BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the sentence for a Bismarck man described as a career criminal on a 2019 firearms conviction. The appeals court also agreed with a North Dakota judge in allowing certain evidence that led to Lonnie Howard’s conviction.
The 49-year-old Howard, arrested in 2015 on a firearms charge, was a fugitive for 11 months after leaving a halfway house.
He was stopped in Interstate 94 in Bismarck in 2018, struggled with a police officer and damaged a vehicle before fleeing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. He was later convicted in Burleigh County on charges stemming from that incident.
In his appeal, Howard argued that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction, that certain evidence should not have been admitted and that his prior convictions did not meet the criteria to be sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act, the Bismarck Tribune reported.
The appeals judges said that there was plenty of evidence to show Howard e occupied a bedroom where guns and ammunition were found. The lower court was right in allowing a pawn ticket as evidence that Howard possessed a gun or in admitting police video that showed him escaping from an officer, the judges said.
Howard had previously been convicted of armed robbery and his 2009 drug conspiracy conviction in North Dakota was a “serious drug offense,” and was properly sentenced as a career criminal, the judges wrote.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.