Case ID: f-appx_569/html/0033-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Mario FLORES, aka Sealed Defendant 1, Defendant-Appellant.
    No. 13-2941-cr.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    June 17, 2014.
    Colleen P. Cassidy, Federal Defenders of New York, Inc., Appeals, Bureau, New York, N.Y., for Appellant.
    Paul M. Monteleoni, Assistant United States Attorney (Preet Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Brian A. Jacobs, Assistant United States Attorney, on the brief), New York, N.Y., for Appellee.
    Present: ROSEMARY S. POOLER, PETER W. HALL, and SUSAN L. CARNEY, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of said District Court be and it hereby is AFFIRMED.

Mario Flores pleaded guilty to one violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), possessing a firearm that had been, shipped in interstate commerce after having been convicted of a felony. He was sentenced principally to 60 months imprisonment by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Stein, J.). Flores now appeals from his July 31, 2013 judgment of conviction, entered on August 1, 2013. On appeal, he asserts that the district court erred in determining that burglary in the third degree under New York law, N.Y. Penal Law § 140.20, constitutes a “crime of violence” under Section 4B1.2(a)(2) of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and specification of issues for review.

The argument Flores advances is foreclosed by our precedent. In United, States v. Brown, we concluded that a conviction for “third-degree burglary in violation of New York law was a crime of violence within the meaning of the last clause of [U.S.S.G.] § 4B1.2(a)(2).” 514 F.3d 256, 269 (2d Cir.2008). The upshot for the defendant in Brown was that “his record included two crimes of violence, making his base offense level 24.” Id. The same result obtains here.

Flores recognizes our holding in Brown, but suggests that a trio of recent Supreme Court decisions have undermined our reasoning in that decision. We are not persuaded. Flores first points us to Begay v. United States, 553 U.S. 137, 128 S.Ct. 1581, 170 L.Ed.2d 490 (2008), and to Chambers v. United States, 555 U.S. 122, 129 S.Ct. 687, 172 L.Ed.2d 484 (2009). It is true that both Begay and Chambers interpreted the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), to require analysis of the risk posed by crimes which putatively fell under ACCAs residual clause, compared to the risk posed by enumerated crimes. Begay, 553 U.S. at 141-45, 128 S.Ct. 1581 (risk posed by driving under the influence is not comparable to risk posed by enumerated offenses of burglary, arson, extortion, or crimes involving explosives); Chambers, 555 U.S. at 127-29, 129 S.Ct. 687 (failure to report for periodic imprisonment does not pose comparable risk as enumerated offenses). We relied on the parallel natures of the residual clauses of ACCA and U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(2) in reaching our conclusion in Brown. 514 F.3d at 266-68. But it does not follow that the reasoning of Begay and Chambers, which required a comparison between the potential risks of enumerated offenses and putative similar offenses falling under the residual clause, has cast doubt upon our approach in Brown. If anything, these cases have arguably strengthened it (as the government argues) because our conclusion in Brown was based on our determination that “third-degree ‘burglary itself is a crime that inherently involves a risk of personal injury.’” 514 F.3d at 268 (quoting United States v. Andrello, 9 F.3d 247, 249 (2d Cir.1993)).

Nor are we persuaded that the Supreme Court’s decision in Descamps v. United States, — U.S. -, 133 S.Ct. 2276, 186 L.Ed.2d 438 (2013), has undermined Brown. Flores correctly points out that Descamps concerned the appropriate reach of the “categorical” approach to determining whether a state law crime might serve as an enumerated ACCA predicate. 133 S.Ct. at 2283-86. But Brown applied the categorical approach to New York’s third-degree burglary statute. Brown, 514 F.3d at 265. Flores apparently takes no issue with Brown’s application of the categorical approach, and we thus fail to appreciate how, exactly, Flores believes Brown was undermined by Descamps.

We are “bound by the decision of a prior panel unless the decision has been overturned either by the Supreme Court or this Court en banc.” United States v. Thomas, 628 F.3d 64, 69 (2d Cir.2010). Finding no merit in Flores’s argument that our holding in Brown has been disturbed (and cognizant that this Court has not revisited Brown en banc), we cannot find that the district court committed procedural error in determining Flores’s baseline sentence under the Guidelines.

We have examined the remainder of Flores’s arguments, and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court hereby is AFFIRMED.