Opinion ID: 4275110
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Our Recent En Banc Decision in Herrold

Text: Turns out, Godoy was right about Uribe. After the parties filed their initial briefs, we decided United States v. Herrold. 14 There, we overturned Uribe and held that Texas Penal Code § 30.02(a)(1) and (a)(3) are indivisible and that (a)(3) makes a conviction under either subsection a conviction for an offense that is broader than generic burglary. 15 Accordingly, Godoy’s convictions do not trigger the 16-level enhancement under § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) because they no longer constitute crimes of violence as defined by the Guidelines in the commentary to that particular provision. 16 After Herrold, the question became whether Godoy’s convictions qualified as “aggravated felonies” for purposes of § 2L1.2(b)(1)(C). If so, Godoy would be subject to an eight-level enhancement, and his total offense level under the 2015 Guidelines would be the same as under the 2016 Guidelines. In that case, there would be no ex post facto violation. But if his convictions did not qualify as aggravated felonies, then Godoy would likely be, at most, 14 883 F.3d 517 (5th Cir. Feb. 20, 2018) (en banc). 15 Id. at 529 (“In light of Texas case law, we hold that Texas Penal Code §§ 30.02(a)(1) and (a)(3) are not distinct offenses, but are rather separate means of committing one burglary offense. To the extent that it is inconsistent with this holding, we also overrule our earlier decision in United States v. Uribe.”) (citation omitted); id. at 536 (“Texas’s burglary offense allowing for entry and subsequent intent formation—is broader than generic burglary.”). 16 Although Herrold involved a sentence enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), how we interpret terms in the ACCA informs how we interpret the Guidelines. See United States v. Bernel-Aveja, 844 F.3d 206, 212–14 (5th Cir. 2016) (using cases interpreting burglary in the ACCA to define burglary in the Guidelines). 6 Case: 17-10838 Document: 00514472214 Page: 7 Date Filed: 05/14/2018 No. 17-10838 subject to the four-level enhancement under subsection (b)(1)(D). That would mean the district court’s use of the 2016 Guidelines subjected Godoy to a higher sentencing range in violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause. Because the initial briefing did not address this issue, we directed the parties to file “supplemental letter brief[s] regarding whether Godoy’s prior convictions under Texas Penal Code § 30.02 qualify as aggravated felonies under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(C) (2015) and, particularly, whether those convictions constitute crimes of violence under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(F) / 18 U.S.C. § 16.” The parties promptly complied. Godoy asserted that, in light of Herrold’s holding that § 30.02(a)(1) and (a)(3) are indivisible, the offense of burglary no longer qualifies as a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. § 16(b). But he acknowledged our prior decisions to the contrary. 17 He also reargued that § 16(b) is unconstitutionally vague. The Government countered that, as Godoy conceded, we have repeatedly treated § 30.02 as a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. § 16(b) and therefore an aggravated felony under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(F)—meaning § 30.02 is a qualifying felony under § 2L1.2(b)(1)(C). The Government also noted the Supreme Court has left no doubt that, when it comes to § 16(b) offenses, “[t]he classic example is burglary.” 18 The Government maintained that Godoy’s convictions subjected him to the eight-level enhancement under subsection (b)(1)(C), giving him the same total offense level under the 2015 Guidelines as under the 2016 Guidelines. Thus, there was no ex post facto violation. B. The Supreme Court’s Even More Recent Decision in Dimaya Turns out, Godoy was right about 18 U.S.C. § 16(b), too—to an extent. After the parties filed their post-Herrold supplemental letter briefs, the 17 See, e.g., United States v. Guadardo, 40 F.3d 102 (5th Cir. 1994). 18 Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U.S. 1, 10 (2004). 7 Case: 17-10838 Document: 00514472214 Page: 8 Date Filed: 05/14/2018 No. 17-10838 Supreme Court held in Sessions v. Dimaya that § 16(b), the catch-all clause in the definition of “crime of violence,” is unconstitutionally vague as used in the INA’s criminal-removal provisions. 19 After Dimaya was handed down, Godoy filed a Rule 28(j) letter noting Dimaya’s holding and asserting that “Dimaya, combined with Herrold . . . resolves this appeal in favor of Mr. Godoy.” The Government responded that Dimaya has no bearing on Godoy’s appeal because, under Beckles v. United States, the Sentencing Guidelines are not subject to vagueness challenges. 20 Godoy replied that he does not claim vagueness in the Guidelines themselves. In a later round of supplemental briefing, Godoy noted that “[i]n Dimaya, as in this case, the Government argued that an alien’s prior conviction for a non-generic burglary offense was an ‘aggravated felony’ pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(F).” He then insisted that in the wake of Dimaya, § 16(b) “is not the law” and that it “logically follows that Texas burglary cannot become an aggravated felony by satisfying § 16(b).” Under § 16(b), a crime of violence is any felony offense “that, by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.” 21 If an offense meets this definition, it constitutes an aggravated felony under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(F). And if an offense falls under § 1101(a)(43), it justifies an eight-level enhancement under 2015 Guidelines § 2L1.2(b)(1)(C). 22 It is in 19 See 138 S. Ct. 1204, 1210. 20 See Beckles v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 886, 897 (2017) (“Because the advisory Sentencing Guidelines are not subject to a due process vagueness challenge, § 4B1.2(a)’s residual clause is not void for vagueness.”). 21 18 U.S.C. § 16(b). 22 See U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2 cmt. n.3(A) (“For purposes of subsection (b)(1)(C), ‘aggravated felony’ has the meaning given that term in section 101(a)(43) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)), without regard to the date of conviction for the aggravated felony.”). 8 Case: 17-10838 Document: 00514472214 Page: 9 Date Filed: 05/14/2018 No. 17-10838 this context—the Guidelines context—that we must decide whether § 16(b) maintains any vitality following Dimaya’s invalidation of § 16(b) in the INA. The Guidelines are not subject to vagueness challenges. So it does not necessarily follow from Dimaya that § 16(b) is unconstitutionally vague in the Guidelines context. To the contrary, any “distinction between a vagueness challenge to a statute incorporated into a Guideline and a vagueness challenge to the Guideline itself is untenable.” 23 As Godoy’s counsel conceded at oral argument, if the language of § 16(b) were cut-and-pasted directly into the Guidelines themselves, Godoy could not bring a void-for-vagueness challenge. This is no less true where the language of § 16(b) is incorporated into the Guidelines by reference. Dimaya itself spells out why. In Dimaya, the Supreme Court explained that § 16(b) is just one cog in the INA regime that imposes definite sentencing and deportation consequences for aliens who commit aggravated felonies. 24 In the case of James Dimaya, the Immigration Judges concluded his convictions for first-degree burglary under California law qualified as “crimes of violence” under § 16(b). 25 He was therefore deportable as a matter of law. Therein lies the rub. The Supreme Court held § 16(b) unconstitutional in Dimaya because the provision, like the ACCA’s residual clause, 26 “produces more unpredictability and arbitrariness than the Due Process Clause tolerates.” 27 But that presupposes the Due Process Clause’s vagueness doctrine applies universally to every context in which § 16(b) is used. Such is simply not the case when 23 Gonzalez-Longoria, 831 F.3d at 683 (Jones, J., concurring). 24 See Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. at 1211, 1217. 25 Id. at 1211. 26 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B). 27 Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. at 1223 (quoting Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551, 2558 (2015)). 9 Case: 17-10838 Document: 00514472214 Page: 10 Date Filed: 05/14/2018 No. 17-10838 § 16(b) is used purely for its definitional content by the advisory-only Guidelines. 28 In holding unconstitutional the INA’s use of § 16(b) in Dimaya, and the ACCA’s residual clause in Johnson, 29 the Supreme Court trained its sights on the haziness of definite legal consequences and the specter of capricious enforcement: “‘The prohibition of vagueness in criminal statutes,’ [the Supreme Court’s] decision in Johnson explained, is an ‘essential’ of due process, required by both ‘ordinary notions of fair play and the settled rules of law.’” 30 “These principles apply not only to statutes defining elements of crimes, but also to statutes fixing sentences.” 31 Under this framework, “the Court has invalidated two kinds of criminal laws as ‘void for vagueness’: laws that define criminal offenses and laws that fix the permissible sentences for criminal offenses.” 32 For some offenses, the ACCA’s residual clause acted to adjust a defendant’s sentence from a mandated 10-year maximum to a mandated 15year minimum with a maximum of life. 33 In Johnson, the Court thus held the provision unconstitutionally vague because the vagueness doctrine’s principles 28 See United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 245 (2005) (holding “the Guidelines effectively advisory”). In assessing Booker’s Sixth Amendment challenge to the Guidelines, the Court reviewed prior constitutional challenges and reasoned that “everyone agrees that the constitutional issues presented by these cases would have been avoided entirely if Congress had omitted from the [Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (SRA)] the provisions that make the Guidelines binding on district judges.” Id. at 233. The Court went on to sever that provision from the SRA, rendering the Guidelines not binding on district judges and, most critically, abrogating the Court’s previous holdings “that the Guidelines have the force and effect of laws.” Id. at 234. 29 Johnson, 135 S. Ct. at 2563. 30 Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. at 1212 (quoting Johnson, 135 S. Ct. at 2557). 31 Johnson, 135 S. Ct. at 2557 (citing United States v. Batchelder, 442 U.S. 114, 123 (1979) (emphasis added)). 32 Beckles v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 886, 892 (2017) (emphasis in original). 33 See Johnson, 135 S. Ct. at 2555. 10 Case: 17-10838 Document: 00514472214 Page: 11 Date Filed: 05/14/2018 No. 17-10838 applied in light of the provision’s definite legal consequences. 34 Likewise, in the INA context, if a defendant’s prior conviction meets the definition of § 16(b), the INA infrastructure mandates that the defendant is eligible for deportation. 35 In Dimaya, the Court thus held the INA’s use of that provision impermissibly vague because, again, vagueness concerns were front and center given the scheme’s definite legal consequences. 36 But when § 16(b) is used by the nonbinding Guidelines solely for definitional purposes, vagueness-doctrine principles do not apply. That is because, as the Supreme Court explained in Beckles, “[t]he advisory Guidelines . . . do not implicate the twin concerns underlying vagueness doctrine— providing notice and preventing arbitrary enforcement.” 37 Unlike the ACCA’s residual clause and the INA infrastructure that relies on § 16(b), “the advisory Guidelines do not fix the permissible range of sentences” or proscribe conduct. 38 “To the contrary, they merely guide the exercise of a court’s discretion in choosing an appropriate sentence within the statutory range.” 39 Indeed, even were we to vacate Godoy’s sentence, the district court could reimpose the exact same sentence. 34 See id. at 2557 (“We are convinced that the indeterminacy of the wide-ranging inquiry required by the residual clause both denies fair notice to defendants and invites arbitrary enforcement by judges.”); see also Beckles, 137 S. Ct. at 892 (“In Johnson, we applied the vagueness rule to a statute fixing permissible sentences.”). 35 See Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. at 1211. Notably, despite the extensive discussion of § 16(b)’s potential consequences and statutory uses, the Dimaya majority never mentions the Sentencing Guidelines. Nor were the Guidelines discussed at oral argument. Dimaya was an INA case, not a Guidelines case, so only so much can be read into this. But it is interesting that neither the majority nor the parties found the Guidelines relevant to the analysis of § 16(b)’s constitutional reach. 36 Id. at 1213. 37 Beckles, 137 S. Ct. at 894. 38 Id. at 892. 39 Id. 11 Case: 17-10838 Document: 00514472214 Page: 12 Date Filed: 05/14/2018 No. 17-10838 Godoy contends § 16(b) has been wholly nullified. He cites the Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Welch v. United States for the proposition that once a statute has been held constitutionally invalid, “it can no longer mandate or authorize any sentence.” 40 But § 16(b) does not “mandate or authorize any sentence.” And neither do the Guidelines, which is precisely why they are not subject to vagueness challenges. Welch dealt with the retroactivity of Johnson’s holding and reasoned that “[b]y striking down the residual clause as void for vagueness, Johnson changed the substantive reach of the ACCA, altering ‘the range of conduct or the class of persons that the [Act] punishes.’” 41 Dimaya, on the other hand, did not change the substantive reach of § 16(b)—it at most changed the substantive reach of the INA. And at any rate, neither § 16(b)—a provision that functions independently of the INA and is found in an entirely different title of the United States Code—nor the advisory Guidelines themselves are substantive laws that fix sentences or proscribe conduct, making both wholly dissimilar to the ACCA’s residual clause. Taken together, the Supreme Court’s recent trio—Johnson (2015), Beckles (2017), and Dimaya (2018)—convinces us that the Guidelines’ continued use of § 16(b) for definitional purposes is constitutionally inoffensive. Godoy insists there is nothing left of § 16(b), that it was Supremely scrapped in Dimaya—every case, every context, every application. Godoy is mistaken. Dimaya held § 16(b) impermissibly vague as incorporated into the INA. But it did not repeal, abolish, or invalidate § 16(b) for all purposes under the legal sun. 42 Section 16(b) remains on the books, not purged from 40 Welch v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1257, 1265 (2016). 41 Id. (quoting Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U.S. 348, 353 (2004)). 42 At oral argument, Godoy’s counsel asserted that the effect of a Supreme Court holding of impermissible vagueness, such as in Dimaya, is that the invalidated provision “is void in toto, barring all further actions under it.” United States v. Petrillo, 332 U.S. 1, 6 (1947). But that argument proves too much. It is certainly true the Government may no longer 12 Case: 17-10838 Document: 00514472214 Page: 13 Date Filed: 05/14/2018 No. 17-10838 existence—at least for confined uses. And until Congress acts or we are presented with binding authority to the contrary, § 16(b) remains incorporated into the advisory-only Guidelines for definitional purposes. 43 C. Godoy’s Ex Post Facto Claim In light of our holding that § 16(b) remains a viable source of defining aggravated felonies under 2015 Guidelines § 2L1.2(b)(1)(C), we conclude that our precedent holding that Texas Penal Code § 30.02 satisfies § 16(b) survives Dimaya. Godoy suggests our en banc decision in Herrold is separate cause to reconsider that precedent, but we decline to read Herrold so broadly. Herrold held that Penal Code § 30.02(a)(1) and (a)(3) are indivisible and ultimately broader than generic burglary, but nothing in our caselaw classifying § 30.02 as a crime of violence under § 16(b) turns on those points. We held in United States v. Guadardo, for example, “that burglary of a habitation under section 30.02 of the Texas Penal Code is always a crime of violence.” 44 We did not say “generic burglary is always a crime of violence” or that “only § 30.02(a)(1) is always a crime of violence.” Similarly, in United States v. Flores, we reasoned that “[u]nder § 16(b), it is clear that burglary of a residence fits within the classification of offenses that Congress intended to prosecute anyone under a criminal provision held facially unconstitutional. But of course such a situation would involve, as Petrillo did, a statute that—unlike the Guidelines and § 16(b)—actually proscribes conduct. 43 After deciding Dimaya, the Supreme Court denied the petition for certiorari in Gonzalez-Longoria, leaving undisturbed our bottom-line decision that § 16(b) is not unconstitutional when incorporated by reference into the Guidelines. And just days ago, the Eighth Circuit concluded, as we do today, that nothing in Dimaya declares § 16(b) impermissibly vague as used in the Guidelines. United States v. Sanchez-Rojas, 2018 WL 2171227, at  (8th Cir. May 11, 2018) (“Applying the Beckles/Johnson reasoning here, Sanchez-Rojas cannot maintain his vagueness challenge against U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(C). We see no meaningful difference between a Guidelines section that uses the same language as a statute (like § 4B1.2(a)(2)) and a section that incorporates the statutory language by reference (like § 2L1.2(b)(1)(C)).”). 44 40 F.3d 102, 105 (5th Cir. 1994) (emphasis added). 13 Case: 17-10838 Document: 00514472214 Page: 14 Date Filed: 05/14/2018 No. 17-10838 include” and noted further that “[a]ny burglary might be covered under this language.” 45 Again, nothing in Flores limited our holding to the concept of a generic burglary or excluded a conviction under § 30.02(a)(3). And in United States v. Cruz, we reasoned that “[t]he district court . . . correctly concluded that Cruz’[s] prior conviction for burglary of a habitation qualified as a ‘crime of violence’ under § 4B1.1,” a Guidelines provision that incorporated § 16. 46 To put a finer point on it, nothing in our caselaw holding that Texas burglary qualifies as a crime of violence under § 16(b) turns on either a distinction between § 30.02(a)(1) and (a)(3) or a belief that those provisions capture only generic burglary. This makes sense because an offense under § 30.02(a)(1) and (a)(3) is one “that, by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the . . . property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.” 47 That is because both § 30.02(a)(1) and (a)(3) require entering a habitation or building “without the effective consent of the owner.” 48 45 875 F.2d 1110, 1113 (5th Cir. 1989) (emphasis added). 46 See United States v. Cruz, 882 F.2d 922, 923 (5th Cir. 1989). 47 18 U.S.C. § 16(b). See, e.g., Flores, 875 F.2d at 1113 (“Whenever a private residence is broken into, there is always a substantial risk that force will be used.”). 48 Tex. Penal Code § 30.02(a). For this reason, we find the analysis in our vehicle burglary cases instructive. See, e.g., Escudero-Arciniega v. Holder, 702 F.3d 781, 784 (5th Cir. 2012) (per curiam) (analogizing New Mexico’s vehicle-burglary offense to Texas’s similar offense and noting “there is a ‘substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense’ under the Texas statute”); see also United States v. Rodriguez–Guzman, 56 F.3d 18, 20 (5th Cir. 1995) (“the burglary of a . . . vehicle often involves the application of destructive physical force to the property of another”), overruled on other grounds, as recognized in Ibarra–Leyva v. Johnson, 623 F. App’x 163, 167 n.20 (5th Cir. 2015). Just as the offense of burglary of a vehicle requires the unlawful entry into a vehicle and thus presents an inherent substantial risk of the use of force against one’s property, the offense of burglary of a building or habitation requires unlawful entry and thus presents a similarly inherent substantial risk of the use of force against one’s property. And just as we extended this logic from vehicle burglary to unauthorized use of a motor vehicle—which differs from vehicle burglary only in that it does not require the intent to commit a felony or theft—we find the same logical extension applies as between Texas Penal Code § 30.02(a)(1) and (a)(3), where subsection (a)(3) differs most significantly in that it does not have as an element the intent to commit a further felony, 14 Case: 17-10838 Document: 00514472214 Page: 15 Date Filed: 05/14/2018 No. 17-10838 Because unlawful entry inherently produces a substantial risk of physical force against one’s property, there is no meaningful difference between § 30.02(a)(1) and (a)(3)—and therefore no lesson to be learned from Herrold—when it comes to categorizing an offense under those provisions as a crime of violence under § 16(b). Our existing caselaw indicating that any conviction under Penal Code § 30.02 categorically qualifies as a crime of violence under § 16(b) is thus unaffected by Herrold’s holding that § 30.02(a)(1) and (a)(3) are indivisible and broader than generic burglary. As a result, Godoy’s total offense level under the 2015 Guidelines is the same as under the 2016 Guidelines, making the district court’s use of the 2016 Guidelines troublefree under the Ex Post Facto Clause. D. The Conviction Must Be Reformed While Dimaya does not forbid using § 16(b) to calculate recommended sentences under the nonbinding Guidelines, we recognize that Dimaya very clearly speaks to situations where a sentencing maximum or minimum is statutorily fixed. That is quite the point of Beckles. 49 Godoy was convicted under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) and sentenced pursuant to the 20-year maximum provided by § 1326(b)(2) for defendants previously convicted of an aggravated felony. Sentencing Godoy under § 1326(b)(2) thus required exactly what the Supreme Court held to be unconstitutional in Dimaya: The district court relied on the INA’s definition of aggravated felony found in § 16(b) to justify using a statutory provision that provides a definite legal consequence—an increased, 20-year maximum. theft, or assault. See United States v. Galvan-Rodriguez, 169 F.3d 217, 219 (5th Cir. 1999) (“Just as burglary of a vehicle involves a substantial risk that property might be damaged or destroyed in the commission of the offense, the unauthorized use of a vehicle likewise carries a substantial risk that the vehicle might be broken into . . . .”). 49 See Beckles, 137 S. Ct. at 892. 15 Case: 17-10838 Document: 00514472214 Page: 16 Date Filed: 05/14/2018 No. 17-10838 The difference between § 1326(b)(2) and the advisory Guidelines highlights the holding of Beckles and reinforces our decision here. The Guidelines do not “fix the permissible sentences for criminal offenses.” 50 Section 1326(b)(2) does. Godoy’s conviction must therefore be reformed 51 to reflect that he was sentenced according to 8 U.S.C. § 1326(b)(1), which provides for a 10year maximum sentence for a defendant “whose removal was subsequent to a conviction for commission of . . . a felony (other than an aggravated felony).” 52 As Godoy was sentenced to 27 months imprisonment, this reformation does not require alteration to the ordered sentence.