Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-15-02754/USCOURTS-ca8-15-02754-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Lester E. Brown
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 15-2754

___________________________

United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Lester E. Brown

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Western District of Missouri - Kansas City

____________

 Submitted: February 12, 2016

 Filed: August 17, 2016

[Unpublished]

____________

Before LOKEN, ARNOLD, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

____________

PER CURIAM. 

Lester Eugene Lee Brown pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a

firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). He appeals the district

court’s application of U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(a)(4)(A), claiming his prior Missouri

conviction for resisting arrest, in violation of RSMo § 575.150.5, is not a crime of

violence because the (then) residual clause in § 4B1.2(a)(2) was unconstitutionally

Appellate Case: 15-2754 Page: 1 Date Filed: 08/17/2016 Entry ID: 4438244 
vague. Having jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, this court vacates the sentence

and remands. 

By Guideline 2K2.1(a)(4)(A), the base level for a felon-in-possession offense

is 20 if the defendant previously sustained “one felony conviction for either a crime

of violence or a controlled substance offense.” The district court found that Brown’s

prior Missouri conviction under § 575.150.5—resisting arrest by fleeing in a manner

creating a substantial risk of serious physical injury or death—is a crime of violence. 

Brown invokes Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551, 2557 (2015), which

invalidated the identically worded residual clause in 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). He

reasons that his conviction under RSMo § 575.150.5 cannot be a crime of violence

under § 2K2.1 (a)(4)(A).

This court has “joined those circuits thatremand sentencing appeals raising this

issue, leaving ‘for the district court on remand the question of whether the residual

clause of the career offender guideline is unconstitutional.’” United States v. Fields,

2016 WL 4191179, at *3 (8th Cir. Aug. 9, 2016), quoting United States v. Taylor, 803

F.3d 931, 933 (8th Cir. 2015). This court expresses “no view as to whether a

violation of § 575.150.5 is a crime of violence under the force clause.” Id. at *4. If

the government “adheres to its position in the district court,” that a § 575.150.5

conviction is not a violent felony under the “force clause” of § 4B1.2(a)(1), “we

assume it will nonetheless assist in gathering whatever state court records are

available so the district court can make a proper determination under the categorical

or modified categorical approach, whichever the court concludes is more

appropriate.” Id.

Brown’s second argument—that he should not receive criminal-history points

for the resisting-arrest conviction because it was charged and sentenced with one

count of first degree tampering (for which he received the same concurrent

sentence)—is “ridiculous.” See Donnell v. United States, 765 F.3d 817, 820 (8th Cir.

-2-

Appellate Case: 15-2754 Page: 2 Date Filed: 08/17/2016 Entry ID: 4438244 
2014) (“All § 4A1.2(a)(2) addresses is the number of points assigned to the grouped

sentence. It does not say that only one sentence in the group receives the point(s). 

When read in conjunction with § 4B1.2, the most logical interpretation is that every

sentence in the group has been ‘counted,’ with the caveat that the group sentence will

be counted only once if it contains more than one career offender predicate.”). 

The sentence is vacated and the case remanded for additional sentencing

proceedings. 

______________________________

-3-

Appellate Case: 15-2754 Page: 3 Date Filed: 08/17/2016 Entry ID: 4438244