Criminal Law/Constitutional Law——Judicial Fact-finding Limited in Post-hoc Investigation into Prior Plea-based Conviction——Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13 (2005)

First Circuit Review 2006

The Armed Career Criminals Act (ACCA) mandates a fifteen-year minimum prison sentence for persons possessing a firearm with three previous violent felony convictions.  In Taylor v. United States, the Supreme Court prescribed an outer limit on the scope of a later court’s inquiry into prior jury-trial-based convictions for ACCA sentence-enhancing purposes.  In Shepard v. United States, the Supreme Court considered whether and how this limit applied to a court’s investigation of prior plea-based convictions.  The Court held that the limitation applies to pled cases and that it encompasses boundaries analogous to the Taylor jury-trial limitation. . . .