Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-05205/USCOURTS-ca10-89-05205-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Bobby Kent Walker
Appellant

Document Text:

\ 

FILED 

PUBLISH United States Court Qf Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS A?~ l 0 1991 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) 

v. 

BOBBY 

) 

Plaintiff-Appellee, ) 

) 

) No. 89-5205 

) 

KENT WALKER, ) 

) 

Defendant-Appellant. ) 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

For the Northern District of Oklahoma 

D.C. No. 89-CR-82-C 

Gordon Cecil, Assistant u.s. Attorney, (Tony M. Graham, United 

States Attorney, and Susan w. Pennington, Assistant U.S. Attorney, 

on the brief), Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Plaintiff-Appellee. 

Kimberly Steele of Larry L. Oliver & Associates, P.C., (Larry R. 

Oliver of Larry L. Oliver & Associates, P.C.; and David Booth, 

Federal Public Defender, on the briefs) Tulsa, Oklahoma, for 

Defendant-Appellant. 

Before MCKAY and MOORE, Circuit Judges, and SAFFELS, District 

Judge.* 

MOORE, Circuit Judge. 

*The Honorable Dale E. Saffels, United States Senior District 

Judge for the District of Kansas, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 89-5205 Document: 01019298344 Date Filed: 04/10/1991 Page: 1 
Bobby Kent Walker was convicted of two counts of unlawful 

possession of a firearm by a felon under 18 u.s.c. §§ 922(g) and 

924(e)(1). He was sentenced to 360 months plus a five-year term 

of supervised release. On appeal, Mr. Walker argues that during 

trial the district court improperly disallowed testimony of a 

witness for the defense, that it misapplied the sentencing 

guidelines, and that § 922(g) violates the equal protection 

clause. We affirm. 

The evidence offered at trial showed that on March 10, 1989, 

the defendant drove to the home of Richard Hyle, apparently 

because he was upset that Mr. Hyle was dating his ex-wife. Mr. 

Hyle saw the defendant's car pull up and went outside to speak 

with him. According to Mr. Hyle, the defendant pulled out a gun 

and fired several times, hitting Mr. Hyle once in the leg. Mr. 

Hyle retaliated in kind as Mr. Walker drove away. These events 

provide the basis for the first count of the indictment. 

The defendant was arrested on March 29, 1989, at a bar in 

Tulsa, Oklahoma. One of the arresting officers testified that Mr. 

Walker tried to hide his weapon when he spotted the officer 

approaching, but he in no way attempted to use the weapon to 

prevent his arrest. These events provide the basis for the second 

count of the indictment. 

I. Disallowance of Certain Testimony by a Defense Witness 

The defendant argues that the district court improperly 

denied him the opportunity to impeach Mr. Hyle by limiting 

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defendant's questioning of Agent Jaime Reyes of the Bureau of 

Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the case agent investigating the 

charges filed against the defendant. At the pretrial detention 

hearing, Agent Reyes stated that he learned Mr. Hyle was the first 

to shoot from "[i]nterviews through Mr. Hyle." Thus to impeach 

Mr. Hyle's trial testimony to the contrary, the defense called 

Agent Reyes. 

The district judge cautioned defense counsel that for the 

purpose of impeaching Mr. Hyle, counsel could not ask Agent Reyes 

what Agent Reyes had testified to previously, but could only ask 

what Mr. Hyle had personally told him. This caution 

notwithstanding, defense counsel asked, "And did you, at one time 

or another during your work as a case agent, attain information of 

Mr. Hyle indicating that he fired first?" Agent Reyes answered, 

"No." At that point, another bench conference occurred, and the 

district judge noted that defense counsel's question was improper 

because Mr. Hyle could only be impeached by his own prior 

inconsistent statements, not by what Agent Reyes might have known 

from other sources. The judge concluded that, regardless of the 

improper question, the issue was irrelevant because the witness 

answered the question in a manner that failed to impeach Mr. Hyle. 

The judge then refused to allow defense counsel to attempt to 

elicit further testimony from Agent Reyes, reasoning that Agent 

Reyes was called for the sole purpose of impeaching Mr. Hyle and 

was never called as a witness himself. 

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The defendant complains that the district court's refusal to 

allow counsel to further question Mr. Reyes was a denial of 

compulsory process. However, it is well settled that it is not 

improper for the trial judge to limit impeachment evidence on 

matters that are deemed collateral or irrelevant. United 

States v. Warledo, 557 F.2d 721, 726 (lOth Cir. 1977). This rule 

stems from the trial judge's power under Fed. R. Evid. 403 to 

exclude evidence which is more prejudicial, misleading, or 

confusing than probative. A matter has been held to be collateral 

if it could not have been introduced in evidence for any purpose 

independent of the impeachment. State v. Oswalt, 381 P.2d 617 

(Wash. 1963). 

There is no dispute that the issue of whether at some prior 

time Mr. Hyle stated he had fired first was relevant only for 

impeachment purposes. The indictment charged only the status 

offense of possession of a weapon and did not include assault 

charges. Who fired first was irrelevant to the issue of guilt. 

The defense effort to impeach Mr. Hyle on the issue of who fired 

first was therefore a collateral issue. 

The trial judge's ruling is consistent with several courts' 

and commentators' treatment of collateral evidence introduced 

solely for impeachment purposes. In United States v. Nace, 561 

F.2d 763, 770 (9th Cir. 1977), the Ninth Circuit held that 

"impeachment . on a collateral matter . . . was properly 

excluded in the discretion of the trial court." Id. (citing 

United States v. Carrion, 463 F.2d 704 (9th Cir. 1972); Lenske v. 

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Appellate Case: 89-5205 Document: 01019298344 Date Filed: 04/10/1991 Page: 4 
Knudsen, 410 F.2d 583 (9th Cir. 1969); Ramirez v. United States, 

294 F.2d 277 (9th Cir. 1961)). In addition, commentators agree 

that: "If the witness denies making a statement on a matter 

classified as collateral, his examiner must take his answer --

that is, he may not prove the making of the statement by extrinsic 

evidence." J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein's Evidence 

§ 607[06] at 607-107 (citing Cwach v. United States, 212 F.2d 520, 

529-30 (8th Cir. 1954) among others)); see also E. W. Cleary, 

McCormick on Evidence § 36 at 77 (3d ed. 1984) and cases cited 

therein. This analysis is supported by our decision in United 

States v. Bradshaw, 787 F.2d 1385, 1392 (lOth Cir. 1986), where we 

held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing 

to grant a continuance where the evidence sought "would have been 

limited to impeaching [the witness] on a collateral matter." 

However, adherence to established rules of evidence does not 

necessarily assure that the district court has complied in this 

case with the defendant's Sixth Amendment rights to confrontation 

and cross-examination. The confrontation clause of the Sixth 

Amendment guarantees the right of an accused in a criminal 

prosecution to confront adverse witnesses, Pointer v. Texas, 380 

u.s. 400 (1965), as well as the opportunity to cross-examine 

hostile witnesses. Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 315-16 (1974). 

These Sixth Amendment rights, however, are not unlimited. As the 

Supreme Court noted in Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 u.s. 673, 679 

(1986): 

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trial judges retain wide latitude insofar as the 

Confrontation Clause is concerned to impose reasonable 

limits on such cross-examination based on concerns 

about, among other things, harassment, prejudice, 

confusion of the issues, the witness' safety, or 

interrogation that is repetitive or only marginally 

relevant. 

The Court in Van Arsdall found a violation of the defendant's 

confrontation clause rights, but only because the trial judge cut 

off all inquiry into a material matter. Id. 

The actions of the district judge in the present case are 

consistent with the limits to confrontation clause rights 

enunciated in VanArsdall. In fact, the competing concerns listed 

by the Van Arsdall Court are many of the same concerns contained 

in Fed. R. Evid. 403 granting the trial court discretion to 

exclude evidence that is prejudicial, misleading, confusing, or 

wasteful. Again, that is not to say that a proper Rule 403 ruling 

will subsume the constitutional issue, but it does identify the 

types of competing interests a court may consider in determining 

the proper constitutional limits to a defendant's Sixth Amendment 

right to confrontation and cross-examination. 

Therefore, we hold that the district court did not abuse its 

discretion in not allowing the further interrogation of Agent 

Reyes after he answered that he had not been made aware that Mr. 

Hyle had fired first. The question put to the witness was 

unclear; therefore, despite Agent Reyes' testimony at the 

detention hearing, his response may not have been inconsistent. 

Moreover, it was relevant only for the purposes of impeaching Mr. 

Hyle. It was within the district court's discretion in both the 

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Appellate Case: 89-5205 Document: 01019298344 Date Filed: 04/10/1991 Page: 6 
context of Rule 403 and the Sixth Amendment confrontation clause 

to hold that the defendant had to take Agent Reyes' answer, and 

could not further question Agent Reyes as a means to impeach Mr. 

Hyle on a collateral issue. 

II. Application of the Sentencing Guidelines 

The defendant argues that the district judge's sentencing him 

as a career offender under u.s.s.G. § 4B1.1 was error as a matter 

of law. Under the Guidelines, a defendant is a career offender 

if: 

(1) the defendant was at least eighteen years old at the 

time of the instant offense, (2) the instant offense of 

conviction is a felony that is either a crime of 

violence or a controlled substance offense, and (3) the 

defendant has at least two prior felony convictions of 

either a crime of violence or a controlled substance 

offense. 

The defendant concedes that he satisfies points one and three, but 

argues that the offense of possession of a firearm by a convicted 

felon cannot be a crime of violence under point two. He cites 18 

u.s.c. § 16, incorporated by reference in § 4B1.1, which defines a 

crime of violence as: 

(a) an offense that has as an element the use, attempted 

use, or threatened use of physical force against the 

person or property of another, or 

(b) any other offense that is a felony and that, by its 

nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force 

against the person or property of another may be used in 

the course of committing the offense. 

The defendant cites United States v. Selfa, 918 F.2d 749, 751-52 

(9th Cir.), cert. denied, 111 s. Ct. 521 (1990), and United 

States v. Sherbondy, 865 F.2d 996, 1006-10 (9th Cir. 1988), for 

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the proposition that a sentencing court is limited to examination 

of the elements of the statute violated in determining the threat 

of physical violence to another. The Sherbondy court stated: 

"There is no indication that Congress intended that a particular 

statutory or common law crime would in some circumstances 

constitute a common law felony and in other circumstances not, 

depending on how the offense was committed. . . II Id. at 1008. 

However, the Sentencing Guidelines' definition of a crime of 

violence in effect at the time the defendant was sentenced governs 

this case. See United States v. Brunson, 907 F.2d 117, 120 (lOth 

Cir. 1990); United States v. McNeal, 900 F.2d 119 (7th Cir. 1990); 

United States v. Williams, 892 F.2d 296, 304 (3d Cir. 1989), cert. 

denied, 110 S. Ct. 3221 (1990). Therefore, § 4Bl.l and 

accompanying commentary will be analyzed as it existed on 

November 29, 1989, the date of sentencing. 

As of November 1, 1989, S 4B1.2 defined a crime of violence 

as any offense that: 

(i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or 

threatened use of physical force against the person 

of another, or 

(ii) is a burglary of a dwelling, arson, or extortion, 

involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves 

conduct that presents a serious potential risk of 

physical injury to another. 

Application Note 2 to § 4Bl.2 states: 

Often offenses are included [as crimes of violence] 

where (A) that offense has as an element the use, 

attempted use, or threatened use of physical force 

against the person of another, or (B) the conduct set 

forth in the count of which the defendant was convicted 

involved the use of explosives or, by its nature, 

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Appellate Case: 89-5205 Document: 01019298344 Date Filed: 04/10/1991 Page: 8 
presented a serious potential risk of physical injury to 

another. 

The November 1, 1989 amendments to both § 4B1.2 and Application 

Note 2 make clear that the sentencing judge may consider the 

underlying conduct of the defendant in committing the offense 

unfettered by the elements of the offense. The commentary to the 

amendment states that "[t]he- purpose of this amendment is to 

clarify the definitions of crime of violence and controlled 

substance offense used in this guideline." See Appendix C, 

amendment 268. As the November 1, 1989 amendment is merely a 

clarification of the pre-November 1, 1989 definition of a crime of 

violence, we will examine the treatment of this issue by courts 

prior to the effective date of the amendment as guidance for 

construction of the post-November 1, 1989 language. 

The cases cited by the defendant and those cited by the 

government appear at first to be in conflict over the issue of 

whether prior to November 1, 1989, a sentencing court could have 

examined the underlying conduct of the defendant in determining 

whether the crime committed was a crime of violence for the 

purposes of § 4B1.1. However, closer examination shows that these 

cases can be easily reconciled. While the Sherbondy and Selfa 

courts, cited by the defendant, did hold that crimes of violence 

may be defined only by the elements of the crime charged, these 

cases concerned determinations of whether ~o=r=i~o~r~--=c~o~n~v~i~c~t==i=o=n~s 

constituted crimes of violence for the purposes of sentencing 

under § 4B1.1. These courts adopted this practical rule to avoid 

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"ad hoc mini-trials regarding an individual's prior criminal 

conduct. The problems with such hearings are evident. Witnesses 

would often be describing events years past. Such testimony is 

highly unreliable. . • . Additionally, there would likely be 

substantial problems with court records and transcripts relating 

to earlier convictions." Sherbondy, 865 F.2d at 1008. However, 

these concerns do not apply when the court is examining the 

conduct of the defendant in the instant offense. See United 

States v. Coble, 1991 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 490, *11 (E.D. Wash. 1991). 

Therefore, we hold Sherbondy and Selfa are inapposite when the 

issue is whether the conduct which is the subject of the current 

charges constitutes a crime of violence. 

Once the cases concerning examination of prior convictions 

are distinguished, it is evident that prior to November 1, 1989, 

courts consistently held that possession of a firearm by a 

convicted felon can constitute a violent crime for the purposes of 

sentencing as a career offender. However, they were divided on 

the exact rationale for reaching this conclusion. The Ninth 

Circuit in United States v. O'Neal, 910 F.2d 663 (9th Cir. 1990), 

held that under 18 u.s.c. § 16, the referenced definition of a 

crime of violence under § 4B1.1 prior to November 1, 1989, any 

conviction under § 922(g) of being a felon possessing a firearm Qv 

its nature poses the requisite substantial risk that force will be 

used. According to this rationale, the underlying conduct of the 

defendant is irrelevant because it is assumed that any convicted 

felon possessing a firearm is necessarily a substantial threat to 

persons and property. 

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Other courts read the "by its nature" language of 18 u.s.c. 

§ 16 less comprehensively, and instead focussed on the commentary 

to § 4B1.2, referenced by§ 4Bl.l, which prior to November 1, 1989 

stated in Application Note 1: 

The Commission interprets [a crime of violence] as 

follows: murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, aggravated 

assault, extortionate extension of credit, forcible sex 

offenses, arson, or robbery are covered by this 

provision. Other offenses are covered only if the 

conduct for which the defendant was specifically 

convicted meets the above definition. For example, 

conviction for an escape accomplished by force or threat 

of injury would be covered; conviction for an escape by 

stealth would not be covered.! 

See United States v. Alvarez, 914 F.2d 915, 918 (7th Cir. 1990); 

United States v. Goodman, 914 F.2d 696, 698-99 (5th Cir. 1990); 

United States v. McNeal, 90.0 F. 2d 119, 122-23 (7th Cir. 1990); 

United States v. Williams, 892 F.2d 296, 304 (3d Cir. 1989), cert. 

denied, 110 S. Ct. 3221 (1990); United States v. Thompson, 891 

F.2d 507, 509-10 (4th Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 110 s. Ct. 1957 

(1990). In Williams and McNeal, the Third and Seventh Circuits 

determined that possession of a firearm where there is evidence 

that it had been fired constituted a crime of violence. 

Specifically, in Williams, the court reviewed the examples in 

Application Note 1 and concluded that "possessing a gun while 

firing it . . . is a crime of violence; possession without firing 

the weapon is not." In Thompson, the Fourth Circuit held that the 

mere pointing of a gun constitutes a crime of violence, and in 

Alvarez and Goodman, the Seventh and Fifth Circuits held that 

1The language quoted above is taken from the pre-November 1, 1989 

Application Note. 

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possession plus evidence of intent to fire the weapon constituted 

a crime of violence for the purposes of § 4B1.1. 

Concluding that Application Note 1 to § 4B1.1, even prior to 

November 1, 1989, strongly implied that the defendant's conduct 

may be taken into consideration by the sentencing court, and 

noting that the Application Notes are entitled to substantial 

weight in interpreting the Guidelines, United States v. White, 888 

F.2d 490 (7th Cir. 1989), we agree with the majority of circuits 

that, even prior to November 1, 1989, the conduct of the defendant 

in the instant offense can be taken into consideration in 

determining whether the defendant has committed a crime of 

violence for the purposes of sentencing under § 4B1.1. However, 

we disagree with the O'Neal court's use of the "by its nature" 

language to hold that possession of a firearm by a convicted felon 

necessarily constitutes a crime of violence. See United States v. 

Hernandez, 753 F. Supp. 1191 (S.D.N.Y. 1990) (declining to follow 

the logic of O'Neal). Since the 

present case involves the actual 

person, it falls squarely within the 

defendant's 

firing of 

reasoning 

conduct in the 

the firearm at a 

of Williams and 

McNeal. Therefore, even if the defendant had been sentenced prior 

to November 1, 1989, we would have reached the same conclusion. 

This is consistent with the Guidelines' commentary that the 

amendments to § 4B1.2 were meant to clarify and not to change the 

definition of a crime of violence. Accordingly, we hold the 

district court did not err in finding that the defendant's 

possession of a firearm was a crime of violence. 

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This conclusion only applies to the count concerning the 

incident at Mr. Hyle's house on March 10, 1989. The record shows 

no conduct attendant to the second count which can be construed as 

a crime of violence. This, however, is small consolation for the 

defendant, as the first count is sufficient to qualify him as a 

career offender under § 4B1.1. 

III. Whether Section 922(q)(1) Violates the Equal 

Protection Clause 

The defendant argues that because§ 922(g)(1) only applies to 

firearms that have been involved in interstate commerce, it 

violates the equal protection clause by discriminating against 

convicted felons who live in states without firearms 

manufacturers. However, this argument has been rejected by 

numerous courts, see, e.g., United States v. Wynde, 579 F.2d 1088 

(8th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 u.s. 871 (1978), and cases cited 

therein, and the defendant fails to distinguish his argument from 

those rejected previously. We therefore see no merit in his 

argument. 

AFFIRMED. 

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