Case Citator › United States v. Tony Lee Thompson

United States v. Tony Lee Thompson

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Overruled in partin review
31 of 35 flagged citations read · 88.6%
Court
Fourth Circuit
Citation
421 F.3d 278
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
31 of 35
Citing cases (total)
35
Treatment dates
2015–2024
Overruled in part · in review
A reviewed court has overruled part of this case’s holding. United States v. Tony Lee Thompson is still in review. The Supreme Court's decision in Erlinger v. United States displaced Thompson's rule that a sentencing judge may decide whether prior offenses occurred on separate occasions under the Armed Career Criminal Act; the Fourth Circuit had earlier questioned that rule in United States v. Gary Span.
More on how this was screened

In United States v. Trevor Boggs, the Fourth Circuit recognized the constitutional error under Erlinger after a district court relied on Thompson. Both confirmed treatments are listed below. Four flagged citations in two citing opinions remain unread because their text could not be retrieved.

The treatments below are confirmed; unread citations could still change the overall status.
Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

35 later cases cite United States v. Tony Lee Thompson; 35 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading; the progress bar above tracks how many have been read so far. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on United States v. Tony Lee Thompson?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Overruled in part

  • The Supreme Court required a jury, rather than a sentencing judge, to decide whether prior offenses occurred on separate occasions for an ACCA enhancement, displacing Thompson's contrary rule.

    Erlinger v. United States · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    While recognizing Mr. Erlinger was entitled to have a jury resolve ACCA’s occasions inquiry unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt, we decide no more than that.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Questioned

  • The Fourth Circuit identified tension between Thompson's ACCA rule allowing a judge to find facts about prior convictions and Descamps, but deferred the question of Thompson's continued validity.

    United States v. Gary Span · Fourth Circuit · filed

    The tension between Descamps and Thompson, which has been described as an “outlier,” United States v. Aviles-Solarzano, 623 F.3d 470, 474 (7th Cir.2010), is apparent. Our precedent permits a sentencing court’s dive into Shepard-approved documents to sort out the facts of the underlying predicate conviction, not just its elements. Descamps intimates that this analysis exceeds a sentencing court’s proper role. ... We leave to another case on another day the continued viability of Thompson.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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