In 2017, Adam Longoria was sentenced pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) to a fifteen-year term of imprisonment. The ACCA imposes a fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence for any defendant who knowingly possesses a firearm and has three previous convictions for a \u201cviolent felony,\u201d \u201cserious drug offense,\u201d or both, \u201ccommitted on occasions different from one another.\u201d 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 924(e). In Mr. Longoria\u2019s case, the ACCA enhancement was based upon two drug sales committed within the temporal span of a related drug conspiracy. In 2010, he pled guilty to these three interrelated counts in federal court and was sentenced in one judgment later that year. Six years later, his live-in girlfriend tried to sell a gun on Facebook, and Mr. Longoria was charged with constructive possession of a firearm. Because Mr. Longoria\u2019s three interrelated counts from the 2010 drug conspiracy were counted as three serious drug offenses \u201ccommitted on occasions different from one another,\u201d he was sentenced pursuant to the ACCA\u2019s fifteen-year mandatory minimum.<\/p>\n
On appeal, Mr. Longoria argued that because the two 2010 sales occurred within the temporal span of the related drug conspiracy and arose out of one criminal episode, these three counts had not occurred on \u201coccasions different from one another.\u201d The Eleventh Circuit rejected his argument, deciding in 2017 that Mr. Longoria had admitted to sufficient facts during his 2010 guilty plea to conclude that these three counts were sufficiently distinct to be three qualifying ACCA predicate offenses. The Supreme Court declined review. Accordingly, Mr. Longoria will serve fifteen years in prison based on three drug counts for which he was sentenced on one day in 2010, comprised of two sales within a related ongoing conspiracy. The ACCA, intended by Congress as an enhancement for violent criminals, was imposed upon Mr. Longoria, a \u201cone-day career criminal,\u201d without any violent prior convictions.<\/p>\n