Unpreserved ACCA Different-Occasions Jury Errors Require a Showing of Prejudice

1. Introduction

This decision addresses the consequences of sentencing a defendant under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) without obtaining a jury finding that his qualifying prior offenses occurred on different occasions. After Alonzo Hill pleaded guilty and received ACCA’s fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence, the Supreme Court held that this different-occasions determination ordinarily belongs to a jury.

Hill challenged both his guilty plea and his sentence. He argued that the plea was not knowing and voluntary because the district court had not explained his right to a jury determination of the different-occasions issue. Separately, he argued that the judge’s resolution of that issue required reversal of his sentence.

The Eleventh Circuit rejected both challenges under plain-error review. Its central conclusion was that an unpreserved violation of the different-occasions jury requirement does not automatically invalidate an ACCA sentence. The defendant must demonstrate prejudice, and Hill could not do so because his prior offenses were separated by months and years.

Precedential qualification: The opinion is expressly designated “NOT FOR PUBLICATION.” It applies existing Supreme Court and Eleventh Circuit decisions rather than establishing a new binding circuit rule.

2. Background and Procedural History

The charges and guilty plea

Officers executing a search warrant at Hill’s home found crack cocaine and a firearm bearing his DNA. A federal grand jury charged him with possessing cocaine base with intent to distribute and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon.

At his first change-of-plea hearing, Hill admitted the drug conduct but maintained that the firearm belonged to someone else. Although he insisted that he did not want a trial, the district court declined to accept his plea because he denied knowing about the firearm.

At a second hearing, Hill explained that he had mistakenly believed possession required ownership. He acknowledged holding the firearm while knowing that he was a convicted felon. The district court explained the charges, the trial rights he would surrender, and the potential sentence, including a fifteen-year minimum based on his prior record. Hill stated that he understood and pleaded guilty.

Before sentencing, Hill moved to withdraw his plea to the firearm count. He subsequently withdrew that motion, and the district court denied it on that basis. Consequently, the plea challenge advanced on appeal had not been preserved in the district court.

The ACCA sentence

The district court identified three qualifying prior convictions:

Hill did not object to the ACCA enhancement. The district court imposed the fifteen-year mandatory minimum. While his appeal was pending, the Supreme Court decided Erlinger v. United States, which supplied the constitutional foundation for his sentencing challenge.

3. Summary of the Opinion

The guilty plea remained valid under plain-error review

The court evaluated the plea colloquy as a whole. It found that the district court had addressed the three core concerns governing a knowing and voluntary plea: freedom from coercion, understanding of the charges, and understanding of the plea’s consequences.

Hill denied being pressured or promised a particular sentence, had sufficient opportunity to consult counsel, understood the charges, and acknowledged the rights he was relinquishing. He also knew that his prior record exposed him to a fifteen-year minimum sentence. The court therefore found no plain error warranting relief from the plea.

The sentencing error did not justify reversal

The court recognized that the different-occasions issue had neither been decided by a jury nor freely admitted by Hill in his guilty plea. Nevertheless, controlling circuit authority foreclosed his argument that this error was structural and required automatic reversal.

Under plain-error review, Hill had to show a reasonable probability that a jury would find his three predicate offenses occurred on fewer than three occasions. The substantial temporal gaps, together with differences in location or drug involved, defeated that showing. The court affirmed his conviction and sentence.

4. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

A. Guilty-plea review

United States v. Monroe, 353 F.3d 1346 (11th Cir. 2003)

United States v. Monroe supplied the standard of review for Hill’s unpreserved plea challenge. It also supported examining whether the overall plea colloquy adequately addressed the core concerns underlying a valid plea. This approach directed the court toward the substance of the entire exchange rather than treating the omission of a particular explanation as independently dispositive.

United States v. Presendieu, 880 F.3d 1228 (11th Cir. 2018)

United States v. Presendieu identified the three core principles: absence of coercion, understanding the nature of the charges, and understanding the consequences of pleading guilty. Hill’s opinion also relied on its formulation that plain error had been found where there was a “total or abject failure” to address those concerns. This framework organized the court’s analysis of the plea hearing.

B. The jury requirement and structural-error argument

Erlinger v. United States, 602 U.S. 821 (2024)

Erlinger v. United States established the governing jury requirement: whether prior offenses occurred on different occasions must be resolved by a unanimous jury beyond a reasonable doubt, unless freely admitted in a guilty plea. It therefore established the defect in Hill’s sentencing procedure. Importantly, the Eleventh Circuit expressly recognized that neither an appropriate jury finding nor a qualifying admission occurred here.

Washington v. Recuenco, 548 U.S. 212 (2006)

Hill invoked the structural-error framework associated with Washington v. Recuenco to argue for automatic reversal. The opinion cited that decision when explaining the significance of classifying an error as structural. However, it resolved the classification question through more directly applicable Eleventh Circuit precedent.

United States v. Rivers, 134 F.4th 1292 (11th Cir. 2025)

United States v. Rivers directly rejected the argument that an Erlinger violation is structural error. It therefore foreclosed Hill’s proposed route to reversal without a showing of prejudice. The constitutional nature of the jury right did not, by itself, eliminate ordinary appellate error review.

C. Plain error and the burden of showing prejudice

United States v. Rodriguez, 398 F.3d 1291 (11th Cir. 2005)

United States v. Rodriguez supplied the four-part plain-error framework. A defendant must establish an error that is plain, affects substantial rights, and seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Because Hill failed to establish an effect on substantial rights, the court did not need to undertake a separate fourth-prong analysis.

United States v. Edwards, 142 F.4th 1270 (11th Cir. 2025)

United States v. Edwards translated that general framework into the specific context of an unpreserved Erlinger claim. It required Hill to demonstrate a reasonable probability that a jury would conclude that his three predicate crimes occurred on fewer than three occasions. It also directed attention to the timing, location, and character of the offenses. This was the decisive prejudice standard.

D. Determining whether offenses occurred on different occasions

Wooden v. United States, 595 U.S. 360 (2022)

Wooden v. United States provided the substantive framework for identifying separate criminal occasions. The court emphasized its observation that a single factor, especially time or place, can decisively distinguish occasions. In Hill’s case, the long intervals between offenses made timing particularly important.

United States v. Smith, No. 23-10003, — F.4th —, 2026 WL 2544246 (11th Cir. Aug. 28, 2026)

United States v. Smith was the closest factual and procedural analogy. There, cocaine offenses occurring six days apart did not support the defendant’s required showing that they belonged to the same occasion. The decision explained that offenses separated by at least a week make the necessary probability showing “exceedingly difficult.” Hill’s offenses were separated by substantially longer periods, making his prejudice argument weaker still.

This reasoning does not establish an inflexible seven-day statutory boundary. The opinion retained the possibility of a rare exception but found that Hill offered no explanation bringing his offenses within one.

United States v. Penn, 63 F.4th 1305 (11th Cir. 2023)

United States v. Penn reinforced the ordinary understanding of separate occasions. Its statement that no reasonable person would regard cocaine sales thirty days apart as occurring on the same occasion supported the conclusion that Hill’s offenses were distinct. The opinion used it as substantive support for separateness, not as authority dispensing with Erlinger’s jury requirement.

5. Legal Reasoning

A. Plea validity and sentencing procedure are separate questions

The opinion’s most important analytical distinction is that a valid guilty plea does not necessarily supply every factual admission needed for an enhanced sentence. Hill understood the underlying charges and the fifteen-year sentencing exposure. Those circumstances supported the validity of his plea under the court’s Rule 11 analysis.

Yet the court did not treat his general waiver of a jury trial, his admission to firearm possession, or his awareness of the mandatory minimum as a free admission that his prior crimes occurred on different occasions. It expressly recognized the absence of the admission contemplated by Erlinger.

Accordingly, the decision should not be read as holding that any guilty plea to a felon-in-possession charge automatically resolves the different-occasions question. The plea survived review for one set of reasons; the sentence survived review because Hill could not establish prejudice from a separate procedural error.

B. The plea ruling rested on the complete colloquy

Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 requires a court to explain the nature of the charges and the rights surrendered by pleading guilty. Applying the cited precedents, the panel examined the complete record: Hill’s consultation with counsel, his sworn assurances of voluntariness, his understanding of the charges, and his knowledge of sentencing exposure.

The earlier misunderstanding about firearm ownership had also been clarified before the court accepted the plea. That sequence supported the conclusion that Hill ultimately understood the firearm charge.

The panel did not separately resolve Hill’s broader assertion that the different-occasions requirement was an element of the charged offense. Its narrower holding was that the colloquy did not exhibit the failure of the core plea safeguards necessary to establish plain error under the authorities it applied.

C. A constitutional error does not necessarily require reversal

The sentencing analysis distinguished the existence of error from entitlement to appellate relief. Erlinger established that the district court should not have resolved the different-occasions question itself in these circumstances. But because Hill had not objected, the appellate inquiry also required him to demonstrate an effect on his substantial rights.

That allocation matters. The court did not require the government to prove harmlessness; it required Hill, as the party seeking relief under plain-error review, to establish the specified reasonable probability of a different jury determination.

D. The record defeated the required prejudice showing

The closest two offenses were approximately two months apart and occurred in different counties. The third occurred more than twelve years later and involved a different drug. The first two offenses’ shared involvement with cocaine did not overcome those substantial differences in time and location.

Hill offered no explanation for treating any of these events as part of a single occasion. Applying United States v. Smith, the panel concluded that he had not shown a reasonable probability of a jury finding fewer than three occasions.

Thus, the court’s concluding statement that there was “no plain error” means that there was no reversible plain error. It does not negate the opinion’s earlier recognition that the required jury finding or admission was missing.

6. Potential Impact and Limits

• Pending appeals involving pre-Erlinger sentences: The decision illustrates why an intervening recognition of a jury right does not automatically produce resentencing when the issue was not preserved.
• Importance of preservation: A timely objection affects the appellate framework. Hill’s failure to object placed the burden of establishing prejudice on him.
• Fact-specific prejudice arguments: Defendants must engage with the timing, location, and character of the predicate offenses rather than rely solely on the absence of a jury finding.
• Plea and sentencing practice: Courts and counsel should distinguish general jury-trial waivers from specific admissions resolving the different-occasions issue. Awareness of an ACCA minimum is not necessarily such an admission.
• No universal temporal cutoff: The opinion strongly disfavors treating widely separated offenses as one occasion, but it does not replace the governing contextual inquiry with a fixed calendar rule.
• Limited precedential reach: As an unpublished application of existing authority, the decision’s principal value is illustrative. It does not independently create binding circuit precedent.

7. Complex Concepts Simplified

Armed Career Criminal Act

A federal sentencing law that, as relevant here, imposes a fifteen-year minimum for a firearm offense when the defendant has three qualifying prior convictions committed on different occasions.

Different occasions

Separate criminal episodes. Multiple convictions do not alone establish multiple occasions; the underlying events must be examined.

Knowing and voluntary plea

A guilty plea entered without improper pressure and with an adequate understanding of the charges and consequences.

Plain-error review

A demanding appellate standard generally used when a defendant did not raise the objection in the trial court. Identifying a clear mistake is not enough; the defendant must also satisfy additional requirements for relief.

Structural error

A fundamental defect that does not require the ordinary case-specific prejudice inquiry. The circuit precedents applied here hold that an Erlinger violation is not structural.

Affecting substantial rights

In this case, showing a reasonable probability that a jury would have found fewer than three separate criminal occasions.

8. Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed Hill’s conviction and ACCA sentence while recognizing that the different-occasions determination had not been made through the procedure required by Erlinger v. United States. His plea survived the court’s review of the overall colloquy, and his sentence survived because he failed to demonstrate prejudice from the unpreserved sentencing error.

The central lesson is the distinction between a constitutional violation and reversible appellate error: where predicate offenses are separated by months and years, an unpreserved jury-finding challenge will ordinarily face a formidable prejudice barrier.