WASHINGTON, June 30 (UPI) -- A North Carolina tobacco farmer sentenced to six years in prison for threatening to detonate explosives on Washington's Mall may be released this week.
Dwight W. Watson, 51, had been sentenced last week, but U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson indicated Wednesday that with good behavior the man's release may be imminent, the Washington Post reported.
Watson has been locked up since his arrest in March 2003.
Jackson said he was forced to revisit the issue because of a Supreme Court ruling that was issued June 24. That decision held that only juries, not judges, may increase criminal sentences beyond the maximums suggested by statutory guidelines.
Jackson had increased Watson's sentence beyond statutory guidelines.
Prosecutors were considering appeals, and the court's probation department and federal Bureau of Prisons were calculating when Watson would be eligible for release.
Watson gained notoriety when he held law officers at bay in a 47-hour standoff that began at lunchtime March 17, 2003, after he drove his farm tractor and trailer into a pond at Constitution Gardens and threatened to blow up a bomb.
Later he surrendered peacefully.
