Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-18-35457/USCOURTS-ca9-18-35457-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Terrance Lee Jones
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

TERRANCE LEE JONES,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 18-35457

D.C. No.

3:08-cr-00057-TMB-1

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Alaska

Timothy M. Burgess, Chief District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted June 13, 2019

Anchorage, Alaska

Filed March 4, 2020

Before: A. Wallace Tashima, William A. Fletcher,

and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge W. Fletcher

Case: 18-35457, 03/04/2020, ID: 11617362, DktEntry: 47-1, Page 1 of 8
2 UNITED STATES V. JONES

SUMMARY*

28 U.S.C. § 2255

The panel affirmed on different grounds the district

court’s denial of Terrance Lee Jones’s 28 U.S.C. § 2255

motion to vacate his criminal sentence, which had been

enhanced pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act

(ACCA), in a case in which Jones was convicted of unlawful

possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).

The district court held that the § 2255 motion was

untimely, but agreed with Jones that his prior conviction for

Colorado burglary was not a conviction for a violent felony

under the modified categorical approach, and that Jones

therefore was not eligible for the ACCA enhancement. 

The district court certified for appeal the question whether

a claim of actual innocence of a noncapital sentence can be

asserted to overcome a procedural default when the petitioner

has received a sentence for which he was statutorily

ineligible.

The panel did not need to reach the certified question

because it held that Jones’s prior conviction for Colorado

second-degree burglary of a dwelling was a conviction for a

violent felony, and that he was therefore properly subject to

the ACCA enhancement. The panel explained that the prior

conviction qualified as a violent felony because Colo. Rev.

Stat. § 18-4-203(2)(a) covers only conduct within the generic

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

Case: 18-35457, 03/04/2020, ID: 11617362, DktEntry: 47-1, Page 2 of 8
UNITED STATES V. JONES 3

offense of burglary as defined by the Supreme Court in

United States v. Stitt, 139 S. Ct. 399 (2018).

COUNSEL

Michelle Nesbett (argued), Nesbett & Nesbett P.C.,

Anchorage, Alaska, for Defendant-Appellant.

KarenVandergaw(argued),Assistant UnitedStates Attorney;

Bryan Schroder, United States Attorney; United States

Attorney’s Office, Anchorage, Alaska; for Plaintiff-Appellee.

OPINION

W. FLETCHER, Circuit Judge:

Terrance Lee Jones appeals the district court’s denial of

his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate his criminal sentence. 

We affirm.

In 2008, Jones pleaded guilty in district court to one count

of unlawful possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§ 922(g)(1). Such a conviction ordinarily carries a statutory

maximum penalty of ten years’ imprisonment. 18 U.S.C.

§ 924(a)(2). However, the Armed Career Criminal Act

(“ACCA”) imposes a fifteen-year mandatory minimum

sentence for violations of § 922(g) when the offender has

three or more previous convictions for a violent felony or a

serious drug offense. 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). The sentencing

court found that Jones had three previous convictions for

violent felonies and sentenced him to eighteen years’

imprisonment.

Case: 18-35457, 03/04/2020, ID: 11617362, DktEntry: 47-1, Page 3 of 8
4 UNITED STATES V. JONES

Jones moved to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C.

§ 2255. The district court held that his motion was timebarred. But it noted that it agreed with Jones on the merits of

one of his claims for relief. In the district court’s view,

Jones’s prior conviction for Colorado burglary was not a

conviction for a violent felony under the modified categorical

approach, and Jones therefore was not eligible for the ACCA

career offender sentencing enhancement. The district court

issued a certificate of appealability on the following issue:

“[W]hether a claim of actual innocence of a noncapital

sentence can be asserted to overcome a procedural default

when the petitioner has received a sentence for which he was

statutorily ineligible.”

On appeal, Jones argues that he is actually innocent of his

sentence and that he therefore should be allowed to pursue a

§ 2255 motion under the miscarriage-of-justice exception to

the one-year limitations period under § 2255(f). We review

de novo. United States v. Swisher, 811 F.3d 299, 306 (9th

Cir. 2016) (en banc). We do not reach the certified question

because we hold that Jones’s prior conviction for Colorado

burglary was a conviction for a violent felony, and that he

was therefore properly subject to the career offender

enhancement.

ACCA defines a “violent felony” to include any state or

federal felony “that ‘is burglary.’” Mathis v. United States,

136 S. Ct. 2243, 2248 (2016) (quoting 18 U.S.C.

§ 924(e)(2)(B)(ii)). “A crime counts as ‘burglary’ under the

Act if its elements are the same as, or narrower than, those of

the generic offense.” Id. (emphasis in original). The generic

offense consists of “an unlawful or unprivileged entry into, or

remaining in, a building or other structure, with intent to

commit a crime.” Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 598

Case: 18-35457, 03/04/2020, ID: 11617362, DktEntry: 47-1, Page 4 of 8
UNITED STATES V. JONES 5

(1990). The Supreme Court recently explained in United

States v. Stitt, 139 S. Ct. 399, 407 (2018), that under generic

burglary “a building or other structure” includes a “vehicle[]

designed or adapted for overnight use.”

Under the modified categorical approach, a court must

first determine whether the statute is divisible into sets of

elements for different offenses or whether it merely describes

alternative means of committing the same offense. Mathis,

136 S. Ct. at 2256. “If statutory alternatives carry different

punishments, then under Apprendi they must be elements.”

Id. (citing, e.g., Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-4-203 (2015)). 

Statutory alternatives that carry the same punishment may

nonetheless describe elements of different offenses if

documents such as indictments and jury instructions

“referenc[e] one alternative term to the exclusion of all

others.” Id. at 2257. If a statute is divisible, a court “looks to

a limited class of documents (for example, the indictment,

jury instructions, or plea agreement and colloquy) to

determine what crime, with what elements, a defendant was

convicted of.” Id. at 2249.

Jones pleaded guilty in Colorado state court in 1990 to

second degree burglary as a class three felony under Colorado

Revised Statutes § 18-4-203. The criminal complaint charged

that Jones “did unlawfully, feloniously and knowingly enter

and remain unlawfully in the dwelling of [the victims].” That

is, Jones pleaded guilty to a violation of § 18-4-203(2)(a).

Colorado defines second degree burglary as follows:

(1) A person commits second degree burglary,

if he knowingly breaks an entrance into, or

enters, or remains unlawfully in a building or

Case: 18-35457, 03/04/2020, ID: 11617362, DktEntry: 47-1, Page 5 of 8
6 UNITED STATES V. JONES

occupied structure with intent to commit

therein a crime against a person or property.

(2) Second degree burglary is a class 4 felony,

but it is a class 3 felony if:

(a) It is a burglary of a dwelling; or

(b) It is a burglary, the objective of which

is the theft of a controlled substance, as

defined in section 12-22-303(7), C.R.S.,

lawfully kept within any building or

occupied structure.

Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-4-203 (1986).

Colorado defines “dwelling” and “building” as follows:

(g) “Dwelling” means a building which is

used, intended to be used, or usually used by

a person for habitation.

Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-1-901 (1986).

(1) “Building” means a structure which has

the capacity to contain, and is designed for the

shelter of, man, animals, or property, and

includes a ship, trailer, sleeping car, airplane,

or other vehicle or place adapted for overnight

accommodations of persons or animals, or for

carrying on of business therein, whether or not

a person or animal is actually present.

Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-4-101 (1986).

Case: 18-35457, 03/04/2020, ID: 11617362, DktEntry: 47-1, Page 6 of 8
UNITED STATES V. JONES 7

The Colorado statute is divisible in several respects—as

to § 18-4-203(1) and (2), and as to § 18-4-203(2)(a) and (b). 

Subsections (1) and (2) correspond to offenses with different

penalties. Paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (2) do not

result in different penalties, but both the criminal complaint

in Jones’s case and the Colorado pattern jury instructions

make clear that they contain alternative elements. See

Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2257. The statute is not divisible,

however, with respect to the different structures that may

constitute a dwelling. The question is whether a “dwelling,”

as defined in §§ 18-4-101 and 18-1-901, is the same as, or

narrower than, the definition of a “building or other structure”

in the federal generic offense.

“Stitt indicates [that nonpermanent or mobile structures]

must be ‘adapted or used for overnight accommodation’” to

satisfy the building-or-other-structure element of generic

burglary. Mutee v. United States, 920 F.3d 624, 628 (9th Cir.

2019) (per curiam) (quoting Stitt, 139 S. Ct. at 404). A

“building” as defined in § 18-4-101 covers significantly more

than the generic element of “building or other structure,”

because it includes vehicles adapted for the overnight

accommodation of people or animals, as well as structures

that are designed to shelter only property. But the statutory

definition of “dwelling” under § 18-1-901, which is tied to,

but narrows, the definition contained in § 18-4-101, covers no

more than the generic element. Vehicles included in the

offense of burglary of a dwelling, as dwelling is defined in

§§ 18-4-101 and 18-1-901, are only those that are both

“adapted for overnight accommodations . . . or for carrying

on of business therein” and “used, intended to be used, or

usually used by a person for habitation.” The requirement of

adaptation for overnight accommodation means that a

dwelling under the statute cannot cover, for example, “a car

Case: 18-35457, 03/04/2020, ID: 11617362, DktEntry: 47-1, Page 7 of 8
8 UNITED STATES V. JONES

in which a homeless person occasionally sleeps.” Stitt, 139 S.

Ct. at 407. And the requirement of use, intended use, or usual

use by a person for habitation means that it cannot cover a

vehicle merely “used[] for the storage or safekeeping” of

property. Id. (distinguishing Mathis).

We conclude that Jones’s prior crime of conviction of

second degree burglary of a dwelling under Colo. Rev. Stat.

§ 18-4-203(2)(a) covers only conduct within the generic

offense of burglary as defined by the Supreme Court in Stitt. 

Jones was therefore properly sentenced under 18 U.S.C.

§ 924(e)(1).

AFFIRMED.

Case: 18-35457, 03/04/2020, ID: 11617362, DktEntry: 47-1, Page 8 of 8