Waite was originally sentenced in 2011, principally to 125 years’ imprisonment based on five 924(c) counts and a drug conspiracy count. The Circuit vacated his original sentence (in 2016) because of an issue with the drug sentence. At the resentencing in March 2018, the district court subtracted 10 years from the original (20-year) drug sentence, making the new sentence 115 years, which was “the then-applicable mandatory minimum sentence for Waite’s counts of conviction”; his five § 924(c) sentences had to be “stacked” — i.e., made consecutive to each other for a total of 105 years — and the stacked 924(c) sentences had to be consecutive to the 10-year drug sentence. A few months after the resentencing, however, the First Step Act of 2018 (“FSA”) eliminated the “stacking” requirement for § 924(c) sentences.
On this appeal, Waite argued that: (1) four of his (five) § 924(c) convictions are invalid under …