Fed. court orders resentencing in Arkansas bombing

A jury convicted Randeep Mann, 54, in 2010 of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and other charges. The Feb. 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.

Mann's attorneys appealed his convictions and sentences, arguing there wasn't enough evidence to convict him.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Thursday that 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 court and was improperly referenced in a pre-sentencing report.

"The only reference in the record to 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.

The court affirmed the weapon of mass destruction conviction, but ordered that one of Mann's two machine gun convictions be tossed out, finding they amounted to double jeopardy. Mann was convicted of both possessing an unregistered machine gun and possessing a machine gun.

Prosecutors said Mann was responsible for a bomb left outside Pierce's home in West Memphis, Ark., after the board suspended Mann's license following the overdose deaths of some of his patients. Pierce has said he believes the attack was revenge for revoking Mann's license to prescribe narcotics.