North Carolina pipe bomber says double jeopardy unfairly lengthened his sentence

RICHMOND, Va. (CN) — A North Carolina man who mailed his wife a pipe bomb in the 1990s told a panel of Fourth Circuit judges Wednesday that a federal judge unfairly extended his prison sentence.

Stephan Bullis, who is now 59, tried to kill his then-wife Tracy Bullis in 1995 by mailing the explosive to her workplace in North Carolina’s capital city. Bullis, who was having an affair, was hoping to collect her life insurance policy.

The bomb exploded in her hand while she was opening the package, severely injuring her and a nearby coworker and damaging the building. A second bomb from Bullis was discovered in a defunct USPS collection bin at Crabtree Valley Mall and defused before it reached its destination. He had not warned authorities that he had mailed another bomb, and 10 days passed after he was arrested before it was found.

The attack was only a few months after the Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people and injured more than 500 — and before the infamous Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, was caught.

After he was convicted in February 1996 Bullis received a mandatory life sentence: consecutive terms of 30 years and 235 months — almost 50 years total. But two of his charges were vacated in September 2022 because they were no longer classified as crimes of violence; only his 235-month sentence remained until a judge resentenced him in February 2023, keeping him in prison for an additional 10 years.

Bullis says the Eastern District of North Carolina judge was wrong to add any time, reasoning that the only sentence he had left to serve was for the vacated counts.

Attorney Eric Brignac represented Bullis on Wednesday. He said his client’s actions were horrific, but he regrets them, and has already paid for them by serving almost 30 years in prison.

“He deserves a resentencing and that’s what we’re here asking for,” Brignac said. He argued that the resentencing violated the double jeopardy clause in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which prevents anyone from being prosecuted twice for the same crime.

Bullis is asking the Fourth Circuit to vacate his sentence and instruct the lower court to resentence him without increasing his sentence on the counts for which he already served time. He’s also challenging the stricter probation terms imposed at his resentencing, which were in the written judgment but not announced in court where his’ attorneys could object.

“The fact that Mr. Bullis, upon pain of reincarceration, is subjected to a condition that he was not sentenced to is prejudicial,” Brignac said.

The government argues that Bullis had been given a unified sentence that he had not finished serving when he was re-sentenced, and the change did not violate double jeopardy.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kate Englander also said Wednesday that the terms of Bullis’ probation don’t differ in a material way, and claimed that the court imposed new conditions orally during sentencing as well as in the written judgment.

“There doesn’t need to be a resentencing at all in this case, because the court did impose the standard conditions it ordered, it referenced them, ordered the defendant to comply with them, and that was clear for the record.” Englander said.

“The error is that she never imposed that condition but that it’s in his written judgment,” Brignac countered. “The district judges keep putting conditions, at least in the Eastern District of North Carolina, keep putting written conditions down that aren’t part of the sentence.”

The court needs to decide if Bullis’ case falls under double jeopardy, Englander said, before it can determine if the probation changes warrant a resentencing. Brignac said he is seeking a plenary resentencing which, depending on Bullis’ behavior while incarcerated, could end up getting Bullis more time.

Currently, Bullis is expected to be released at the end of September 2027 because of good behavior.

U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Bruce King, a Bill Clinton nominee, served on the panel along with Joe Biden-nominated U.S. Circuit judges DeAndrea Gist Benjamin and Nicole Berner.

Englander and Brignac did not reply to requests for comment.

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