Federal Weapons Charges

The Federal Armed Career Criminal Act provides for the enhancement of a defendant’s sentence. If he or she is convicted of a federal firearms offense involving interstate or foreign commerce and has three previous convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses, as defined in the statute, in any court, he or she will be designated as an armed career criminal.

The terrible effect of an Armed Career Criminal designation is that a defendant convicted of being a “felon in possession of a firearm” gets a mandatory minimum fifteen year sentence.

Even persons with the qualifying number of felonies may be able to get out from under the designation based upon recent Supreme Court rulings. The analysis requires an experienced and skilled lawyer to advocate for you.

There are many avenues to pursue if you are charged with violating the Federal Armed Career Criminal Act.  We investigate your case from all angles, including:

• Examination of the firearm to see if it meets the charged offense
• Examination of where the gun was located, for suppression issues as well as its affect on the client’s guidelines score
• Request stipulations by the Government to facts which support the client’s position or require proof by clear and convincing evidence regarding enhancements sought by the Government

More importantly, we go through your entire criminal record looking to see if any of your prior crimes can be eliminated from consideration by the court. Some of the instances include:

• Were two prior convictions “related cases”, crimes from the same act, occasion, or continuing act?
• Was there no intervening arrest between the cases?
• Were the cases consolidated?
• Were they part of a single scheme or plan?
• Was the client sentenced prior to the current arrest?
• Did the prior arrest occur within the proper time frames?
• Was it a juvenile arrest?
• Where the crimes sealed, expunged, or pardoned?

If you have been arrested for a felon in possession of a firearm charge in the federal courts of Georgia At the The Lynch Law Group, we fight hard to protect you.  We prepare every case as if it is going to trial because this how we are able to obtain the best outcome for you.