Jeffrey Kirkland v. United States

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• noting the Government had conceded that the defendant could have committed one offense while his co-defendants committed the other offense
• setting aside sentence enhancement based on \ambiguous record\ where government bore burden of proof
• “Unlike with other questions for which the defendant bears the burden of proof at sentencing, requiring the government to prove ... that the prior offenses occurred on separate occasions is not an onerous burden.”
• “[W]e believe that an ambiguous record regarding whether a defendant actually had the opportunity ‘to cease and desist or withdraw from his criminal activity’ does not suffice to support the ACCA enhancement.”
• “Despite [the Bookman court] having cited the burden shifting scheme set forth in Hudspeth, 15 Case: 17-30688 Document: 00515378706 Page: 16 Date Filed: 04/10/2020 No. 17-30688 [the Fifth Circuit] has declined to apply the ACCA enhancement when faced with an inconclusive record.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).