United States v. Gordon

The First Circuit vacated Defendant’s sentence imposed in connection with his conviction for five counts of using facilities of interstate commerce in connection with the hiring of a person to commit a murder in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1958(a), holding that the indictment was multiplicitous and that the five counts of conviction should be merged.On appeal, the court held (1) the district court did not commit reversible error in allowing certain testimony; but (2) the appropriate unit of prosecution under 18 U.S.C. 1958(a) is a single plot to murder a single individual, not the number of times that the facilities of interstate commerce were used. Therefore, the indictment used the wrong unit of prosecution and, thus, was multiplicitous. View "United States v. Gordon" on Justia Law