Source: https://cbaclelegalconnection.com/tag/armed-career-criminal-act/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 06:31:55+00:00

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The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in United States v. Snyder on Monday, July 20, 2015.
John Henry Snyder, II, was driving erratically when an Oklahoma City police officer pulled him over. Upon approaching Snyder’s vehicle, the officer smelled the odor of burnt marijuana. Snyder produced a driver’s license and expired insurance verification and the officer decided to search the vehicle based on the burnt marijuana smell. The officer asked Snyder to exit the vehicle, at which point he attempted to flee and yelled to his passenger to “go with it or leave with it.” Additional officers arrived on scene and searched the vehicle. They found a gun under the driver’s seat, which Snyder admitted was his. Because of his three prior felony convictions, he received the mandatory minimum 15-year sentence required by ACCA.
On appeal, Snyder challenged the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress the firearm, contending the search was illegal. The district court concluded the firearm was admissible because the search fell under the inevitable discovery doctrine—because of his lack of insurance verification and arrest, police would have impounded his vehicle and found the gun on an inventory search. The Tenth Circuit found it did not need to reach the inevitable discovery doctrine because the search was legal based on the marijuana smell alone. The Tenth Circuit noted that it has held repeatedly that marijuana smell is sufficient to establish probable cause, and again held that to be true in this case.
Next, the Tenth Circuit evaluated the reasonableness of Snyder’s sentence under ACCA. Two of his convictions unquestionably fell under ACCA’s strictures since they were serious drug offenses. However, the third conviction for attempted aggravated eluding a police officer fell under ACCA’s residual clause, which the Supreme Court unequivocally held to be unconstitutional in Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. ___ (2015). The Tenth Circuit remanded for resentencing consistent with Johnson.
The district court’s denial of the motion to suppress was affirmed, but the case was remanded for resentencing.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in United States v. Ridens on Friday, July 10, 2015.
Ryan Ridens pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and received a mandatory minimum 15-year sentence enhancement under the Armed Career Criminals Act (ACCA) based on three prior violent felony convictions. Ridens challenged one of his convictions, a Kansas burglary for which he pleaded guilty, as not qualifying as a violent felony. The Tenth Circuit found ACCA specifically lists burglaries as violent felonies for purposes of the sentence enhancement. The Tenth Circuit evaluated Kansas’ statutory definition of burglary in existence at the time of Ridens’ guilty plea and found it differed from the generic definition. The Tenth Circuit then applied a modified categorical approach to determine that the charging document in Ridens’ case generically limited the charges. The Tenth Circuit found that the guilty plea to Ridens’ prior burglary offense qualified as a violent felony under ACCA.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed the sentence.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in United States v. Hood on Wednesday, December 17, 2014.
Oklahoma City police were investigating a string of burglaries and knocked at the door of an apartment belonging to the owner of a phone left at a burglary site. Although no one answered, a few minutes later residents of the apartment complex alerted police that someone was running from that apartment. The police caught the runner, Michael Hood, who was wearing a bulky coat despite the warm day and was fumbling in his pockets for something. Concerned that he might have a weapon, the police handcuffed and frisked Hood. He was subsequently indicted on two counts of being a felon in possession, related to the incident at the apartment in March 2012 and a separate incident in June 2012. After a jury trial, he was sentenced to 262 months’ imprisonment.
Hood appealed, arguing first that the police seized the firearm in March 2012 in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. Hood argued that the officers’ use of weapons and handcuffs was not justified, also asserting that the officers waived the opportunity to argue justification for using force. Hood next argued that, if the court should find excessive force from the March 2012 incident, the conviction from June 2012 should also be vacated since the prosecutor relied heavily on evidence from the March incident to convict on the June incident.
The Tenth Circuit was not persuaded by Hood’s waiver argument. The government responded to Hood’s motion to suppress that the officers’ seizure and detention of Hood was a reasonable Terry stop supported by suspicion of criminal activity, and did not waive their argument. As to whether the use of force was justified, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s conclusion that it was. Hood argues that it was not reasonable because the officers lacked prior belief that he was dangerous. Although the officers were investigating a different individual, Hood ran from the apartment of the person they were investigating and his behavior was suspicious. The Tenth Circuit found the officers were fully justified in drawing their weapons and ordering him to the ground under these circumstances. Because the Tenth Circuit found no error in the search and seizure, it declined to address the arguments relating to the June 2012 possession conviction.
Hood also argued that evidence concerning the burglaries was unduly prejudicial under FRE 404(b)(1) and should have been suppressed. However, this evidence was not admitted to show that Hood acted in accordance with his character; the evidence was admitted as intrinsic evidence. The evidence concerning the burglaries was necessary to explain why the police were at the apartments and why they had heightened suspicion as to Hood. The Tenth Circuit also evaluated for unfair prejudice under Rule 403 and found none. Hood was never named as a suspect in the burglaries, so there was no unfair prejudice in admitting evidence regarding the circumstances of Hood’s arrest.
Finally, Hood argued that a prior conviction for pointing a gun at another person should not count as a violent felony sentence enhancer under ACCA. The Tenth Circuit disagreed. Hood pleaded guilty to pointing a firearm at another person with the intent to injure the other person either physically or through emotional intimidation. The Tenth Circuit noted that using a firearm to threaten another is precisely the sort of violent force proscribed by ACCA.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed Hood’s convictions and sentence.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in United States v. Titley on Tuesday, November 4, 2014.
John Ervin Titley pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was sentenced, and his sentence was enhanced due to the provisions of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), due to his three prior felony convictions. Although Mr. Titley agrees his Missouri armed robbery conviction qualifies for ACCA purposes, he argues that his convictions for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute in Arkansas and unlawful possession of marijuana with intent to distribute in Oklahoma should not qualify because in 19 other states and the District of Columbia those crimes would not have constituted “serious drug offenses.” Mr. Titley argued this violates the Equal Protection clause.
The Tenth Circuit, applying rational basis review, analyzed whether the challenged ACCA provision is rationally related to a legitimate government purpose, and found that it was. ACCA’s purpose is to incapacitate repeat offenders who possess firearms and deter such conduct in others. Mr. Titley does not challenge the purpose, but instead argues ACCA violates equal protection because it does not apply uniformly to similarly situated defendants. The Tenth Circuit found that Congress afforded the states wide latitude in determining which crimes they regarded as serious. Rational basis does not require uniformity.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals published its opinion in United States v. Orona on Wednesday, July 31, 2013.
Raul Roger Orona, Jr., was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Based on his status as an armed career offender, he was sentenced to 198 months’ imprisonment under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). At sentencing, the district court concluded that his sentence under ACCA was constitutional, but stated it was persuaded that “defendant has somewhat less culpability” given that one of his predicate offenses occurred when he was a juvenile. Orona appealed.
On appeal, Orona argued that the use of his juvenile adjudication as a predicate offense for ACCA purposes violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The Eighth Amendment bars “the imposition of inherently barbaric punishments under all circumstances” and punishments that are “disproportionate to the crime” committed. Orona did not establish that a national consensus existed against the use of juvenile adjudications to enhance a subsequent adult sentence. The court found that states vary tremendously in the degree to which they permit a prior juvenile adjudication to impact sentencing following a subsequent adult conviction. In the cases cited by Orona, the sentences were imposed for crimes committed while the defendants were young. In this case, an adult defendant faced an enhanced sentence for a crime he committed as an adult.
The court also rejected Orona’s claim that the residual clause of ACCA is unconstitutionally vague. The void-for-vagueness doctrine provides that a penal statute must define the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. ACCA defines “violent felony” as including any crime that is “burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” Because of the United States Supreme Court’s consistent rejection of Orona’s vagueness argument and the unanimous conclusion of its sibling circuits, the Tenth Circuit held that the residual clause was not impermissibly vague.
The Tenth Circuit published its opinion in Abernathy v. Wandes on Monday, April 8, 2013.
Petitioner Gary Abernathy was convicted in 2001 of being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced as an armed career criminal under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”) because he had three qualifying ACCA convictions. Consistent with Eighth Circuit precedent at that time, the district court determined that Mr. Abernathy’s previous conviction for a “walkaway” escape was a qualifying conviction under the ACCA.
Several years after Mr. Abernathy’s conviction appeared to be final, the Supreme Court decided Chambers v. United States, 555 U.S. 122 (2009), which held that an escape conviction based on a failure to report (or to return) to a penal facility falls outside the scope of the ACCA’s definition of a violent felony and therefore cannot serve as a qualifying ACCA conviction.
Mr. Abernathy filed a § 2241 petition to challenge his sentence. Mr. Abernathy sought to use the so-called “savings clause” contained in § 2255(e), which permits a federal prisoner to proceed under § 2241 when the remedy under § 2255 is “inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention.” Applying the Fifth Circuit’s savings clause test, the district court held that Mr. Abernathy could not meet the “actual innocence” prong of that test because being “actually innocent” of an enhanced sentence is “not the sort of actual innocence that could justify a determination that the remedy available pursuant to Section 2255 in his criminal case is inadequate or ineffective.” Without reaching the merits of Mr. Abernathy’s Chambers claim, the district court dismissed his § 2241 petition.
After the district court’s decision, however, the Tenth Circuit decided Prost v. Anderson, 636 F.3d 578 (10th Cir. 2011), which set forth a different savings clause test than the one that the district court applied when it dismissed Mr. Abernathy’s petition. Under Prost, access to § 2241 through the savings clause turns solely on whether the remedy provided by § 2255 is “inadequate or ineffective” to test the legality of Mr. Abernathy’s detention.
Abernathy appealed the dismissal of his petition. Mr. Abernathy argued that: (1) Chambers rendered illegal the enhancement of his sentence under the ACCA; (2) he had no adequate or effective remedy under § 2255 and, therefore, its savings clause allowed him to apply for relief under § 2241; and (3) were the Tenth Circuit to deny him access to relief via the savings clause, such a denial would violate the Suspension Clause.
First, the Court addressed whether Abernathy could demonstrate that he met the requirements of § 2255(e)’s savings clause. Mr. Abernathy had to demonstrate that § 2255’s remedy was “inadequate or ineffective” by showing that the legality of his detention could not have been tested in his initial § 2255 motion. Mr. Abernathy maintained that he could carry this burden because he could not have tested his argument that his escape conviction did not qualify as an ACCA predicate offense in his initial § 2255 motion.
The Tenth Circuit disagreed. The plain language of the savings clause does not authorize resort to § 2241 simply because a court errs in rejecting a good argument, even if the court’s error on the merits happens to be induced by preexisting circuit precedent. Mr. Abernathy cannot make an inadequate-or-ineffective argument because it could have been tested in his initial § 2255 motion. It should not matter that courts likely would have rejected Mr. Abernathy’s Chambers argument in his § 2255 proceeding.
Second, Mr. Abernathy argued that denying him the opportunity to proceed under § 2241 violated the Constitution’s Suspension Clause.
The Suspension Clause states that “[t]he Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 2. Neither the Supreme Court nor the Tenth Circuit had ever addressed this specific issue.
Reviewing for plain error, the Tenth Circuit determined that it was not clear or obvious under well-settled law that barring Mr. Abernathy from proceeding under § 2241 raised concerns under the Suspension Clause.
Even if it were settled that the Suspension Clause protects the writ as it exists today, it is still unclear whether precluding Mr. Abernathy from proceeding under § 2241 would implicate the Suspension Clause. It is well established that the Suspension Clause does not prohibit the “substitution of a collateral remedy which is neither inadequate nor ineffective to test the legality of a person’s detention.” For purposes of the Suspension Clause, § 2255 would have been an adequate and effective substitute for the writ.
Accordingly, the Tenth Circuit AFFIRMED the district court’s dismissal of Mr. Abernathy’s § 2241 habeas petition.

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