Supreme Court Narrowly Interprets Mandatory Consecutive Sentencing Statute

Most of the time, when a defendant receives more than one sentence in a single case the judge has discretion to run the sentences consecutively or concurrently. Concurrent sentences, in effect, eliminate the shorter sentence(s); the defendant will do the time for the longest-sentence crime and will not do a single day in prison more for committing the additional crime(s). Cheaper by the dozen.

Legislatures can mandate consecutive sentences in particular circumstances, though. One such mandate is found in the very long and very confusing federal firearm crime sentencing statute, 18 U.S.C. § 924. The U.S. Supreme Court tends to interpret limits on judicial discretion narrowly, especially in sentencing. Today it gave the limit in §924(c) the narrower of two possible interpretations. No surprise there. The decision in Lora v. United States, No. 22-49, was unanimous.

Subdivision (c) imposes enhanced sentences for a variety of firearm, silencer, and ammunition uses while committing “any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime,” although the Supreme Court has gutted the definition of “crime of violence” in other cases. In §924(c)(1)(D)(ii), sentences imposed under subdivision (c) are required to be consecutive to any other sentence. No cheaper by the dozen.

Subdivision (j), added many years later, provides a sentence of death or life in prison for causing the death of another person “in the course of a violation of subsection (c)” if the killing is murder, as defined in the federal murder statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1111.

Given that subdivision (j) requires as an element a violation of subdivision (c), it would make sense for the consecutive sentence requirement to carry over, and Second Circuit precedent so holds. But that is not in the text, and the Supreme Court declined to read it in.