U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
United States v. Ervin Thornton, II
This writing
- Type
- Opinion
- Author
- Eugene Edward Siler Jr.
- Filed
- Aug. 1, 2025
- Case
- United States v. Ervin Thornton, II
- Case status
- Decided
Opening text
The first passage of the document, as extracted by the source provider.
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 25a0383n.06 Case No. 23-1635 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Aug 01, 2025 KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk ) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) Plaintiff-Appellee, ) ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED ) STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR v. ) THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF ) MICHIGAN ERVIN THORNTON, II, ) Defendant-Appellant. ) OPINION ) Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; SILER and WHITE, Circuit Judges. SILER, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which SUTTON, C.J. and WHITE, J., concurred. WHITE, J. (pg.7), delivered a separate concurring opinion. SILER, Circuit Judge. The First Step Act retroactively lowered the statutory penalties for many crack-cocaine crimes. Ervin Thornton, II, now serving life sentences for murder and drug offenses, seeks a reduction under § 404 of the First Step Act of 2018. The district court denied relief after finding that his drug counts involved only powder cocaine—offenses the Act does not cover. Because the conviction documents support that finding and because the court committed no clear error in reading the historical record, we affirm. I. In the mid-1990s, Thornton helped run a cocaine pipeline in Flint, Michigan. Jew…
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