8th Circuit Remands Bomb Case for Resentencing

Burton A. Rose, Esq.

On September 28, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled on a sentencing appeal, UNITED STATES v. WORMAN, Nos. 09-2334, 09-2594, 2010 WL 3746275. Worman was tried for mailing, possessing, and transporting a pipe bomb, and for possessing it in furtherance of a crime of violence.

The government challenged the sentence of one-month imprisonment for the first three counts and 360 months for the fourth count of the indictment, asserting that the district court had improperly reduced Worman’s sentence to mitigate the length of the mandatory consecutive minimum sentence of 360 months under Section 924(c).

The court ruled that “mandatory consecutive sentences are to be imposed independently of sentences for other counts”, citing United States v. Guthrie, 557 F.3d 243, 255 (6th Cir.2009), and that the severity of a mandatory consecutive sentence is an improper factor that a district court may not consider when sentencing a defendant on related crimes.

Because the district court used the presence of the § 924(c) mandatory minimum to reduce Worman’s sentence on the other counts, thereby defeating Congress’s intent to enhance the punishment for using a weapon in a crime of violence, the case was remanded for resentencing.

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