Rutherford v. United States · ¶11

Daniel Rutherford, petitioner in one of these consolidated cases, committed two separate robberies at gunpoint in 2003. A jury convicted him of several crimes, including two counts of using and carrying a frearm during a crime of violence, in violation of § 924(c). At the time, a defendant convicted of two § 924(c) counts was subject to a mandatory 25-year sentence of imprisonment for the second offense that would be “stacked” upon—that is, run consecutively to—the first offense's mandatory penalty (which, for Rutherford, was 7 years). See Deal v. United States, 508 U. S. 129, 132–137 (1993). Rutherford's two § 924(c) counts thus earned him a 32-year minimum sentence, resulting in a total sentence of over 42 years of imprisonment.

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