Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-15-01001/USCOURTS-ca3-15-01001-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Angel Muniz
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_____________

No. 15-1001

_____________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

ANGEL MUNIZ,

 Appellant 

______________

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Crim. Action No. 2-11-cr-00252-001)

District Judge: Honorable Noel L. Hillman

______________

Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)

October 26, 2015

____________________________

Before: GREENAWAY, JR., SCIRICA, and ROTH, Circuit Judges.

(Opinion Filed: January 7, 2016)

______________

OPINION*

______________

 

*This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does 

not constitute binding precedent.

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GREENAWAY, JR., Circuit Judge.

Appellant Angel Muniz pleaded guilty to one count of mailing a letter containing a 

threat, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 876(c), and was sentenced to 96 months’

imprisonment. Before the Court is Muniz’s appeal of the District Court’s determination 

regarding the appropriate sentencing range under the United States Sentencing Guidelines

(the “Guidelines”). Muniz contends that the District Court erred by deeming him a career 

offender because the offense to which he pleaded guilty was not a crime of violence. 

Muniz’s appeal thus requires us to determine whether mailing a threatening letter is a

crime of violence, as defined by the Guidelines. After careful review, we agree with the 

District Court that Muniz’s offense was a crime of violence within the meaning of the 

Guidelines. 

I. Background

In 2009, a United States District Judge received two letters containing threats to 

kill that were eventually traced to Muniz. During an interview with law enforcement, 

Muniz stated that he planned on carrying out the threats in the letter. In a second 

interview, Muniz stated that he did not intend to follow through on the threats and denied 

taking steps in furtherance of the threats. A federal grand jury returned an indictment 

charging Muniz with mailing a threatening communication to a United States Judge in 

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 876(c). Muniz pleaded guilty to one count of the indictment 

pursuant to a plea agreement. 

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Under the Guidelines, a defendant is designated a career offender if he is over the 

age of 18 and has committed three offenses that can be classified as crimes of violence

within the meaning of the Guidelines (“predicate offenses”). See U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2. In 

order to be considered a crime of violence, an offense must have, as an element, the use 

or threatened use of physical force. See id. Career offender designation requires the 

sentencing court to apply an enhancement to a defendant’s offense level. Here, once 

deemed a career offender, Muniz’s Guidelines range increased from 57–71 months to 77–

96 months.1

The parties disagreed on whether Muniz’s current offense for mailing a 

threatening letter to a federal judge could serve as a predicate offense. Muniz’s 

Presentence Report (“PSR”) answered this question in the affirmative. Specifically, the 

probation department reasoned that § 876(c) requires that the communication “convey a 

threat to injure the person of the addressee . . . and that element falls squarely within the 

definition of a crime of violence,” as defined by the Guidelines. PSR ¶ 66 n.2. The 

government agreed. Muniz argued that the offense could not be a crime of violence

because his guilty plea only indicated that he intended to mail the letter, and therefore, he 

did not admit and was not required to admit that he had the specific intent to threaten 

physical force. Thus, Muniz argued, his sentence was not a crime of violence within the 

meaning of the Guidelines, because the Guidelines require that a defendant have the 

 

1

 It was undisputed that two of Muniz’s previous convictions could serve as 

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specific intent to use, or threaten to use, physical force. 

The District Court rejected Muniz’s argument and concluded that a conviction 

under § 876(c) was a crime of violence, as defined by the Guidelines. The District Court 

noted that there was “symmetry between the [G]uidelines definition and the elements of 

the offense that’s the count of conviction here,” in that “the communication . . . contained 

a threat to injure the addressee.” App. 166. Additionally, the District Court reasoned that

a defendant’s subjective intent, although relevant to a court’s consideration of factors 

enumerated in 18 U.S.C. § 3553, was not relevant to a determination of whether an

offense was a crime of violence, as defined by the Guidelines. Applying the careeroffender Guidelines range, the District Court sentenced Muniz to 96 months’ 

imprisonment. 

Muniz filed a timely notice of appeal.

II. Standard of Review2

Whether a prior conviction constitutes a crime of violence for purposes of the 

career-offender Guideline is a question of law over which we exercise plenary review.

See United States v. Marrero, 743 F.3d 389, 393 (3d Cir. 2014).

III. Analysis

Under § 4B1.1 of the Guidelines, one is designated a career offender if:

 

predicate offenses and that Muniz was over the age of 18. 

2 The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3231. This Court has 

jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

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(1) [he] was at least eighteen years old at the time [he] 

committed the instant offense of conviction; (2) the instant 

offense of conviction is a felony that is either a crime of 

violence or a controlled substance offense; and (3) [he] has at 

least two prior felony convictions of either a crime of 

violence or a controlled substance offense.

U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1. 

The Guidelines define “crime of violence” as any offense under federal or state 

law, punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, that “has as an element 

the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.” 

U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(1). 

Muniz’s offense statute states, in relevant part: 

Whoever knowingly so deposits or causes to be delivered as 

aforesaid, any communication with or without a name or 

designating mark subscribed thereto, addressed to any other 

person and containing any threat to kidnap any person or any 

threat to injure the person of the addressee or of another, shall 

be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five 

years, or both.

18 U.S.C. § 876(c). Section 876(c) attaches increased penalties when the letter is mailed,

as it was mailed here, to a federal judge. See id. 

To determine whether Muniz’s offense falls within the Guidelines-defined crime 

of violence, we would typically apply the categorical approach. See United States v. 

Brown, 765 F.3d 185, 188–89 (3d Cir. 2014) (citing United States v. Abbott, 748 F.3d 

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154, 157 (3d Cir. 2014)).

3

 Under the categorical approach, we “compare the elements of 

the statute forming the basis of the defendant’s conviction with the elements of the 

generic crime.” Brown, 765 F.3d at 189. The categorical approach precludes 

consideration of the “facts underlying [the] conviction.” Id. Therefore, in the context of 

§ 4B1.2(a), we only consider whether § 876(c) has as an element the use or threatened 

use of physical force. 

However, there are a range of cases in which another approach, labeled the 

modified categorical approach, applies. The modified categorical approach applies where 

the statute at issue is divisible, or where the statute sets forth “multiple alternative 

versions of the crime,” see Marrero, 743 F.3d at 396, and some of those versions “cover 

at least some conduct that is not a crime of violence.” Brown, 765 F.3d at 188. In these 

cases, the statute forming the basis of the defendant’s conviction would be insufficient to 

determine what particular version of the crime applied to defendant’s conviction. 

Therefore, the court is allowed to consult extra-statutory documents to determine whether 

the defendant was convicted of a version of the crime that meets the federal definition. 

These documents include “the indictment or information and jury instructions, or, if a 

guilty plea is at issue, by examining the plea agreement, plea colloquy, or some 

comparable judicial record of the factual basis for the plea.” See Marrero, 743 F.3d at 

 

3 Abbott addressed sentencing enhancements under the Armed Career Criminal 

Act (“ACCA”), but because of the substantial similarities between the ACCA and the 

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396 (quoting Nijhawan v. Holder, 557 U.S. 29, 37 (2009) (internal quotations omitted)). 

Muniz appears to argue that, even if analyzed under the categorical approach, his 

offense could not be considered a crime of violence because it does not require proof that 

he had the intent to threaten physical force or the ability to use physical force to carry out 

the threat, as the Guidelines implicitly require. Muniz also argues that a recent Supreme 

Court case, Elonis v. United States, __ U.S. __, 135 S. Ct. 2001 (2015), suggests that a 

person could be convicted under § 876(c) based on proof of recklessness. Therefore, 

Muniz argues, the statute is divisible because there are two versions of the crime—a §

876(c) violation where the defendant knowingly mails a threatening letter, and a § 876(c) 

violation where the defendant recklessly mails a threatening letter—and therefore the 

modified categorical approach applies. 

We conclude that the categorical approach applies here as the relevant part of §

876(c) is not divisible. Section 876(c) is not divisible because it only sets forth one 

version of the crime, namely that the defendant has: (1) knowingly mailed a threating 

letter, (2) the letter contained a threat to injure the addressee or another person, and (3) 

the letter was addressed to a federal judge. Elonis does not change this conclusion, 

because the Elonis court did not reach whether a § 875(c) conviction could be sustained 

 

Guidelines’ career-offender provisions, interpretation of the ACCA applies to our 

analysis here. See id. (citing Marrero, 743 F.3d at 394 n.2). 

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based on recklessness.

4

 See id. at 2012. As Elonis left the recklessness question 

unanswered, we decline to read the statute as Muniz requests. 

We agree with the District Court that § 876(c) is a crime of violence. Applying 

the categorical approach, we determine whether § 876(c) is an offense that “has as an 

element the use or threatened use of physical force,” using only the statutory definition. 

See Brown, 765 F.3d at 189. The plain terms of the statute are closely aligned with the 

Guidelines definition of a crime of violence. That is, the element that the letter must 

contain a “threat to injure” closely correlates with the “threatened use of physical force”

language in the Guidelines. Thus, the terms of the statute demonstrate that § 876(c) has, 

as an element, the threatened use of physical force. Our conclusion conforms to the 

decisions of our sister circuits, many of which have held that 876(c) is a crime of 

violence.5 

We make no conclusion as to whether § 4B1.1’s crime-of-violence definition 

requires that the crime at issue require specific intent as to all elements of the crime. 

Elonis does not, as Muniz argues, suggest that a defendant could be convicted of 

 

4 The statute at issue in Elonis was 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), which makes it a crime to 

transmit in interstate commerce “any communication containing any threat . . . to injure 

the person of another.” See 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). Because § 875(c) and § 876(c) are 

companion statutes, we apply interpretation of § 875(c) here. 

5 The Fifth, Seventh, Eight, and Ninth Circuits have concluded that Section 876(c)

is a crime of violence. See United States v. Stoker, 706 F.3d 643, 648 (5th Cir. 2013); 

United States v. Haileselassie, 668 F.3d 1033, 1035 (8th Cir. 2012); United States v. De 

La Fuente, 353 F.3d 766, 770–71 (9th Cir. 2003); United States v. McCaleb, 908 F.2d 

176, 178 (7th Cir. 1990) (interpreting 18 U.S.C. § 871).

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violating § 876(c) without a finding of scienter as to the element that the letter contains a 

threat to injure. Thus, it is unnecessary for us to determine whether, as a general matter, 

application of § 4B1.2(a)(1) requires a finding that the defendant had the specific intent 

to use or threaten to use physical force.

IV. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the District Court. 

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SCIRICA, Circuit Judge, concurring, joined by Judge Roth.

I join with my colleagues in affirming the judgment of the District Court. I write 

separately because I believe this case does not require us to decide whether to apply the 

categorical approach or the modified categorical approach to determine Muniz’s 

sentence. No matter which approach applies, 18 U.S.C. § 876(c) is a crime of violence 

and the District Court properly applied the career offender enhancement.

Muniz contends the modified categorical approach applies because there are two 

versions of Section 876(c)—one in which the defendant knowingly mails a threatening 

letter, and one in which the defendant recklessly mails a threatening letter.1 Muniz 

maintains he pled guilty only to a crime of recklessness, contending the guidelines 

require proof of the defendant’s subjective intent to use physical force to carry out the 

threat. While the majority does not reach this argument, I would reject Muniz’s 

contention the guidelines require proof of the defendant’s intent to use physical force. It 

is well established that “[t]he Guidelines do not condition application of the enhancement 

on whether the defendant intended to make good on the threat.” U.S. v. Poff, 926 F.2d 

588, 590 (7th Cir. 1991) (en banc).

Likewise, had Muniz argued the guidelines require proof of a specific intent to 

threaten—assuming Section 876(c) itself does not require such proof—he would find no 

support. Several of our sister circuits have concluded Section 876(c) is a crime of 

violence, even though some of them assumed (pre-Elonis) mere negligence could suffice 

 

1 As the majority notes, we have yet to decide whether recklessness suffices for a conviction under Section 875(c) 

and its companion statute, Section 876(c). See Elonis v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2000, 2012 (2015). The resolution 

of that question does not affect the outcome of this case.

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for a conviction under the statute. See United States v. Stoker, 706 F.3d 643, 648 (5th Cir. 

2013); United States v. Haileselassie, 668 F.3d 1033, 1035 (8th Cir. 2012); United States 

v. De La Fuente, 353 F.3d 766, 770-71 (9th Cir. 2003); United States v. McCaleb, 908 

F.2d 176, 178 (7th Cir. 1990).

The result is the same if we apply the categorical approach. As the majority notes, 

there is a close alignment between the plain terms of the statute and the guidelines 

definition of a crime of violence. It is difficult to imagine a statute that more clearly “has 

as an element the . . . threatened use of physical force against the person of another” than 

one that forbids mailing a letter “containing . . . any threat to injure the person of the 

addressee or of another . . . .” See U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(1); 18 U.S.C. §876(c).

Because the career offender enhancement was properly applied no matter which 

method of review we employ, I would affirm the judgment of the District Court.

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