United States of America v. Jones

Filing 27

MEMORANDUM Order: Defendant's motion to alter or amend judgment 24 is denied. Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 1/10/2017:Mailed notice(clw, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v.
TERRY JONES,
Defendant.

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Case No: 16 C 6396
(Criminal Case No. 07 CR 415)

MEMORANDUM ORDER
This Court's November 29, 2016 memorandum opinion and order (the "Opinion") denied
the 28 U.S.C. 2255 ("Section 2255") motion filed by Terry Jones ("Jones"), aided by able
members of the panel of this District Court's excellent Federal Defender Program, in which he
sought to invalidate his sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (the "Act") by calling
into play the retroactively applied decision in Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015).
Because Jones has since filed a pro se "Motion To Alter or Amend Judgment" challenging the
Opinion, this memorandum order is issued to dispel the misunderstanding that Jones' current
submission reflects.
To that end it is unnecessary to reiterate the careful and detailed analysis set out in the
Opinion, which concluded that Jones' criminal record at the time of his conviction and
sentencing in the criminal case referred to in the caption included three predicate offenses -- two
"violent felonies" and a serious drug offense -- that placed Jones in the Armed Career Criminal
category, rendering him subject to the mandatory minimum 15 year sentence prescribed by the
Act. Where Jones goes astray in his current submission is in looking at the view that was

expressed by the United States Probation Officer assigned to his case in preparing her
presentence investigation report. What controls instead, of course, is the legal analysis of Jones'
criminal record, a subject for determination by a federal judge (or by federal judges in the event
of an appeal) and not by a probation officer engaged in expressing a view as to the applicable
sentencing guidelines.
As the Opinion at pages 3 through 6 reflects, Jones' situation does not implicate the
"residual clause" of the Act's Section 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), which was addressed in Johnson. And in
that respect the Opinion called into play and quoted at length from our Court of Appeals' opinion
in United States v. Armour, 2016 WL 6440383 at *4 (7th Cir. Nov. 1, 2016).
In short, Jones' current motion is denied. This Court adheres to the analysis and
conclusion set out in the Opinion.

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Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: January 10, 2017

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