Opinion ID: 782254
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Designation of Voluntary Manslaughter as a Crime of Violence

Text: 15 Bonilla challenges the premise that voluntary manslaughter is a crime of violence as defined in Section 2L1.2(b)(1) of the Sentencing Guidelines. According to Bonilla, attempted use and threatened use of force both require specific intent. Bonilla further contends that California's voluntary manslaughter is not a categorical crime of violence. 16 U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A) requires a sixteen-level increase in offense level if the defendant was previously deported after conviction for a crime of violence. The Application Notes state that the term crime of violence: 17 (I) means an offense under federal, state, or local law that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; and 18 (II) includes murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, aggravated assault, forcible sex offenses (including sexual abuse of a minor), robbery, arson, extortion, extortionate extension of credit, and burglary of a dwelling. 19 Bonilla posits that voluntary manslaughter is not a crime of violence under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A) because § 2L1.2 requires a finding of specific intent, and the California crime of which he was convicted is only a general intent crime. We disagree, because our precedent instructs that designation of an offense as a crime of violence does not require intentional use of force. See Trinidad-Aquino, 259 F.3d at 1146; see also Park v. I.N.S., 252 F.3d 1018, 1022 (9th Cir.2001) (holding that California's involuntary manslaughter statute is a crime of violence and recklessness is a sufficient mens rea to so establish). 20 Bonilla's fallback argument is similarly unpersuasive. Bonilla urges that because the Guideline lists the crime of violence definition in the conjunctive, the government must prove that the offense has a particular element and that the offense constitutes a specific type of crime. Contrary to Bonilla's position, we have held that a statute's use of disjunctive or conjunctive language is not always determinative. See Alaska v. Lyng, 797 F.2d 1479, 1483 n. 4 (9th Cir.1986). Rather, we must strive to give effect to the plain, common sense meaning of the enactment without resorting to an interpretation that def[ies] common sense. Cook Inlet Native Ass'n v. Bowen, 810 F.2d 1471, 1473-74 (9th Cir.1987) (citation omitted). 21 Recently, one of our sister circuits expressly considered and rejected Bonilla's contention. See United States v. Gomez-Hernandez, 300 F.3d 974, 979 (8th Cir.2002). As the court noted in Gomez-Hernandez: 22 [C]onstruing and as a disjunctive in the new application note is consistent with the principle that courts avoid a statutory construction that would render another part of the same statute superfluous. See Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135, 140-41, 114 S.Ct. 655, 126 L.Ed.2d 615 (1994). The crimes enumerated in subpart (II) include burglary of a dwelling. The crime of burglary is defined differently by the laws of the various States, but burglary, or at least generic burglary, has never had as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another. See Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 580, 598-99, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990). Therefore, if [the defendant's] construction of the and in application note 1(B)(ii) is correct, burglary of a dwelling would not be a crime of violence, despite its inclusion in subpart (II), because it does not contain the physical force element required in subpart (I). Thus, his interpretation would render part of the application note surplusage. 23 Id. at 978-80. 24 We find the Eighth Circuit's logic persuasive. As that court also observed, the word `includes' that introduces subpart (II) of application note 1(B)(ii) strongly suggests an intent that the enumerated crimes always be classified as `crimes of violence.' Id. at 979. We conclude that, because manslaughter is specifically enumerated in Section II, it is a crime of violence. In doing so, we reiterate that a crime of violence does not require specific intent. See, e.g., Park, 252 F.3d at 1022. The district court properly construed § 2L1.2.