Tues. April 27, 2021 | By Katie Stancombe – The Indiana Lawyer |
A Hoosier man caught after leading a string of armed robberies in the Midwest could not convince the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that both his conviction and sentence should be overturned and vacated.
During a three-week crime spree in October 2017, Rex Hammond robbed and attempted to rob seven different stores at gunpoint in Northern Indiana and Southern Michigan. In Indiana, the robberies took place in Logansport, Peru, and Auburn, while the attempted Michigan robberies occurred in Portage and Kalamazoo.
The government charged Hammond with five counts of Hobbs Act robbery and several attendant weapons charges, which included one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) and two counts of brandishing a weapon during a crime of violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c).
A jury convicted Hammond on all charges and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana sentenced him to 47 years in prison, prompting Hammond to appeal his conviction and sentence.
Specifically, he cited Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206 (2018) and argued that the district court should have suppressed certain cell site location information (CSLI) that law enforcement used to locate him during his robbery spree and to confirm his location on the days of the robberies.
He also contended that the district court erred in instructing the jury regarding the felon-in-possession charge under Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019). Finally, he claimed that Hobbs Act robbery is not a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) or under the Sentencing Guidelines, so his § 924(c) conviction must be overturned, and his sentence vacated.
In rejecting each of his arguments, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in a Monday decision affirmed Hammond’s conviction and sentence in USA v. Rex Hammond, 19-2357…
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