Opinion ID: 2976560
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: “Otherwise” Clause

Text: Where the conviction does not have as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of force, courts have struggled with the question of when sexual contact with a minor “otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” See Hargrove, 416 F.3d at 495-99 (discussing cases); Sawyers, 409 F.3d at 740-42 (same). Arguing that the government reads this court’s precedent too broadly, defendant’s position is that a conviction involving consensual sexual contact with a minor presents the requisite “serious potential risk of physical injury” only when it also involves an aggravating factor, such as the minor is less than 13 or 14 years of age or is a minor related to the defendant by blood or affinity. In other words, even if it can be shown that defendant’s prior conviction involved consensual sexual contact between a 15-year-old and a 19-year-old, the defendant contends that since no aggravating factor was present the conviction did not present the serious potential risk of physical injury required under the “otherwise” clause of USSG § 4B1.2(a)(2). In Campbell, on which the government places particular reliance, this court held that a conviction for CSC-2 under Michigan law constituted a “crime of violence.” The court’s reasoning rested, however, on the fact that the conviction was for having sexual contact with a person who was between 13 and 16 years of age and was related by blood to the defendant. The court explained that, “[a]lthough the crime can occur through mere consented touching, . . . there is a real possibility that physical force may be used in making sexual contact, particularly when the victim is a minor between 13 and 16 and within the strictures of familiarity and proximity bred by kinship.” 256 F.3d at 396. In Champion we recognized a congressional finding that the use of children in the production of sexually explicit materials can result in physical or psychological harm. 248 F.3d at 506. We also observed that “the likelihood of physical injury increases as the child’s age decreases.” Id. This is because a “‘younger child is likely to have poorer judgment, less knowledge about sex, and 4 The government contends that any such error is harmless because it could have presented other judicial documents to establish that the prior conviction involved sexual contact with a minor; namely, the judgment of sentence and initial felony information reflecting a dismissed charge of CSC-3, specifically, sexual penetration with a person who is at least 13 and under 16 years of age. MICH. COMP. LAWS ANN. § 750.520d(1)(a). Those documents, however, were not before the district court or made part of the record on appeal. Moreover, the significance of those documents is not obvious because the court may only consider the elements of a dismissed charge that are essential to the offense to which the defendant pleaded guilty. Armstead, 467 F.3d at 949; Arnold, 58 F.3d at 1124. Nor can we conclude that the error was harmless simply because the defendant never denied that the prior conviction involved sexual contact with a minor. See Shepard, 544 U.S. at 28-29 (O’Connor, dissenting) (criticizing the majority for rejecting a “common sense” inference that the state burglary convictions involved entry into buildings). No. 07-1522 United States v. Bartee Page 6 less money, all of which deficits will make it less likely that she will use or insist that her partner use effective measures to prevent pregnancy and disease.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Shannon, 110 F.3d 382, 387 (7th Cir. 1997)); see also United States v. Grundy, 178 Fed. App’x 509, 513 (6th Cir. 2006) (holding that conviction for sexual abuse involving a child under the age of 12 was a crime of violence under USSG § 4B1.2(a)). As the Supreme Court made clear in its recent decision in Begay, however, this court’s determination that at least some convictions involving sexual contact with minors present “a serious potential risk of physical injury” is not sufficient to establish that the conviction comes within the scope of the “otherwise” clause. Addressing the scope of the “otherwise” or “residual” clause under the ACCA, the Court in Begay assumed that a conviction for driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor (DUI) involves conduct that “presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” 128 S. Ct. at 1584. Indeed, the Court agreed that drunk driving is an extremely dangerous crime. Id. Nonetheless, the Court held that a conviction for DUI falls outside the scope of the “otherwise” clause because it “is simply too unlike the provisions’s listed examples for us to believe that Congress intended the provision to cover it.” Id. The Court explained that the presence of the listed examples—burglary, arson, extortion, or crimes involving the use of explosives—“indicates that the statute covers only similar crimes, rather than every crime that ‘presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.’ § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii).” Id. at 1585. Next, referencing its earlier decision in James, which addressed whether attempted burglary presented comparable amount of risk as the enumerated crime of burglary, the Court in Begay concluded that similarity in the degree of risk was not a sufficient basis to conclude that a crime should come within the scope of the clause. Id.; see James v. United States, 127 S. Ct. 1586, 1594-97 (2007). Rather, the Court held that, in order to give effect to every part of the statutory definition, the examples should be read “as limiting the crimes that clause (ii) covers to crimes that are roughly similar, in kind as well as in degree of risk posed, to the examples themselves.” Begay, 128 S. Ct. at 1585. Offering further insight, the Court in Begay explained that the crime of DUI differs from the examples “in at least one pertinent, and important, respect. The listed crimes all typically involve purposeful, ‘violent’ and ‘aggressive’ conduct. . . . And such crimes are ‘characteristic of the armed career criminal, the eponym of the statute.” Id. at 1586 (citations omitted). DUI statutes, by contrast, “typically do not insist on purposeful, violent, and aggressive conduct; rather, they are, or are most nearly comparable to, crimes that impose strict liability, criminalizing conduct in respect to which the offender need not have had any criminal intent at all.” Id. at 1586-87. As a result, the Court held that New Mexico’s crime of DUI fell outside the scope of the ACCA’s “clause (ii)” definition of a “violent felony.” Id. at 1588. Adhering to our view that the parallel provisions in the definitions of a “violent felony” under the ACCA and a “crime of violence” under USSG § 4B1.2(a)(2) should be interpreted in a consistent manner, we conclude that § 4B1.2(a)(2) also should be limited to crimes that are similar in both kind and in degree of risk to the enumerated examples—burglary of a dwelling, arson, extortion, or crimes involving the use of explosives. While this interpretation narrows the scope of convictions that qualify as a “crime of violence” under § 4B1.2(a)(2), making it more difficult for the government to invoke the enhancement, it would be inappropriate for this court to speculate on the arguments that might be made in light of Begay if the government is able to establish, consistent with Shepard, that the conviction necessarily required proof of sexual contact with a minor that presents a “serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” Having concluded that the district court erred in the calculation of the guidelines, we VACATE the defendant’s sentence and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.