Background
Marquis Quinzel Mack pleaded guilty without a plea agreement to possessing a firearm after a felony conviction, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court initially sentenced him under the Armed Career Criminal Act to 180 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
After the Supreme Court held in Erlinger v. United States that a jury generally must determine whether ACCA predicates occurred on different occasions, the Fourth Circuit granted the government’s unopposed request to remand for resentencing without the ACCA enhancement. The district court recalculated Mack’s advisory Guidelines range as 70 to 87 months and imposed an 86-month prison term, followed by three years of supervised release. Mack appealed again, and counsel filed an Anders brief identifying no meritorious issue while questioning the sentence’s procedural and substantive reasonableness.
The Court’s Holding
The Fourth Circuit affirmed Mack’s conviction and amended sentence. Applying the mandate rule, it confined its Anders review to issues raised in the first appeal and matters arising from resentencing. Mack’s earlier as-applied Second Amendment challenge to § 922(g)(1) was foreclosed by binding circuit precedent holding that neither Bruen nor Rahimi displaced Fourth Circuit precedent barring such challenges.
The court also held that the 86-month sentence was procedurally and substantively reasonable. The district court correctly calculated an offense level of 23 and criminal-history category IV, treated the Guidelines as advisory, allowed argument and allocution, considered the relevant § 3553(a) factors, adequately explained the sentence, and properly imposed the supervised-release conditions. Because the sentence fell within the properly calculated Guidelines range, it was presumptively reasonable, and nothing in the record rebutted that presumption.
Key Takeaways
- The mandate rule limited the second appeal to matters within the remand and issues preserved from Mack’s first appeal.
- Binding Fourth Circuit precedent foreclosed Mack’s as-applied Second Amendment challenge to the federal felon-in-possession statute.
- The court found no meritorious issue under Anders and upheld the within-Guidelines 86-month sentence and supervised-release conditions.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates how a limited sentencing remand constrains later appellate review: a defendant generally cannot use resentencing to introduce issues that could have been raised in the initial appeal. It also confirms the Fourth Circuit’s continued rejection of as-applied Second Amendment challenges to § 922(g)(1) under its existing precedent.