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Parties Involved:
Robert R. Rogers
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued September 24, 2008

Decided February 1, 2010

Before

RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge

 DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge

 JOHN DANIEL TINDER, Circuit Judge

No. 08-1499

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

ROBERT R. ROGERS,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Northern District of Indiana,

South Bend Division.

No. 3:07-CR-24-RM

Robert L. Miller, Jr.

Chief Judge.

O R D E R

This appeal represents another entry in a long line of cases challenging a district

court’s classification of a prior offense as a crime of violence under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2. While

in prison for a 2006 conviction for sexual misconduct with a minor, Robert Rogers sent a

threatening letter to a former friend who had assisted the government in obtaining a 2004

conviction of Rogers for possession of a firearm as a felon. Rogers pleaded guilty to mailing

a threatening communication and to retaliation against a government witness, in violation

of 18 U.S.C. §§ 876(b) and 1513(b)(2). The district court found that Rogers was a career

offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 because he had two prior felony convictions for crimes of

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

 Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

Case: 08-1499 Document: 16 Filed: 02/01/2010 Pages: 2
No. 08-1499 Page 2

violence. On that basis, the district court sentenced Rogers to 180 months on the first count

and 120 months on the second, to be served concurrently. Rogers argues that his earlier

conviction for sexual misconduct with a minor, IND. CODE § 35-42-4-9, is not a “crime of

violence” as § 4B1.1 uses that term and therefore he should not have been sentenced as a

career offender.

Under Indiana law, “[a] person at least eighteen (18) years of age who, with a child

at least fourteen (14) years of age but less than sixteen (16) years of age, performs or

submits to sexual intercourse or deviate sexual conduct commits sexual misconduct with a

minor, a Class C felony.” IND. CODE § 35-42-4-9(a). If the person is at least 21 years old, the

crime becomes a Class B felony. IND. CODE § 35-42-4-9(a)(1). Rogers was convicted of the

Class B felony. The statute also creates a separate Class A felony “if it is committed by

using or threatening the use of deadly force, if it is committed while armed with a deadly

weapon, if it results in serious bodily injury, or if the commission of the offense is

facilitated by furnishing the victim, without the victim’s knowledge, with a drug . . . or

controlled substance . . . or knowing that the victim was furnished with the drug or

controlled substance without the victim’s knowledge.” IND. CODE § 35-42-4-9(a)(2).

Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Begay v. United States, 553 U.S. 137 (2008),

and our decision in United States v. Woods, 576 F.3d 400 (7th Cir. 2009), we held in United

States v. McDonald, No. 08-2703, slip op. at 13-14 (7th Cir. Jan. 25, 2010) that because the

Wisconsin crime of second-degree sexual assault of a child is a strict-liability offense – in

the sense that neither the victim’s consent nor ignorance or reasonable mistake regarding

the victim’s age exculpates the offender – it is not purposeful and therefore it is not a crime

of violence for the purpose of the career-offender enhancement. See WIS. STAT. § 948.02(2)

(“Whoever has sexual contact or sexual intercourse with a person who has not attained the

age of 16 years is guilty of a Class C felony.”) 

Indiana courts similarly understand the crime of sexual misconduct with a minor to

be a strict liability offense. See, e.g., Wallace v. State, 905 N.E.2d 371, 381 n.11 (Ind. 2009). The

Class B felony of sexual misconduct with a minor, in violation of IND. CODE § 35-42-4-

9(a)(1), is therefore not a crime of violence for the specific purpose of the career-offender

enhancement, and the district court therefore erred by sentencing Rogers under § 4B1.1.

We therefore VACATE the sentence and REMAND for further proceedings in light of

Begay and McDonald.

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