PHILADELPHIA (CN) — A convicted felon who admitted to shooting a pharmacist during a robbery told the Third Circuit on Thursday that he never planned to fire his gun and should receive a lower sentence as a result.
On Feb. 22, 2021, Gregory Stevens entered a pharmacy in the Juniata neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia, brandishing a gun and demanding narcotics.
During the robbery, pharmacist Ahmed Nawaz attempted to tackle Stevens as he placed drugs in a bag, beginning a scuffle that resulted in Stevens intentionally shooting Nawaz in the torso before fleeing with $8,200 in narcotics, according to court documents. Nawaz survived after spending three days in an intensive care unit and suffering severe liver damage.
Fifteen days later, Stevens was arrested after assaulting a driver whose vehicle came in contact with Stevens’ dirt bike. The attack — which involved Stevens repeatedly throwing a cinder block at the driver’s car in broad daylight — quickly went viral on social media.
Stevens — who was previously convicted for his involvement in a separate robbery — eventually pleaded guilty to robbery, use of a firearm during a violent crime and possession of ammunition by a felon.
On Jan. 30, 2024, federal judge and George W. Bush appointee Mitchell S. Goldberg sentenced Stevens to 413 months’ imprisonment. While sentencing guidelines would typically result in a lower sentence for Stevens’ convictions, the federal court applied a sentencing enhancement for attempted murder.
Arguing that the prerequisite finding for applying such a sentencing enhancement — both intent and premeditation to kill — was never presented in court, Stevens promptly appealed his sentence.
However, Stevens’ argument was quickly met with scrutiny from the three-member appeals court panel. Circuit Judge Thomas M. Hardiman, a George W. Bush appointee, pressed Stevens’ counsel as to whether the lower court could have concluded that Stevens planned to kill Nawaz without outright saying so.
“Why couldn’t the district court make a finding of attempted first-degree murder with an implicit conclusion in the judge’s mind that premeditation was supported by the record?” Hardiman asked. “And why can’t we look at the record, and look at the tussle, and likewise conclude that there was premeditation?”
Representing Stevens, attorney Keith Donoghue told Hardiman that the federal district judge neither implicitly nor explicitly concluded premeditation during the trial — an assertion that Hardiman quickly rebutted.
“How do you know the judge didn’t implicitly conclude premeditation?” Hardiman asked Donoghue. “I think we all agree there is no explicit finding of premeditation. But when I look at the record, I see an explicit finding that the cross-reference applies for attempted first-degree murder, and I know there’s no dead body. That leads me, rather ineluctably, to the conclusion that an implicit finding was premeditation.”
Clarifying his position, Donoghue suggested that the lower court’s statements only ever explicitly showed its finding that an intentional shooting occurred.
“It never said anything more than that,” Donoghue told Hardiman. “Could you infer from that an implicit finding of intent to kill? Perhaps, yes — I think it’s not clear from the record here, so I think there would need to be a remand on that point — but specific intent to kill is not premeditation. Or to be more precise, it’s not premeditation and deliberation as regard for first-degree murder.”
More directly questioning whether premeditation even occurred, Senior Circuit Judge D. Brooks Smith, a George W. Bush appointee, noted that Stevens could have made such a plan in as short as a “brief moment.”
However, Donoghue suggested that not even such a moment occurred for Stevens to do so. While Donoghue conceded that Stevens threatened to shoot Nawaz upon entering the store, he noted that Stevens later placed the gun in his pocket to grab drugs by hand.
According to Nawaz’s testimony, Donoghue added, the firearm only discharged after Nawaz tackled Stevens and initiated a scuffle between them.
“[A brief moment is] an appreciable lapse of time, and that’s what the record here demonstrates there was not,” Donoghue told Smith. “The victim could not have been clearer that everything happened in the blink of an eye.”
However, government attorney Michael Miller suggested to the three-member court panel that Stevens himself admitted to premeditation at the onset of the robbery.
“When the defendant entered the store, he gave Mr. Nawaz a bag to put the narcotics in, and he told him, ‘Hurry up, otherwise I’ll shoot you,’” Miller said. “That’s a direct quote from Mr. Nawaz. So that’s evidence that the defendant decided at the outset that if Mr. Nawaz did not follow his instructions, he would kill him. That’s evidence of premeditation.”
Additionally — and critically — counsel for the Justice Department and Stevens were at stark odds as to how the Third Circuit should review the sentence. While the government suggested that a questionable finding of fact would require only a review for clear error, Donoghue asserted that the lower court had misinterpreted the sentencing guidelines, which would necessitate the Third Circuit to rule without consideration for the lower court’s decision.
“If the latter is the appropriate inquiry, I think you’re going to win because I don’t see a finding of premeditation here,” Hardiman told Donoghue.
Still, Hardiman added, such a conclusion would be unlikely.
“I don’t see the cross-reference requiring a finding of premeditation,” Hardiman said. “I see the cross-reference requiring a finding of attempted first-degree murder, and the district judge specifically found that.”
Circuit Judge Thomas L. Ambro, a Bill Clinton appointee, also presided over the hearing.