The Armed Career Criminal Act and the Career Offender Guideline

The Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), is a federal law that raises the sentence for illegally possessing a gun or ammunition under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). If the person has three earlier convictions for a "violent felony" or a "serious drug offense," committed on different occasions, the judge must impose at least 15 years in prison (18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1)).

This guide explains who counts as an armed career criminal, which prior convictions qualify, the Supreme Court's 2024 rule that a jury decides the "occasions" question, and how the separate career offender guideline works. It covers federal sentencing only. Prior state convictions come up here only as possible predicates for these federal rules.

What is the Armed Career Criminal Act?

Section 922(g) makes it a federal crime for certain people, including anyone with a prior felony conviction, to possess a firearm or ammunition. Without ACCA, the maximum sentence for a § 922(g) conviction is 15 years (18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(8)).

ACCA flips that number. When it applies, 15 years becomes the minimum, not the maximum. The statute says the person "shall be ... imprisoned not less than fifteen years," and the court may not suspend the sentence or give probation (18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1)). A mandatory minimum like this one is a floor set by Congress that the judge cannot go below just because the Guidelines or the § 3553(a) factors point lower.

To trigger ACCA, the government must show three things about the person's record:

1. Three prior convictions. They can come from "any court referred to in section 922(g)(1)," which includes federal and state courts.
2. Of the right kind. Each must be a "violent felony" or a "serious drug offense," as the statute defines those terms (below).
3. On different occasions. The three crimes must have been "committed on occasions different from one another."

ACCA is a separate statute from 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), which punishes using or carrying a gun during a drug or violent crime. A person can face both.

How the Guidelines treat an armed career criminal

The Sentencing Guidelines have their own section for people subject to ACCA, USSG §4B1.4 (2025 Guidelines Manual). It sets a minimum offense level and criminal history category, and the court uses the higher of these and the normal calculation:

Situation	Offense level at least	Criminal history category at least
The gun or ammunition was used or possessed in connection with a crime of violence or controlled substance offense, or the firearm was a type listed in 26 U.S.C. § 5845(a) (such as a machinegun or short-barreled shotgun)	34	VI
All other ACCA cases	33	IV

A reduction for acceptance of responsibility can lower those offense levels. Even so, the 15-year statutory minimum still controls if the Guidelines range comes out lower. To see what an offense level and criminal history category mean in months, use the federal sentencing table.

What counts as a violent felony or a serious drug offense?

The statute defines both terms (18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)).

Serious drug offense means:

• a federal offense under the Controlled Substances Act, the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act, or chapter 705 of title 46 that carries a maximum of 10 years or more, or
• a state offense involving manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to manufacture or distribute a controlled substance (as defined in federal law) that carries a maximum of 10 years or more.

What matters is the maximum the law allowed for that offense, not the sentence the person actually got.

Violent felony means a crime punishable by more than one year in prison that:

• has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another (the "elements clause"), or
• is burglary, arson, or extortion, or involves the use of explosives (the "enumerated offenses").

Certain acts of juvenile delinquency involving a firearm, knife or destructive device can also count (§ 924(e)(2)(B)–(C)).

How do courts decide whether a prior conviction counts?

Courts use what is called the categorical approach. The judge compares the legal elements of the earlier crime, meaning what the law required the prosecution to prove, with the federal definition. The judge does not look at what the person actually did. In the Supreme Court's words, Congress meant the sentencing court "to look only to the fact that the defendant had been convicted of crimes falling within certain categories, and not to the facts underlying the prior convictions" (Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600 (1990), quoted in Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591 (2015)).

If the earlier crime can be committed in a way that falls outside the federal definition, it usually does not count, even if the person's own conduct was serious. Four Supreme Court decisions shape how this works today:

• The residual clause is gone. ACCA once also covered any crime that "otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another." In Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591 (2015), decided June 26, 2015, the Court held that imposing an increased sentence under that clause violates due process because it is unconstitutionally vague. The words are still printed in § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), but courts cannot use them.
• Reckless crimes do not count under the elements clause. In Borden v. United States, 593 U.S. 420 (2021), decided June 10, 2021, the Court ruled that an offense that can be committed with a mental state of recklessness does not qualify as a "violent felony" under the elements clause. Justice Kagan wrote for four Justices, and Justice Thomas agreed with the result in a separate opinion.
• Drug schedules are judged as of the earlier offense. In Brown v. United States, 602 U.S. 101 (2024), decided May 23, 2024, the Court held that "a state drug conviction counts as an ACCA predicate if it involved a drug on the federal schedules at the time of that offense." A later change to the federal drug schedules does not remove it.
• "Occasions" has its ordinary meaning. See Wooden, below.

What does "occasions different from one another" mean?

Three convictions are not enough by themselves. The crimes must have been committed on three different occasions.

In Wooden v. United States, 595 U.S. 360 (2022), decided March 7, 2022, a man had been convicted of ten burglaries for breaking into ten units of one storage facility in a single night. The Court held that those ten burglaries "arising from a single criminal episode did not occur on different 'occasions' and thus count as only one prior conviction for purposes of ACCA." Facts that matter include whether the crimes were committed close in time, whether they happened near each other, and whether they were similar or intertwined in purpose and character.

Who decides whether the crimes were on different occasions?

A jury does. In Erlinger v. United States, 602 U.S. 821 (2024), decided June 21, 2024, by a 6–3 vote, the Court held that "the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require a unanimous jury to make the determination beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant's past offenses were committed on separate occasions for ACCA purposes."

The reason is that the occasions finding raises both the minimum and the maximum sentence. Under the Court's long line of cases, virtually any fact that increases the range of punishment must be found by a unanimous jury beyond a reasonable doubt, or freely admitted in a guilty plea. A judge may not make that finding alone at sentencing.

In practice, this means that if ACCA is in play, the occasions question has to be charged, proved and decided like any other fact that raises the penalty, unless the person admits it as part of a guilty plea. Anyone negotiating a plea in an ACCA case should know exactly what facts the plea agreement admits.

What is the career offender guideline?

The career offender guideline is a different rule. It is part of the Sentencing Guidelines, not a statute, and it applies to people convicted of many kinds of federal crimes, not just gun possession.

Under USSG §4B1.1(a) (2025 Guidelines Manual), a person is a career offender if:

1. the person was at least 18 years old when committing the current federal offense,
2. the current offense is a felony that is either a "crime of violence" or a "controlled substance offense," and
3. the person has at least two prior felony convictions for a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense.

The guideline carries out a direction from Congress. The Sentencing Commission must make sure the Guidelines call for a prison term "at or near the maximum term authorized" for adults who fit that description (28 U.S.C. § 994(h)).

What the career offender guideline does to the range

A career offender's criminal history category is always VI, the highest. The offense level becomes the higher of the normal offense level or a level from this table, based on the statutory maximum for the current offense (USSG §4B1.1(b)):

Statutory maximum for the current offense	Career offender offense level
Life	37
25 years or more	34
20 years or more, but less than 25	32
15 years or more, but less than 20	29
10 years or more, but less than 15	24
5 years or more, but less than 10	17
More than 1 year, but less than 5	12

A reduction for acceptance of responsibility comes off those levels. Special rules apply when the case includes a § 924(c) count (USSG §4B1.1(c)).

Which prior convictions count for career offender

The definitions are in USSG §4B1.2:

• Crime of violence: a federal or state offense punishable by more than one year that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against another person, or is one of the listed offenses: murder, voluntary manslaughter, kidnapping, aggravated assault, a forcible sex offense, robbery, arson, extortion, or the use or unlawful possession of certain firearms or explosive material.
• Controlled substance offense: a federal or state offense punishable by more than one year that prohibits making, importing, exporting, distributing or dispensing a controlled substance, or possessing one with intent to do those things, plus certain offenses under 46 U.S.C. §§ 70503(a) and 70506(b).
• Attempts, conspiracies and aiding and abetting those offenses also count (§4B1.2(d)).
• Two prior felony convictions means the current offense came after at least two such convictions, and at least two of their sentences are counted separately under the criminal history rules in §4A1.1(a), (b) or (c) (§4B1.2(c)).

Like the rest of the Guidelines, the career offender guideline is advisory. The judge must calculate it correctly but may then impose a different sentence after weighing the § 3553(a) factors (United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005)). For how the guideline range fits into the rest of the process, see our guide to how the Sentencing Guidelines work.

What is the difference between ACCA and career offender?

The two are easy to confuse because both look at prior violent and drug convictions. They work very differently.

	Armed Career Criminal Act	Career offender guideline
Source	A statute, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)	A guideline, USSG §§4B1.1 and 4B1.2
Current offense	Only gun or ammunition possession under § 922(g)	Any felony crime of violence or controlled substance offense
Prior convictions needed	Three, committed on different occasions	Two, with separately counted sentences
Effect	Mandatory minimum of 15 years	A higher advisory range; criminal history category VI
Can the judge go lower?	Not below 15 years, except through a narrow statutory exception such as a government motion for substantial assistance under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e)	Yes. The range is advisory, and the judge can vary under § 3553(a)
Who decides disputed facts about the priors	A jury decides the occasions question (Erlinger)	The judge, at sentencing

The definitions also differ. The Guidelines themselves note that ACCA's "violent felony" and "serious drug offense" "are not identical to the definitions of 'crime of violence' and 'controlled substance offense' used in §4B1.1" (USSG §4B1.4, comment. (n.1)). A prior that counts for one may not count for the other, so each prior has to be checked against each definition.

What to do if ACCA or career offender shows up in your case

These labels often first appear in the presentence report, the probation officer's report to the judge. If you or someone you love faces either one:

• Get the records for every prior conviction. That means the charging document, the judgment and, for a guilty plea, the plea agreement and plea transcript. The exact statute of conviction matters more than the name of the crime.
• Check each prior against each definition. A conviction can fail the categorical approach, be too old to count for career offender under the criminal history rules, or fall on the same occasion as another prior.
• Object in time. Written objections to the presentence report are due within 14 days after receiving it (Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(f)(1)).
• Remember the jury right in ACCA cases. After Erlinger, the occasions question is for a jury unless it is admitted. Think about that before agreeing to any plea language about the prior crimes.

Even when a label does apply, the judge still weighs the § 3553(a) factors. Under the career offender guideline the judge can go below the range. Under ACCA the judge can still decide how far above 15 years, if at all, the sentence should go.

Common questions

What is the Armed Career Criminal Act?

It is a federal law, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), that sets a mandatory minimum of 15 years for a person convicted of illegally possessing a gun or ammunition under § 922(g) who has three prior convictions for a violent felony or serious drug offense, committed on occasions different from one another (18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1)). Without it, the maximum for a § 922(g) conviction is 15 years (18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(8)).

What is an armed career criminal?

An armed career criminal is a person who is subject to the 15-year enhanced sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e) (USSG §4B1.4(a)). The Guidelines then set a minimum offense level of 33 or 34 and a minimum criminal history category of IV or VI, depending on how the gun was possessed and what kind it was (USSG §4B1.4(b)–(c)).

What is a career offender?

A career offender is a person who, under the Sentencing Guidelines, was at least 18 when committing a felony crime of violence or controlled substance offense and has at least two prior felony convictions for those kinds of offenses (USSG §4B1.1(a)). The label puts the person in criminal history category VI and can raise the offense level based on the statutory maximum. The resulting range is advisory (United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005)).

What is the difference between ACCA and career offender?

ACCA is a statute that applies only to § 922(g) gun and ammunition possession and requires a 15-year minimum when there are three qualifying priors committed on different occasions (18 U.S.C. § 924(e)). Career offender is an advisory guideline that applies to many federal felonies and needs two qualifying priors (USSG §§4B1.1–4B1.2). The two use different definitions, so a prior that counts for one may not count for the other.

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