A doctor sentenced to life in prison for a 2009 bombing that nearly killed the head of the Arkansas state medical board should be resentenced on some convictions, a federal appeals court ruled.
A jury convicted Randeep Mann, an India-born naturalised U.S. citizen, in 2010 of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and other charges. The February 4, 2009, bomb attack took away Dr. Trent Pierce’s sense of smell and left him blind in one eye and deaf in one ear.
Dr. Mann’s attorneys appealed his convictions and sentences, arguing there was not enough evidence to convict him.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said on Thursday that Dr. Mann shouldn’t have received a sentencing enhancement based on allegations that he ordered the assault of an inmate. The panel said the allegation was never brought up in the court and was improperly referenced in a pre-sentencing report.
“The only reference in the record to Dr. Mann ordering the assault of a federal inmate is contained in a bench conference that occurred at trial between the district judge and the attorneys,” the appeals court opinion said.
