Butler, 122 F.4th 584 (5th Cir. 2024), United States v. Campbell, 122 F.4th 624 (6th Cir. 2024), and United States v. Johnson, 114 F.4th 913 (7th Cir. 2024); the Fourth Circuit reached the same conclusion in United States v. Brown, 136 F.4th 87 (4th Cir. 2025).

Read alone, that sounds like bad news. It is not the whole story, and the second half is where the leverage is.

The burden is the government’s, and it is heavy. Rivers again: “on harmless-error review, the government bears the burden of showing beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have found that the defendant’s prior offenses all were ‘committed on occasions different from one another.'” That is not a preponderance and it is not deference to the district court’s finding — it is the government proving, to an appellate court, that no rational jury could have gone the other way.

And the government loses these. In Rivers itself the Eleventh Circuit vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing, because a rational jury could have viewed a series of small drug sales as a single criminal episode. The harmless-error framework is not a rubber stamp; it is a real contest whose outcome depends on how genuinely contestable the occasions question is on the particular record.

Where the record is genuinely ambiguous, harmlessness is hard for the government to show. Priors that are close in time, in the same location, part of the same scheme, or charged together in a single indictment are exactly the fact patterns Wooden identified as capable of constituting one occasion. Those are the cases where the Erlinger error is unlikely to be harmless.

Preservation matters enormously. Where the Erlinger issue was not raised below, several circuits have applied plain-error review instead — which shifts the burden onto the defendant. The distinction between harmless-error review (government’s burden) and plain-error review (defendant’s burden) can decide the appeal, and it turns on what the record shows was argued at sentencing.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: For a case sentenced before June 2024 and still on direct appeal, the Erlinger question is the first thing we look at, and the second thing is what the sentencing transcript shows about preservation. Whether the issue was raised below often determines whether the government has to prove harmlessness or the defendant has to prove prejudice — and on an ambiguous occasions record, that allocation is frequently the whole case. For a sentence that is already final, the question is different and it is a timing question first: what the § 2255 framework permits and when the clock started. Those are separate analyses and they should not be run together.

If a sentence is already final, the route is collateral rather than direct, and the threshold questions are procedural: which of the § 2255(f) trigger dates applies, whether the claim was preserved, and whether the decision relied upon has been made retroactive on collateral review. The firm’s pages on retroactive Supreme Court decisions, procedural default, and when a conviction becomes final cover those thresholds. This page does not restate them.

The categorical approach, explained without jargon

Everything about whether a prior conviction “counts” runs through a method of analysis that is counterintuitive on first encounter and that produces results people find genuinely strange. It is worth understanding, because it is the source of most ACCA victories.

The rule: courts compare statutes, not conduct. Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 (1990) held that § 924(e) “mandates a formal categorical approach, looking only to the statutory definitions of the prior offenses, and not to the particular facts underlying those convictions.”

What that means in practice: the question is never “was this defendant’s prior burglary a violent one?” The question is “does the state statute the defendant was convicted under have elements that match the federal definition?” Mathis v. United States, 579 U.S. 500 (2016), is blunt about the consequence: “How a given defendant actually perpetrated the crime — what we have referred to as the ‘underlying brute facts or means’ of commission — makes no difference; even if his conduct fits within the generic offense, the mismatch of elements saves the defendant from an ACCA sentence.”

The least-serious-conduct rule. Because the comparison is to the statute, courts assume the conviction rested on the least serious conduct the statute reaches. Borden v. United States, 593 U.S. 420 (2021), states it directly: “An offense does not qualify as a ‘violent felony’ unless the least serious conduct it covers falls within the elements clause.” So if a state assault statute can be violated by conduct that would not satisfy the federal definition, it fails — regardless of what any particular defendant did.

When a statute lists alternatives: elements or means? Many state statutes are written disjunctively — burglary of a “building, structure, or vehicle,” for example. Whether a court may look at the record to see which alternative applied depends on whether those alternatives are separate elements (creating separate crimes) or merely alternative means of committing one crime. Mathis holds that the modified categorical approach “serves — and serves solely — as a tool to identify the elements of the crime of conviction when a statute’s disjunctive phrasing renders one (or more) of them opaque. It is not to be repurposed as a technique for discovering whether a defendant’s prior conviction, even though for a too-broad crime, rested on facts … that also could have satisfied the elements of a generic offense.”

Mathis also tells courts how to answer the elements-or-means question: look to state court decisions resolving it, to the face of the statute (if the alternatives carry different punishments, “then under Apprendi they must be elements”), or, failing those, to a limited “peek” at the record.

Which documents a court may look at. When the modified categorical approach applies, the permitted sources are narrow. Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13 (2005) held that a court “is generally limited to examining the statutory definition, charging document, written plea agreement, transcript of plea colloquy, and any explicit factual finding by the trial judge to which the defendant assented.” Police reports and complaint applications are off limits — the Court held expressly that a sentencing court “can[not] look to police reports or complaint applications to determine whether an earlier guilty plea necessarily admitted, and supported a conviction for, generic burglary.”

These are the “Shepard documents,” and the phrase appears constantly in ACCA litigation. Their limits matter after Erlinger too: the Court there confirmed that a judge may use them “for the ‘limited function’ of determining the fact of a prior conviction and the then-existing elements of that offense,” and that “‘[n]o more’ is allowed.”

Why this favors defendants surprisingly often. State criminal codes were not drafted with the federal definitions in mind. A state’s assault, robbery, or burglary statute frequently sweeps in conduct the federal definition excludes — a burglary statute reaching vehicles or boats, an assault statute reaching reckless conduct, a robbery statute reaching threats to property. Under the categorical approach, that overbreadth defeats the predicate for everyone convicted under the statute, no matter what any of them actually did.

“Violent felony”: three routes in, and one that no longer exists

Section 924(e)(2)(B) defines “violent felony” as “any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year,” or certain juvenile adjudications involving a firearm, knife, or destructive device, that —

“(i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or (ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another”

Historically, that text supplied three routes. Today it supplies two.

Table: the three routes to “violent felony” status under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B), and the current status of each.

The elements clause, after Borden

The elements clause requires that the prior offense have, as an element, the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another. Those last five words carry weight.

In Borden v. United States, 593 U.S. 420 (2021), a four-Justice plurality by Kagan, J. — joined by Breyer, Sotomayor and Gorsuch, JJ. — concluded that “a criminal offense with a mens rea of recklessness does not qualify as a ‘violent felony’ under ACCA’s elements clause.” The reasoning: “The phrase ‘against another,’ when modifying the ‘use of force,’ demands that the perpetrator direct his action at, or target, another individual. Reckless conduct is not aimed in that prescribed manner.” Thomas, J., concurred in the judgment on different reasoning, giving the result five votes but leaving no majority rationale.

The practical consequence is large. A state assault or aggravated-assault statute that can be violated recklessly does not satisfy the elements clause, and reckless-conduct statutes are common. This single line of analysis has removed a great many predicates.

Two limits worth stating. Borden did not decide whether offenses requiring “extreme recklessness” or a “depraved heart” mental state qualify. And “physical force” in this context has its own body of case law about how much force is enough — another elements-level question rather than a facts-level one.

The enumerated offenses, and generic burglary

Burglary, arson, extortion and offenses involving the use of explosives are named in the statute. But Taylor held that the names carry federal generic meanings, not whatever the state calls the crime: “the generic, contemporary meaning of burglary contains at least the following elements: an unlawful or unprivileged entry into, or remaining in, a building or other structure, with intent to commit a crime.”

Shepard put the point sharply: ACCA “makes burglary a violent felony only if committed in a building or enclosed space (‘generic burglary’), not in a boat or motor vehicle.”

That is why a state conviction labeled “burglary” is not automatically an ACCA burglary. Many state burglary statutes reach vehicles, vessels, tents, or railroad cars. Under Taylor and Mathis, if the state statute’s elements are broader than generic burglary and the alternatives are means rather than elements, the conviction does not qualify — for anyone convicted under that statute.

The residual clause: struck down, still on the page

The final phrase of § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) — “or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another” — was for decades the government’s catch-all.

In Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591 (2015), the Court held: “imposing an increased sentence under the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act violates the Constitution’s guarantee of due process.” The clause was unconstitutionally vague because it required courts to estimate the risk posed by an “ordinary case” of a crime rather than by real-world conduct. The Court was careful about scope: “Today’s decision does not call into question application of the Act to the four enumerated offenses, or the remainder of the Act’s definition of a violent felony.”

Welch v. United States, 578 U.S. 120 (2016), then held that “Johnson is thus a substantive decision and so has retroactive effect under Teague in cases on collateral review” — because a rule is substantive “if it alters the range of conduct or the class of persons that the law punishes.” That combination opened collateral relief to a large population of prisoners whose ACCA sentences rested on the residual clause, and many obtained resentencing.

Congress has never repealed the text. Anyone who looks up § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) today will find the residual clause still printed there. It cannot lawfully be applied. If a presentence report, a plea document, or an older opinion relies on it, that reliance is the error — not the reader’s misunderstanding.

“Serious drug offense”: the ten-year test and its two timing traps

The second predicate category has its own definition and its own well-developed traps. Section 924(e)(2)(A) provides that “serious drug offense” means:

“(i) an offense under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.), the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act (21 U.S.C. 951 et seq.), or chapter 705 of title 46 for which a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more is prescribed by law; or (ii) an offense under State law, involving manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to manufacture or distribute, a controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)), for which a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more is prescribed by law”

Three features to notice. The test is the statutory maximum, not the sentence actually imposed. Simple possession is not included — the state-law branch requires manufacturing, distributing, or possession with intent. And the substance must be a controlled substance as defined by federal law.

Both timing questions that arise from that definition have now been answered by the Supreme Court, and both answers are backward-looking.

Trap one: a state that later lowered its maximum. In McNeill v. United States, 563 U.S. 816 (2011), Thomas, J., wrote for the Court: “the ‘maximum term of imprisonment’ for a defendant’s prior state drug offense is the maximum sentence applicable to his offense when he was convicted of it.” The reasoning: “The statute requires the court to determine whether a ‘previous convictio[n]’ was for a serious drug offense. The only way to answer this backward-looking question is to consult the law that applied at the time of that conviction.” A state’s later reduction of its drug penalties does not retroactively disqualify the predicate.

Trap two: a substance later removed from the federal schedules. In Brown v. United States, 602 U.S. 101 (2024), decided May 23, 2024, the Court held that a state drug conviction qualifies if it involved a drug on the federal schedules at the time of that state offense — not at the time of the federal firearm offense or federal sentencing. The opinion explains: “as we explained in McNeill, ACCA requires sentencing courts to examine the law as it was when the defendant violated it, even if that law is subsequently amended.” The most practically significant application concerns hemp: the 2018 removal of hemp from the federal definition of marijuana did not retroactively disqualify earlier state marijuana convictions.

Neither answer is intuitive, and both cut against defendants. But both are also elements-level questions, which means they are argued on statutes and records rather than on facts — and the specific version of the state statute in force on the date of the prior offense is frequently harder for the government to establish than it assumes.

What counts as a “conviction” at all

Before the categorical comparison begins, there is a prior question that is easy to skip and occasionally dispositive: is the thing the government is counting a “conviction” for federal firearms purposes in the first place? Two provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20) answer it, and both cut in directions people do not expect.

State law defines the conviction; federal law defines the consequences. Section 921(a)(20) provides that “[w]hat constitutes a conviction of such a crime shall be determined in accordance with the law of the jurisdiction in which the proceedings were held.” So whether a deferred adjudication, a withheld adjudication, a first-offender disposition, or a youthful-offender finding is a “conviction” is answered by the law of the state that entered it — and states differ enormously. Some dispositions that feel like convictions to the person who lived through them are not convictions under the law of the state that imposed them, and some that feel like dismissals are.

The nullification clause, and the trap inside it. Section 921(a)(20) goes on:

“Any conviction which has been expunged, or set aside or for which a person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored shall not be considered a conviction for purposes of this chapter, unless such pardon, expungement, or restoration of civil rights expressly provides that the person may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms.”

The Supreme Court applied that provision in the ACCA context in McNeill, observing that “a prior violent felony conviction remains a ‘conviction’ unless it has been ‘expunged, or set aside or [the] person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored.'”

The clause after “unless” is where cases turn. Many states restore civil rights automatically upon completion of sentence — the vote, jury service, office-holding — while separately and expressly withholding firearm rights. Where the restoration carries that express firearms carve-out, the conviction still counts. Where it does not, it may not. Determining which applies requires reading the specific state’s restoration provisions as they operated for that person’s conviction, which is a state-law research question rather than a federal one. The firm covers the restoration side of this on its gun rights restoration state guide and state restoration table pages.

Two categorical exclusions. Section 921(a)(20) also excludes from “crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” both “any Federal or State offenses pertaining to antitrust violations, unfair trade practices, restraints of trade, or other similar offenses relating to the regulation of business practices,” and “any State offense classified by the laws of the State as a misdemeanor and punishable by a term of imprisonment of two years or less.”

Juvenile adjudications. ACCA reaches some but not all juvenile matters. Section 924(e)(2)(B) includes within “violent felony” “any act of juvenile delinquency involving the use or carrying of a firearm, knife, or destructive device that would be punishable by imprisonment for such term if committed by an adult,” and § 924(e)(2)(C) provides that “the term ‘conviction’ includes a finding that a person has committed an act of juvenile delinquency involving a violent felony.” Note the narrowing language in the first: for a juvenile adjudication to come in through the violent-felony definition, the act must have involved the use or carrying of a firearm, knife, or destructive device. A juvenile adjudication that involved none of those does not satisfy that clause.

None of this is exotic. It is the reason a predicate analysis begins by obtaining the actual disposition documents rather than reading the criminal-history section of the presentence report and accepting its characterizations.

“Occasions different from one another”: what Wooden requires

The third element has its own Supreme Court decision, and since Erlinger it is a jury question.

In Wooden v. United States, 595 U.S. 360 (2022), the defendant had burgled ten storage units in a single building on a single night and been convicted of ten counts of burglary. The government argued that each entry was a separate occasion. The Court disagreed: “The question presented is whether Wooden’s prior convictions were for offenses occurring on different occasions … because the burglary of each unit happened at a distinct point in time, rather than simultaneously. The answer is no. Convictions arising from a single criminal episode, in the way Wooden’s did, can count only once under ACCA.”

The Court set out a multi-factor inquiry rather than a bright line:

“Timing of course matters, though not in the split-second, elements-based way the Government proposes. Offenses committed close in time, in an uninterrupted course of conduct, will often count as part of one occasion; not so offenses separated by substantial gaps in time or significant intervening events. Proximity of location is also important; the further away crimes take place, the less likely they are components of the same criminal event. And the character and relationship of the offenses may make a difference: The more similar or intertwined the conduct giving rise to the offenses — the more, for example, they share a common scheme or purpose — the more apt they are to compose one occasion.”

Table: the factors identified in Wooden v. United States*, 595 U.S. 360, 369 (2022), for deciding whether prior offenses were “committed on occasions different from one another.” No single factor controls; the Court described the inquiry as “multi-factored in nature.”*

Combine Wooden with Erlinger and the current position becomes clear. The occasions question is fact-intensive, it has no bright-line answer, and it must now be resolved by a unanimous jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Fact patterns that most often produce a genuine dispute:

• Multiple drug sales to the same undercover officer over a short period
• Several counts charged in one indictment arising from one investigation
• Offenses committed the same day or night in the same location
• A continuing course of conduct charged as separate counts
• Convictions entered on the same day, in one plea, for conduct close in time

None of those automatically produces one occasion. All of them make the question genuinely contestable — which, after Erlinger, is exactly the posture in which a jury must decide it and in which the government will struggle to prove an error harmless.

U.S.S.G. § 4B1.4 — the guideline, and how it differs from career offender

ACCA is a statute. There is also a guideline that applies once ACCA does, and the two are constantly confused with each other and with the career-offender guideline.

U.S.S.G. § 4B1.4 provides in subsection (a): “A defendant who is subject to an enhanced sentence under the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 924(e) is an armed career criminal.” Subsection (b) sets the offense level as the greatest of the level from Chapters Two and Three, the career-offender level under § 4B1.1 if applicable, or 34 if the firearm was used or possessed in connection with a crime of violence or controlled substance offense (or was of a type described in 26 U.S.C. § 5845(a)), and 33 otherwise — reduced by any applicable acceptance of responsibility adjustment. Subsection (c) sets the criminal history category as the greatest of the ordinary category, Category VI in the same firearm-use circumstances, or Category IV.

Table: how the ACCA statute, the armed career criminal guideline, and the career offender guideline differ. They use overlapping vocabulary and are not interchangeable.

The distinction that matters most: § 4B1.4 is advisory and § 924(e) is not. A court that disagrees with the guideline outcome has room to move. A court facing a valid ACCA designation has none below fifteen years — which is why the statutory question absorbs nearly all of the litigation effort, and the guideline question comparatively little.

Two structural changes to the Guidelines Manual effective November 1, 2025 are worth noting here even though neither alters § 4B1.4 itself. Amendment 836 deleted the departure framework from the Manual, which changes the vocabulary in which a below-guideline argument is made in every federal sentencing, ACCA cases included. And in a drug case where a role adjustment is in play, amendment 833 changed the § 2D1.1 analysis substantially. Neither reaches a mandatory minimum — nothing in the Guidelines Manual can — but both change how the guideline layer of an ACCA sentencing is argued.

A related point covered elsewhere on the site: firearm rights and their restoration are covered by the firm’s clemency pages, including gun rights restoration and federal firearm rights restoration. ACCA is a sentencing statute; it is not the law of who may lawfully possess a firearm.

What a defense to an ACCA designation actually looks like

A useful way to see the framework is as a sequence of questions, each of which can end the enhancement.

Step 1 — Identify exactly which three convictions the government relies on. They appear in the presentence report, and often in a government notice. If more than three are listed, each must still be analyzed; the government does not get credit for volume.

Step 1a — Confirm each is a “conviction” under § 921(a)(20). Deferred or withheld adjudications, set-asides, and restorations of civil rights are decided by the law of the convicting jurisdiction, and can remove a predicate before any element is ever compared.

Step 2 — Obtain the record of conviction for each. Judgment, charging instrument, plea agreement, plea colloquy transcript — the Shepard documents. This is state-court records work, sometimes decades old, and it is the part that takes time. Start it the day the PSR is disclosed, not the week before sentencing.

Step 3 — Pull the statute as it read on the date of the prior offense. Not the current version. McNeill and Brown both turn on the historical version, and statutes are amended constantly.

Step 4 — Compare elements to the federal definition. Does the statute have as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another? Can it be violated recklessly (Borden)? Does it reach conduct outside generic burglary (Taylor, Shepard)? For drug predicates: was the maximum ten years or more at the time (McNeill), and was the substance federally scheduled then (Brown)?

Step 5 — If the statute is disjunctive, determine whether the alternatives are elements or means. Mathis governs, and the answer usually comes from a state supreme court decision. If they are means, the modified categorical approach is unavailable and an overbroad statute fails outright.

Step 6 — Analyze occasions under Wooden. Timing, location, character and relationship. Are any two of the three predicates part of a single episode?

Step 7 — Insist on the process Erlinger requires. If the occasions question is contested, it is a jury question, and preserving that demand on the record is what determines the standard of review if the issue reaches an appellate court.

Step 8 — Make the objections in writing. ACCA arguments belong in the written objections to the presentence report, with the records attached, before the sentencing hearing.

A word for families, because the question comes up constantly: the mitigation work — letters to the judge, employment history, medical records, family circumstances — matters at every federal sentencing, and it should proceed on its own track. But it does not reach a mandatory minimum. If ACCA applies, no volume of mitigation moves the sentence below fifteen years. That is not a reason to skip it; it is a reason to understand that the ACCA fight and the mitigation effort are two separate projects running in parallel, and the first one is the one with a floor riding on it.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: From the consulting side, the thing families most often misunderstand is that “he only has a couple of old cases” is not an answer to an ACCA notice, and neither is “those were nothing.” The categorical approach does not care how serious the priors seem. It cares what the statute said. I have seen people give up on an ACCA fight because the record looked bad in ordinary human terms, when the statute of conviction was overbroad and the predicate would not have survived the comparison. The legal analysis belongs to the attorneys — but nobody should decide it is hopeless before that comparison has been run.

Challenging an ACCA sentence that has already been imposed

For a sentence already imposed, the route depends on where the case is.

Still on direct appeal. Erlinger applies to cases pending on direct review. The questions are whether the occasions issue was preserved, whether the error is harmless (the government’s burden, beyond a reasonable doubt) or reviewed for plain error (the defendant’s burden), and whether any predicate independently fails the categorical test. See the firm’s federal appeals pages and, for the relevant standard, standards of review.

Final, and the claim is that the sentence rested on the residual clause. Johnson is substantive and retroactive under Welch, and that pathway produced a large volume of relief. Whether it remains available in a particular case is a timing and successiveness question — see § 2255 and second or successive § 2255 motions.

Final, and the claim is based on an intervening statutory-interpretation decision. This is where the law tightened considerably. Jones v. Hendrix, 599 U.S. 465 (2023), held that § 2255(e)’s saving clause does not permit a prisoner to use § 2241 to raise an intervening statutory-interpretation claim that § 2255(h) would bar. Pre-2023 circuit tests that once allowed that route are abrogated, and a great deal of published content is still wrong about it.

Final, and the claim is Erlinger itself. Whether Erlinger applies retroactively to cases on collateral review is a distinct question from whether it applies on direct appeal, and it should not be assumed in either direction. That is a question for counsel on the specific procedural posture, and the timing analysis starts with when the conviction became final.

Across all four, the threshold is procedural rather than substantive. A correct ACCA argument filed after the deadline is not heard. If a sentence is final and the year may be running, the deadline analysis comes before everything else.

Why work with Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a boutique federal criminal defense and appellate firm founded in 2019, running a national federal practice on an intentionally small caseload. Elizabeth Franklin-Best has more than 20 years of federal and appellate criminal defense experience and has handled more than 330 federal proceedings, over 100 of them appeals, with sixteen published decisions as counsel of record. She is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and twelve of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals — every regional circuit (1st–11th) plus the D.C. Circuit — and has been admitted pro hac vice in federal courts from Montana to Florida. She is recognized by Best Lawyers in America 2026 for Appellate Practice and by Chambers USA 2026 for Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations, and is the author of Reversing Your Criminal Conviction: Develop Your Winning Strategy (2023).

The firm has offices in Columbia and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and represents clients nationwide. ACCA work is elements-and-records work in whatever state the prior convictions came from, and it is done the same way in every district. It sits inside the firm’s broader federal sentence mitigation practice, but it is the piece that runs first, because a mandatory minimum determines the room everything else has to work in.

What to do next if ACCA is in your PSR

If a presentence report identifies you as an armed career criminal, the objection deadline is the thing to look at first. If a sentence has already been imposed and the occasions finding was made by a judge rather than a jury, the appeal window and the preservation record are the things to look at first. If the sentence is final, the deadline analysis comes before the merits.

Bring the presentence report, the indictment, the judgment, and whatever you have on the three prior convictions the government is relying on. The state-court records can be obtained; the analysis cannot begin without knowing which convictions are at issue.

Call (843) 620-1100, or schedule a consultation directly.

This page is general legal information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Whether a particular prior conviction qualifies as an ACCA predicate depends on the elements of the specific statute of conviction and the records of that case. No outcome is promised or implied, and nothing here predicts any sentence.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Armed Career Criminal Act

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026