Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-92-08029/USCOURTS-ca10-92-08029-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Dennis Eugene Curtis
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

FILL D 

United States Court of Appal~ 

TP-nt.h Circuit 

MAY 2 0 1993 

ROBERT L. HOECKER. 

Clerk . 

vs. 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

No. 92-8029 

DENNIS EUGENE CURTIS, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

(D.C. No. 91-CR-084-0lB 

(Wyoming) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before SEYMOUR and KELLY, Circuit Judges, and LEONARD,** District 

Judge. 

This appeal seeks to reverse the enhancement of DefendantAppellant's sentence pursuant to 18 u.s.c. S 924(e). DefendantAppellant Curtis pleaded guilty to one count charging him with 

being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 u.s.c. 

§§ 922(g) and 924(e) (1). Based on evidence of convictions of five 

prior felonies, the court sentenced the Defendant-Appellant to be 

imprisoned for a term of 182 months. Defendant seeks to show that 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

** The Hon·orable Timothy D. Leonard, United States District Judge 

for the Western District of Oklahoma, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 92-8029 Document: 010110115124 Date Filed: 05/20/1993 Page: 1 
three of the prior felonies were not proper felonies for 

enhancement purposes. 

Under 18 u.s.c. § 924(e), a person who is convicted of being 

a felon in possession of a firearm who in addition has three 

previous convictions for violent felonies will be imprisoned for a 

mandatory minimum of 15 years. 

The Defendant-Appellant does not contest that two of the five 

felony convictions were violent felonies. Therefore, if the United 

States of America shows that any one of the three convictions in 

question is a proper conviction for enhancement purposes, the 

judgment of the lower court shall be affirmed. This court finds 

that Defendant-Appellant's Arkansas conviction of aggravated 

rpbbery is a proper conviction for enhancement purposes and affirms 

the judgment below. 

AGGRAVATED ROBBERY 

Appellant-Defendant argues that while he pleaded guilty to 

aggravated robbery, he in fact did not engage in the conduct 

alleged. In the Information of the aggravated robbery, it is 

stated that the Defendant-Appellant did unlawfully and feloniously 

"while armed with a deadly weapon, threaten to employ immediate 

physical force upon an employee of Senior Bob's Taco Hut with the 

purpose of committing a theft(.]" 

The Defendant-Appellant states that he drove the getaway car, 

and did not threaten to employ immediate physical force upon any 

person. In his brief, he states: 

' 

"The statute and Information 

alone would end the inquiry if the Appellant had, in fact, engaged 

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Appellate Case: 92-8029 Document: 010110115124 Date Filed: 05/20/1993 Page: 2 
in the conduct alleged. The Appellant did not. Appellant did not 

wield a weapon or threaten a n employee. The application of the 

categorical approach to this particular •conviction' would simply 

work an injustice. Whether foolishly or for the purposes of 

convenience or based upon bad legal advice, the Appellant 

apparently pled to an offense the elements of which did not apply 

to his conduct." {Emphasis in original.) Appellant's Principal 

Brief, pages 11-12. 

Defendant-Appellant argues that this court should look to the 

particular facts underlying the conviction and apply the 

"otherwise" clause of § 924 {e) for the definition of violent felony 

which states: " .. otherwise involves conduct that presents a 

serious potential risk of physical injury to another [.]" This 

court declines to do so. 

ANALYSIS 

The Supreme Court of the United States has clearly held that 

enhancement under S 924{e) mandates a formal categorical approach 

and does not look to the particular facts underlying a conviction. 

Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600 {1990). The Taylor 

court stated that allowing factual inquiries underlying a 

conviction would present practical difficulties and potential 

unfairness. Id. at 601. The Taylor court said: "We thi nk the 

only plausible interpretation of§ 924{e) (2) {B) {ii) is that, like 

the rest of the enhancement statute, it generally requires the 

trial court to look only to the f a ct of conviction and the 

statutory definition of the prior offense." I!L.. at 602. From our 

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Appellate Case: 92-8029 Document: 010110115124 Date Filed: 05/20/1993 Page: 3 
reading of the Taylor case, we find that this court under these 

circumstances should look to the fact of conviction and the 

statutory definition of the prior offense only. 

Appellant-Defendant concedes that the Arkansas statute 

regarding aggravated robbery comes within the definition of generic 

burglary as defined in the Taylor case. As already cited above in 

Appellant's Principal Brief, Appellant-Defendant states that the 

statute and Information alone would end the inquiry if the 

Appellant had, in fact, engaged in the conduct alleged. 

Appellant's Principal Brief, page 11. 1 Nor is the fact of the 

conviction questioned. Instead, the propriety of pleading guilty 

to a crime Appellant-Defendant now says he did not do is 

questioned, but not the fact of the conviction itself. Therefore, 

Defendant-Appellant does not question whether a conviction 

occurred, but rather questions whether the conviction should have 

occurred. Under the Taylor case, questioning the underlying facts 

of a conviction is not allowed. 2 Therefore, we find that 

Defendant-Appellant's conviction of aggravated robbery is a violent 

felony proper for enhancement purposes. 

1 Also, in the sentencing proceeding Defendant-Appellant's attorney stated: "I can find -- I will tell 

the court, I can find no problem with the armed robbery statute as the State of Arkansas had it in effect at 

the time of the entry of this plea." Tr. Vol. II at 15. 

2

Toere is a narrow exception noted in Taylor at 602. However, this exception is not applicable. In 

the case before the bar, Defendant-Appellant is attempting to re-visit the underlying facts to show that the 

plea was erroneous, which is precisely what is prohibited by Taylor. 

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Appellate Case: 92-8029 Document: 010110115124 Date Filed: 05/20/1993 Page: 4 
• 

CONCLUSION 

The finding that aggravated robbery in this case is a proper 

violent felony for enhancement purposes renders moot the issues in 

the other two prior convictions. Under § 924 (e), three prior 

convictions invokes the fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence. 

Because Defendant-Appellant concedes two convictions as proper 

convictions for enhancement purposes, and we find the aggravated 

robbery a proper conviction for enhancement purposes, the§ 924 

requirement of three prior convictions is satisfied. 

Accordingly, the sentence rendered by the trial court is 

hereby AFFIRMED. 

-sEntered for the Court 

TIMOTHY D. LEONARD 

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