Career Criminal Gets 15 Years Under Novel Use of Law

A 32-year-old San Diego man was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison Monday for possession of a bullet.

Stanley Lee Vance had pleaded guilty to possessing the ammunition used to wound an off-duty San Diego police officer last summer. According to U.S. Atty. William Braniff, Vance argued with the officer, David Mitchell, and then shot him three times in the chest and arms.

Police investigators never found Vance’s gun, but they found four shell casings that an expert said matched X-rays of the bullets that remain in Mitchell’s body.

Last July, a federal grand jury indicted Vance under a novel law that targets career criminals. Under the 1986 law, individuals who have three or more convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses are considered “armed career criminals” who, upon conviction, face substantially enhanced prison sentences of 15 years to life.

Judge Rudi M. Brewster ruled Monday that Vance, who was convicted in 1978 of three San Diego armed robberies, met the definition of an armed career criminal. He imposed the minimum sentence allowed.

Of the many cases prosecuted under the Armed Career Criminal Act, Braniff said Vance’s case is believed to be the first one predicated on the possession of a bullet rather than a firearm. It was prosecuted under a new program in Braniff’s office called Operation Triggerlock.