Case: 22-30442      Document: 00516988587         Page: 1     Date Filed: 12/04/2023




            United States Court of Appeals
                 for the Fifth Circuit
                                                                         United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                  Fifth Circuit


                                 ____________                                   FILED
                                                                         December 4, 2023
                                  No. 22-30442                             Lyle W. Cayce
                                 ____________                                   Clerk

   United States of America,

                                                              Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                       versus

   Sterling Robinson,

                                            Defendant—Appellant.
                   ______________________________

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Eastern District of Louisiana
                            USDC No. 2:20-CR-120-1
                   ______________________________

   Before Smith, Southwick, and Higginson, Circuit Judges.
   Stephen A. Higginson, Circuit Judge:
          Defendant-Appellant Sterling Robinson was convicted by a jury of one
   count of possessing a firearm or ammunition as a convicted felon and one
   count of attempted obstruction of a federal proceeding. He appeals his con-
   victions, raising sufficiency challenges to both convictions, as well as errors
   relating to the evidence admitted at trial, the trial court’s jury instructions,
   and the prosecutor’s remarks in opening and closing arguments. He also ap-
   peals his sentence on the basis that the district court misapprehended its au-
   thority to order that his sentence run concurrently with another federal
Case: 22-30442      Document: 00516988587          Page: 2    Date Filed: 12/04/2023




                                    No. 22-30442


   sentence. We AFFIRM Robinson’s convictions but VACATE his term of
   imprisonment and REMAND for a narrow resentencing as set forth below.
                                          I.
                                         A.
          On March 13, 2020, Candace Anderson arrived at her apartment in
   New Orleans, with her nine-year-old son in the car. When she pulled into her
   parking spot, someone emerged from behind a nearby gate and began
   shooting at her car. Anderson drove to a nearby gas station, where she called
   911.
          She told the 911 operator that her ex-boyfriend Sterling Robinson had
   just shot at her car. Anderson told the operator that she had locked herself
   and her son in a gas-station bathroom and that she believed Robinson had
   followed them to the gas station. She described Robinson as “black, . . .
   brown[]-skinned,” and about 5’2” in height. She said he was last wearing a
   red and white shirt with black jeans. She guessed that the weapon he fired
   was a “forty caliber.”
          About ten to fifteen minutes later, New Orleans Police Department
   (“NOPD”) Officer Kevin Penn arrived on the scene, where his body camera
   captured his conversation with Anderson. Anderson told Officer Penn that
   when she arrived home, her ex-boyfriend was standing on the other side of a
   wooden gate, and when she parked her car, he came from behind the gate and
   began shooting at her car. She reiterated that she fled to the gas station and
   said that, when she exited her car, Robinson was there. Anderson explained
   that they lived together, but that she had broken up with him and “put him
   out” about three days earlier.
          Continuing the interview in the parking lot, Anderson gave more
   details about the shooting, explaining that Robinson shot first at her tires and