Reported / Citable
Background
Cedric Lamone Lewis pleaded guilty to attempted bank robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) and (d). In September 2012, the court imposed a 120-month prison term and five years of supervised release. The federal judgment did not state whether the sentence would run concurrently with another sentence.
When Lewis committed the federal offense, he was on parole for a Texas aggravated-robbery case. Proceeding pro se, he later moved to amend the federal judgment nunc pro tunc to provide that his federal sentence run concurrently with his state sentence. He asserted that he would not have accepted the plea agreement had he known the federal sentence would be treated as consecutive.
The Court’s Holding
The court denied the motion. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3584(a), sentences imposed at different times run consecutively unless the court orders otherwise. Because Lewis’s federal judgment was silent and the state and federal sentences were imposed at different times by different courts for unrelated offenses, his federal sentence was deemed consecutive to his state sentence.
The court also concluded that, to the extent it retained discretion to order concurrent terms, concurrent sentencing was unwarranted. Attempted bank robbery and the state aggravated-robbery conviction were unrelated offenses, and the state sentence resulted from Lewis’s parole violation. The court found consecutive treatment consistent with the Guidelines’ recommendation that a revocation sentence run consecutively because it addresses a breach of trust.
Key Takeaways
- A federal judgment silent on concurrency generally results in consecutive sentences when the terms were imposed at different times.
- A defendant has no entitlement to concurrent punishment for unrelated federal and state offenses.
- The court declined to alter the judgment nunc pro tunc and denied Lewis’s requested relief.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that silence in a federal sentencing judgment has a substantive consequence under § 3584(a): separately imposed terms ordinarily run consecutively. It also reflects the strong preference for consecutive treatment when a state parole-revocation sentence and a federal sentence concern distinct criminal conduct.