Lora v. United States

Wikipedia · Justia (with opinion) · Docket · oyez.org

Argued on Mar 28, 2023.
Decided on Jun 16, 2023.

Petitioner: Efrain Lora.
Respondent: United States.

Advocates:

• Lawrence D. Rosenberg (for the Petitioner)

Facts of the case (from oyez.org)

Efrain Lora and three co-defendants ran an operation selling cocaine and cocaine base in the Bronx. Lora and the others allegedly conspired to murder a rival drug dealer in retaliation for threats the rival had made over drug territory.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment for aiding and abetting the use and carrying of a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime causing the death of a person. The government obtained a superseding indictment against Lora that added a drug trafficking conspiracy charge and a charge for causing an intentional killing in furtherance of that conspiracy. The jury found Lora guilty of all three counts, and the district court sentenced him to a five-year term of imprisonment for the first count to run consecutively with a 25-year sentence on the second two counts. Lora appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the consecutive sentences.

Question

Does federal criminal sentencing law require a man who was convicted and sentenced for his role in a drug-trafficking-related murder to serve consecutive, rather than concurrent, sentences?

Conclusion

The bar on imposition of concurrent sentences in 18 U.S.C. §924(c)(1)(D)(ii) does not apply to a sentence for a §924(j) conviction; a §924(j) sentence can run either concurrently with or consecutively to another sentence. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson authored the unanimous opinion of the Court.

Under 18 U.S.C. § 3584, a federal court imposing multiple prison sentences typically has the discretion to run the sentences concurrently or consecutively. However, § 924(c) provides that “no term of imprisonment imposed on a person under this subsection shall run concurrently with any other term of imprisonment.” Lora was convicted under § 924(j)(1), which penalizes “a person who, in the course of a violation of subsection (c), causes the death of a person through the use of a firearm,” where “the killing is a murder.” A violation of subsection (c) occurs when a person “uses or carries a firearm” “during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime,” or “possesses a firearm” “in furtherance of any such crime.” The limitation of subsection (c) applies only to that subsection and not to subsection (j), and Congress could not have intended subsection (j) to incorporate subsection (c)’s penalties in addition to its own. Subsection (j) covers a more serious offense, so the resulting flexibility in sentencing is consistent with the statute’s design.

The Court thus vacated the judgment of the Second Circuit, which held that subsection (c)’s prohibition on concurrent sentences applies to violations of subsection (j).