United States v. Douglas Crooked Arm

Crooked Arm’s and Shane’s felony sentences violate Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), because the conspiracy object to which they admitted — selling migratory bird feathers — was only a misdemeanor. Yet the majority refuses to reach the merits of Defendants’ sentencing argument because a prior panel purportedly “affirmed their felony convictions.” Majority Op. at 1067. The majority’s flawed reasoning is as follows: the prior panel, by not vacating the convictions, implicitly ruled that Defendants should be sentenced as felons on remand. But the panel…