MSC Reverses Sentence Based on Acquitted Conduct
Yesterday, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed the trial court and the Court of Appeals in its decision in People v Beck , Docket No. 152934 (July 29, 2019) , a case out of the Saginaw Circuit Court dealing with a significant sentencing issue. The syllabus of the opinion follows. Eric Beck was convicted as a fourth-offense habitual offender of being a felon in possession of a firearm (felon-in-possession) and carrying a firearm during the commission of a felony (felony-firearm), second offense, after a jury trial in the Saginaw Circuit Court. He was acquitted of open murder, carrying a firearm with unlawful intent, and two additional counts of felony-firearm attendant to those charges. The applicable guidelines minimum sentence range for the felon-in-possession conviction was 22 to 76 months in prison, but the court imposed a sentence of 240 to 400 months (20 to 331⁄3 years), to run consecutively to the mandatory five-year term for second-offense felony-firearm. The c...