Opinion ID: 3039495
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: california statute at issue in

Text: CORTEZ-ARIAS The particular statute under review in Cortez-Arias was California Penal Code section 246. The statute provided, in relevant part, that “[a]ny person who shall maliciously and willfully discharge a firearm at an inhabited dwelling house . . . is guilty of a felony,” and further provided that “ ‘inhabited’ means currently being used for dwelling purposes, whether occupied or not.” CAL. PENAL CODE § 246. In determining whether a violation of section 246 was a “crime of violence” under USSG section 2L1.2, we first noted that, under California law, an “inhabited dwelling house” has invariably been described as meaning one’s home. CortezArias, 403 F.3d at 1115 (citing People v. White, 4 Cal.App.4th 1299, 1301-03 (1992) (labeling an “inhabited dwelling house” as one that is “lived in” or where “a person currently and permanently lives”)). It was the present occupancy of the structure in question that drove California courts to remark that commission of the offense “always present[ed] a potential for violence” and involved “a high probability that death will UNITED STATES v. MARTINEZ-MARTINEZ 18525 result and therefore is an inherently dangerous felony.” Id. (quoting White, 4 Cal.App.4th at 1305 and People v. Hansen, 9 Cal.4th 300, 309 (1994)). [2] With this understanding of the nature of the statutory offense at issue, we next gave meaning to the Guideline’s reference to the “threatened use of physical force against the person of another” as including “acts that communicate to another person an intent to use physical force against that person and acts suggesting that physical force against that person may be impending.” Id. at 1116. Taking this definition and applying it to the context of discharging a firearm at a structure, we noted that such an offense would qualify as a “crime of violence” where the structure in question was that person’s current and permanent residence, even if the person was not inside the structure at the time the firearm was discharged at it. As we explained: A person whose home is shot up by an instrument of deadly force, even though that person may have been absent at the time of the shooting, will surely feel threatened by the physical force that has intruded on his or her home. We hold that mali- ciously and willfully shooting a gun at a person’s current permanent residence necessarily threatens the use of physical force against the resident, regardless of whether the resident is home at the time the shot is fired. Id. In essence, it is the psychological link a person makes between his or her home and his or her personhood that prompted us to find that an attack against one is a threat to the other.