Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-04-03159/USCOURTS-caDC-04-03159-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Kevin Patrick Luke Brown
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 7, 2006 Decided June 2, 2006 

No. 04-3159 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

APPELLEE

V. 

KEVIN PATRICK LUKE BROWN, 

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 03cr00405-01) 

Edward C. Sussman, appointed by the court, argued the 

cause and filed the briefs for appellant. 

Steven W. Pelak, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Kenneth L. 

Wainstein, U.S. Attorney, and Roy W. McLeese III and 

Frederick W. Yette, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. 

Before: RANDOLPH and TATEL, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

WILLIAMS. 

USCA Case #04-3159 Document #971472 Filed: 06/02/2006 Page 1 of 12
2

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge: Congress has provided 

a minimum sentence of five years for any person who, in 

relation to any crime of violence, “uses or carries a firearm, or 

who, in furtherance of any such crime, possesses a firearm.” 

18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i). The minimum penalty increases 

to seven years if the firearm “is brandished,” 

§ 924(c)(1)(A)(ii), and to ten if it “is discharged,” 

§ 924(c)(1)(A)(iii). The question here is whether the 

accidental discharge of a weapon triggers a ten-year sentence 

for discharging. Phrased more formally, the question is 

whether an intent requirement is implicit in the discharge 

provision. We conclude that it is. 

* * * 

The relevant facts are undisputed. About ten minutes 

before it closed, Kevin Patrick Luke Brown entered a 

SunTrust bank in downtown Washington, D.C. with a semiautomatic pistol. Brown approached the bank’s acting 

manager and forced her, at gunpoint, to lead him into the 

locked teller area. Once inside, Brown directed another bank 

employee to put money from the tellers’ drawers into a bag. 

Irritated because he thought she was moving too slowly, 

Brown snatched the bag, threw it at another employee, and 

jammed the barrel of the gun into the back of the second 

employee’s head. That employee then stuffed cash into the 

bag before handing it back to Brown. As Brown closed the 

bag, his gun fired. Apparently startled, Brown asked, “Did I 

hurt anybody? Did I hurt anybody?” The bank employees 

responded that no one was injured; as it turned out, the bullet 

had lodged in the bank’s ceiling. Brown then forced the 

second employee, at gunpoint, to direct him to an exit in the 

back of the bank. The police apprehended Brown moments 

later, aided by a SunTrust customer who had seen the robbery 

through a window at the bank’s entrance. 

USCA Case #04-3159 Document #971472 Filed: 06/02/2006 Page 2 of 12
3

The judge asked the jury not only for its verdict on the 

armed-robbery count (violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a), (d)) 

and the firearm count (violation of § 924(c)(1)(A)), but also 

on whether the firearm was discharged during the robbery. 

About ninety minutes after the judge dismissed the jury to 

begin its deliberations, he received a note asking whether the 

gun had to have been discharged knowingly. The judge 

responded in the negative. Shortly thereafter, the jury 

returned two guilty verdicts and a finding that the firearm had 

been discharged. As the judge had before trial granted 

Brown’s unopposed motion to sever the felon-in-possession 

charge under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) and to proceed without a 

jury, the judge himself found guilt on that issue. The judge 

imposed a sentence that included ten years under 

§ 924(c)(1)(A)(iii). 

* * * 

We review the district court’s interpretation of a criminal 

statute de novo. United States v. Wade, 152 F.3d 969, 972 

(D.C. Cir. 1998). So far, two circuits have interpreted the 

discharge provision and have reached different conclusions as 

to intent. The Tenth Circuit found no such requirement, 

United States v. Nava-Sotelo, 354 F.3d 1202, 1206 (10th Cir. 

2003), while the Ninth Circuit recently found that the 

government must show “general intent,” United States v. 

Dare, 425 F.3d 634, 641 n.3 (9th Cir. 2005). We agree with 

the Ninth Circuit that there is an implicit requirement of 

general intent, precluding liability for the accidental discharge 

of Brown’s weapon. 

We start with the text of § 924(c)(1)(A): 

Except to the extent that a greater minimum sentence is 

otherwise provided by this subsection or by any other 

USCA Case #04-3159 Document #971472 Filed: 06/02/2006 Page 3 of 12
4

provision of law, any person who, during and in relation 

to any crime of violence . . . uses or carries a firearm, or 

who, in furtherance of any such crime, possesses a 

firearm, shall, in addition to the punishment provided for 

such crime of violence . . . 

(i) be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less 

than 5 years; 

(ii) if the firearm is brandished, be sentenced to a term of 

imprisonment of not less than 7 years; and 

(iii) if the firearm is discharged, be sentenced to a term of 

imprisonment of not less than 10 years. 

As the text makes clear, the minimum penalty doesn’t kick in 

anytime a gun is present on the scene of one of the specified 

crimes; instead, the firearm must be used or carried “during 

and in relation to” the crime, or possessed “in furtherance of” 

the crime. See Muscarello v. United States, 524 U.S. 125 

(1998) (interpreting “carry” provision); Bailey v. United 

States, 516 U.S. 137 (1995) (interpreting “use” provision); 

United States v. Gaston, 357 F.3d 77, 82-83 (2004) 

(interpreting “possession in furtherance of”); United States v. 

Wahl, 290 F.3d 370, 375-77 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (same). 

The three subsections of § 924(c)(1)(A) penalize 

increasingly culpable or harmful conduct. The government 

doesn’t dispute that the five-year sentence in § 924(c)(1)(A)(i) 

requires proof of mens rea. See United States v. Harris, 959 

F.2d 246, 258 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (saying, in interpretation of 

§ 924(c) prior to 1998 amendment that appears irrelevant to 

this issue, “Consistent with the presumption of mens rea in 

criminal statutes, we assume that section 924(c) is violated 

only if the government proves that the defendant . . . 

intentionally used firearms in the commission” of the crime.). 

USCA Case #04-3159 Document #971472 Filed: 06/02/2006 Page 4 of 12
5

Nor is there any dispute that the bump to seven years for 

brandishing in § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii) requires a separate 

intentional act. Congress defined “brandishing” as 

“display[ing] all or part of the firearm, or otherwise mak[ing] 

the presence of the firearm known to another person, in order 

to intimidate that person, regardless of whether the firearm is 

directly visible to that person.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(4) 

(emphasis added). A requirement of intent for the discharge 

provision would be consistent with this progression on the 

face of § 924(c)(1)(A); it would reserve the ten-year minimum 

penalty for the unambiguously more culpable act of 

intentionally discharging a firearm. 

To be sure, discharges of a firearm are more likely to 

cause severe injury or even death than mere brandishing 

(though in cases where they actually do so the defendant 

would virtually always become independently guilty of 

another, major substantive offense). Nonetheless, as between 

an intentional brandishing and a purely accidental discharge, 

the increment in risk, given the less reprehensible intent, 

seems inadequate to explain a congressional intent to add 

three years (or five years if the discharge occurs without 

brandishing). 

Moreover, the presumption against strict liability in 

criminal statutes supports the inference of an intent 

requirement. Our circuit has said that “[a]lthough cases 

generally apply [this presumption] to statutes that define 

criminal offenses, we have little doubt that it should also be 

applied to legal norms that define aggravating circumstances 

for purposes of sentencing.” United States v. Burke, 888 F.2d 

862, 866 n.6 (D.C. Cir. 1989). Like the rule of lenity—which 

the Supreme Court has stated on several occasions applies not 

only “to interpretations of the substantive ambit of criminal 

prohibitions, but also to the penalties they impose,” Bifulco v. 

United States, 447 U.S. 381, 387 (1980)—“the presumption 

USCA Case #04-3159 Document #971472 Filed: 06/02/2006 Page 5 of 12
6

against strict liability is founded on the principle that laws that 

deprive an individual of his liberty should be strictly 

construed. Laws that enhance the sentence of a criminal 

defendant meet this description.” Burke, 888 F.2d at 866 n.6 

(citation omitted). 

The government argues that “[t]he ten year mandatory 

minimum sentence is applicable ‘if the firearm is discharged.’ 

. . . No words of qualification or limitation are included.” 

Brief for Appellees 39 (citation omitted). But at oral 

argument the government conceded some implicit limitations: 

for example, that the statute (despite its use of the passive 

voice) wouldn’t render an armed robber liable for the 

discharge by a law enforcement officer or bank teller who got 

a hold of the robber’s gun and used it to threaten the robber. 

See Oral Argument Recording at 16:58-17:26. Even with that 

concession, however, the government’s reading would 

produce a mandatory ten year sentence (i.e., five more than 

under the basic possession bump) if a defendant’s weapon 

accidentally discharged when he dropped it to comply with a 

police request to do so. 

The government’s other arguments for a (limited) strictliability reading do not convince us. The government seeks to 

draw a contrast between § 924(c)(4)’s definition of 

“brandish”—which explicitly includes an intent 

requirement—and the absence of such a provision for 

“discharge.” We don’t find the proposed inference 

compelling. There is a very reasonable explanation for 

Congress’s decision to include a definition of one term but not 

the other. The statute’s definition of “brandish” is broader 

than the dictionary definition, as it (Congress’s definition) 

includes uses of a gun invisible to the person threatened so 

long as the perpetrator somehow makes its presence known. 

Compare, e.g., WEBSTER’S II NEW RIVERSIDE DICTIONARY 89 

(1984): (defining “brandish” to mean “[t]o wave or flourish 

USCA Case #04-3159 Document #971472 Filed: 06/02/2006 Page 6 of 12
7

threateningly, as a weapon”); WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW 

INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY, UNABRIDGED 268 (1981) 

(defining “brandish” to mean (1) “to shake or wave (a 

weapon) menacingly”; (2) “to exhibit or expose in an 

ostentatious, shameless, or aggressive manner”). Having 

embarked on a definition, the drafter thought it proper to 

specify the required intent. 

The government also relies on United States v. Harris, 

959 F.2d 246 (D.C. Cir. 1992), where we analyzed a part of 

§ 924(c)(1) (1988 ed. Supp. V) (replaced with § 924(c)(1)(B) 

by Pub. L. 105-386, 112 Stat. 3469 (1998)) that imposes a 30-

year minimum when the weapon used is a machine gun. 

Assuming that this created a sentencing factor, we found that 

the government didn’t need to prove that the defendant knew 

the precise nature of the weapon he used, reasoning that “there 

does not seem to be a significant difference in mens rea

between a defendant who commits a drug crime using a pistol 

and one who commits the same crime using a machine gun; 

the act is different, but the mental state is equally 

blameworthy.” 959 F.2d at 259. The Supreme Court later 

construed the same provision (also in its pre-1998 form) and 

found that it set out a separate offense rather than a sentencing 

factor. Castillo v. United States, 530 U.S. 120 (2000). While 

the Court didn’t address what a defendant must know about 

his firearm, it did find the difference between carrying a pistol 

and carrying a machine gun “great, both in degree and kind,” 

id. at 126, a proposition somewhat undermining our analysis 

in Harris.

1

 In any event, our Harris decision simply read the 

 

1

 Circuits have disagreed whether the revised machinegun 

provision sets out a sentencing factor or a separate offense. 

Compare United States v. Harris, 397 F.3d 404, 412-14 (6th Cir. 

2005), with United States v. Gamboa, 439 F.3d 796, 810-11 (8th 

Cir. 2006). 

USCA Case #04-3159 Document #971472 Filed: 06/02/2006 Page 7 of 12
8

statute as creating a penalty gradation based solely on the 

hazard of the weapon itself (which in almost all instances 

would likely be obvious to the defendant). That such a 

calibration of penalties might be reasonable in that context 

says little to support the rather anomalous pattern that would 

flow from the government’s reading of § 924(c)(1)(A). 

We note that in rejecting any intent requirement for the 

discharge provision, the Tenth Circuit broadly reasoned that 

because the two provisions penalizing brandishing and 

discharging were sentencing factors rather than independent 

offenses, “no mens rea [was] required.” Nava-Sotelo, 354 

F.3d at 1206. But the proposition that the Constitution 

imposes no such requirement (assuming its truth) responds 

neither to our concern for disrupting § 924(c)’s apparent 

structure nor to the presumption against strict liability in 

criminal statutes and the rule of lenity, both of which apply 

under Bifulco as much to penalties as to the substantive 

offense. 

Having concluded that the discharge must be intentional, 

we must consider the character of the necessary intent. Like 

the Ninth Circuit in Dare, we find that, to trigger the 

minimum sentence under the discharge provision, the 

defendant must have acted with “general intent.” 425 F.3d at 

641 n.3. See, e.g., United States v. Lewis, 780 F.2d 1140, 

1142-43 (4th Cir. 1986) (“In the absence of an explicit 

statement that a crime requires specific intent, courts often 

hold that only general intent is needed.”). “A general intent 

crime is one in which an act was done voluntarily and 

intentionally, and not because of mistake or accident.” United 

States v. Blair, 54 F.3d 639, 642 (10th Cir. 1995) (emphasis 

added); see also United States v. Rhone, 864 F.2d 832, 834 

(D.C. Cir. 1989) (describing standard jury instruction 

regarding general versus specific intent). The exclusion of 

mere accident appears to parallel the Model Penal Code’s 

USCA Case #04-3159 Document #971472 Filed: 06/02/2006 Page 8 of 12
9

formula for filling statutory gaps in intent: “When the 

culpability sufficient to establish a material element of an 

offense is not prescribed by law, such element is established if 

a person acts purposely, knowingly or recklessly with respect 

thereto.” MODEL PENAL CODE § 2.02(3) (1985); see also id. at 

228 (Explanatory Note to § 2.02(3)) (observing “a rough 

correspondence” between the default rule requiring purpose, 

knowledge, or recklessness and the common law requirement 

of “general intent”). 

There is no evidence that in discharging his firearm 

Brown acted purposely or knowingly. Nor can his conduct 

with respect to the discharge be viewed as “reckless.” 

Obviously anyone who robs a bank and brandishes a firearm 

has already taken risks that themselves render his overall 

conduct reckless as the word is used in ordinary language or 

in, say, MODEL PENAL CODE § 2.02(2)(c) (“A person acts 

recklessly with respect to a material element of an offense 

when he consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable 

risk that the material element exists or will result from his 

conduct.”). But if that intent sufficed for the discharge 

provision, the separate mens rea requirement for the discharge 

provision would be meaningless or virtually so. Cf. United 

States v. Ray, 21 F.3d 1134, 1139 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (“It is not 

the danger associated with bank robberies that warrants 

enhanced punishment under [18 U.S.C.] § 2113(d). It is the 

increased danger caused by robberies committed in a certain 

way.”). As there is no evidence that the discharge itself arose 

out of any act manifesting additional disregard of others’ 

safety, we reverse the district court’s sentence with respect to 

§ 924(c)(1)(A)(iii) and remand for resentencing under 

§ 924(c)(1)(A)(ii). 

Brown raises two other substantive arguments, but neither 

is persuasive. First, Brown’s appellate counsel argues that his 

trial counsel furnished ineffective assistance of counsel by not 

USCA Case #04-3159 Document #971472 Filed: 06/02/2006 Page 9 of 12
10

trying to suppress evidence of a nonverbal “statement” Brown 

made to a police officer indicating the location of his gun 

shortly after his arrest outside the bank. None of the officers 

had yet read Brown his rights. But the police officer’s 

inquiries fall squarely within the public-safety exception to 

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), recognized by the 

Supreme Court in New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649 (1984). 

Failure to raise a meritless claim is not evidence of ineffective 

assistance. See United States v. Holland, 117 F.3d 589, 594 

(D.C. Cir. 1997). 

Second, Brown argues that the district court abused its 

discretion by permitting the government’s introduction of 

physical evidence found with Brown at the time he was 

arrested—including a gun and a bag containing approximately 

$23,000 in cash—without a proper evidentiary foundation. In 

fact, witnesses testified to every step of the evidence’s 

custody, from its original acquisition at the crime scene to its 

transmission to FBI agents and its handling by those agents. 

* * * 

Brown was sentenced on November 1, 2004—after the 

Supreme Court’s decision in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 

296 (2004), but before its decision in United States v. Booker, 

543 U.S. 220 (2005). During the hearing, the district court 

judge proposed to adopt three alternative sentences: one 

treating the Sentencing Guidelines as mandatory, a second 

treating the Guidelines as mandatory but applying only those 

enhancements that reflected facts found by the jury, and a 

third treating the Guidelines as advisory. The second and 

third options were designed, plainly, to comply with different 

remedies that the Supreme Court might choose if it were to 

extend Blakely to the Sentencing Guidelines. As we now 

know, the Court chose substantially the third. Booker, 543 

USCA Case #04-3159 Document #971472 Filed: 06/02/2006 Page 10 of 12
11

U.S. at 245-46, 259. But the district court judge never 

calculated the third variant; Brown’s counsel indicated she 

wasn’t ready to proceed with argument under such an 

approach. 

 The government concedes that the first sentence reflected 

constitutional Booker error and that, because the constitutional 

error was preserved, our review is for harmless error—that is, 

we ask whether it appears, “beyond a reasonable doubt, that 

the error complained of did not contribute to the sentence 

obtained.” See United States v. Simpson, 430 F.3d 1177, 1184 

(D.C. Cir. 2005) (quoting Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 

18, 24 (1967)) (internal brackets deleted). It points out that 

the district court judge chose the longest sentence in the 

ranges he found applicable, and cites the district judge’s 

statement that “it could be a much more serious sentence 

without [G]uidelines,” and other language to like effect. But 

other statements of the district judge cut the other way. In 

particular, he acknowledged the existence of multiple 

potentially mitigating circumstances—which he was largely 

disabled from considering under a mandatory Guidelines 

regime: 

I understand the family difficulties he’s had and the loss 

of family members and illnesses among his family and 

his wife’s family and him having had psychiatric 

treatment and medications in the past. 

As we noted in United States v. Gomez, “[i]f Booker’s 

rendering the Guidelines discretionary means anything,” it 

must give district court judges greater latitude in assessing 

potentially mitigating factors than they had under the 

Sentencing Guidelines. 431 F.3d 818, 825 (D.C. Cir. 2005). 

Thus the court’s signals appear mixed—on one hand the 

district judge suggests that Brown was lucky to get the benefit 

of the Guidelines’ limits, and on the other he recognizes that 

USCA Case #04-3159 Document #971472 Filed: 06/02/2006 Page 11 of 12
12

the Guidelines restricted consideration of some mitigating 

factors. On this record we find it hard to say that the 

government carried its burden of showing that the error was 

harmless, and remand for resentencing on the armed-robbery 

and felon-in-possession convictions. 

* * * 

The judgment is vacated and the case remanded for 

resentencing. 

So ordered. 

 

USCA Case #04-3159 Document #971472 Filed: 06/02/2006 Page 12 of 12