Tennessee man pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm with a guidelines range of 30-37 months. As part of a plea deal, the government recommended he receive a sentence of 30 months to be served concurrently with pending state charges. District court noted he had previously received an 84-month sentence under the old Guidelines for the same offense and it didn’t deter his current behavior, so it imposed 108 months concurrent to state sentence. Sixth Circuit: no way. There are no "sufficiently compelling reasons to justify nearly tripling his maximum guideline sentence of 37 months" "for a mine-run offense." Reverse and remanded. Dissent: 191% upward variance is totally fine. On remand, district judge should really consider making the sentence run consecutive to his state sentence.
The case is United States v. Stanton, No. 20-5320 (6th Cir. Mar. 30, 2021).