Opinion ID: 2641049
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: “Committed on Occasions Different from One

Text: Another” Blair next contends that the District Court incorrectly applied ACCA because there was insufficient proof that the 1991 convictions were for offenses committed on different occasions, and therefore they at most amount to one predicate offense. As already noted, ACCA’s mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years becomes applicable when the defendant “has three previous convictions … for a violent felony or a serious drug offense, or both, committed on occasions different from one another… .” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1) (emphasis added). Blair argues that, because he did not admit that the robberies occurred on different occasions when he pled guilty to the charges, the enhanced sentence was improper under Supreme Court case law and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution. 15 In Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), the Supreme Court held that, under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the notice and jury trial guarantees of the Sixth Amendment, “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 490. Nevertheless, as is evident from the language of that holding, Apprendi did not change the pre-existing rule from Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998), that a judge, rather than a jury, may determine “the fact of a prior conviction.” Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 490. Recently, in Alleyne v. United States, the Supreme Court extended Apprendi and held that any facts that increase a mandatory minimum sentence must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. 133 S. Ct. 2151, 2158 (2013) (overruling Harris v. United States, 536 U.S. 545 (2002), which held that Apprendi did not apply to facts that increase a mandatory minimum sentence). But the Court expressly declined to alter the Almendarez-Torres rule. Id. at 2160 n.1. It observed that, “[b]ecause the parties do not contest that decision’s vitality, we do not revisit it for purposes of our decision today.” Id. Almendarez-Torres therefore remains “a narrow exception to [Apprendi’s] general rule for the fact of a prior conviction.” Id. Blair tries to distance himself from the continuing control of Almendarez-Torres, but he cannot. Although he does not contend that Alleyne or Descamps overrules the Almendarez-Torres exception to Apprendi, he urges an impermissibly narrow construction of the exception. Blair asserts that it is possible he may have committed some of his robberies on the same occasion, “during a single criminal 16 episode or a continuous course of conduct or simultaneously through accomplices.” (Appellant’s Opening Br. at 51.) Determining whether his 1991 convictions were the product of a single event or a series of episodes, he says, could only have been accomplished by the District Court impermissibly looking at “non-elemental” facts associated with the convictions. (Appellant’s Supplemental Br. at 6.) By “nonelemental,” he means “amplifying but legally extraneous circumstances[,]” as distinct from elements of the offense, the elements being the only facts the sentencing court can be sure were found by a jury. Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2288. Because Descamps condemns any reliance on non-elemental facts, even in the application of the modified categorical approach, Blair contends that the District Court erred when it concluded that the robberies were committed on “occasions different from one another” and increased his sentence. (Appellant’s Supplemental Br. at 6-7.) Blair essentially tries to merge Alleyne’s extension of Apprendi (covering mandatory minimums) and the holding of Descamps (limiting the application of the modified categorical approach) to narrow Almendarez-Torres so that a court considering an ACCA sentencing enhancement cannot take note of information pertaining to a prior conviction, such as the date or location of the crimes charged. He argues that Descamps and Alleyne “teach that strict adherence to the categorical approach and a narrow reading of the limited Almendarez-Torres exception to the rule of Apprendi is necessary to avoid Sixth Amendment concerns, and thus support … that the sentencing court erred [in this case].” (Appellant’s Supplemental Br. at 6-7.) By his lights, the sentencing court “did what Descamps forbids” and looked at the non-elemental facts of date, location, and victim to 17 determine that the felonies were committed on different occasions. (Id. at 8.) Blair’s arguments fail, however, because AlmendarezTorres has not been narrowed and remains the law. Alleyne, 133 S. Ct. at 2160 n.1. Descamps and Alleyne do nothing to restrict the established exception under Almendarez-Torres that allows judges to consider prior convictions. When the pertinent documents show, as they do in this case, that the prior convictions are for separate crimes against separate victims at separate times, Alleyne does not somehow muddy the record and convert the separateness issue into a jury question. Alleyne was written against the backdrop of Almendarez-Torres and existing ACCA jurisprudence. Had the Supreme Court meant to say that all details related to prior convictions are beyond judicial notice, it would have said so plainly, as that would have been a marked departure from existing law. Arguments like Blair’s have been rejected by numerous courts. See, e.g., United States v. Weeks, 711 F.3d 1255, 1259 (11th Cir. 2013) (“[F]or ACCA purposes, district courts may determine both the existence of prior convictions and the factual nature of those convictions, including whether they were committed on different occasions … .”); United States v. Elliott, 703 F.3d 378, 382 (7th Cir. 2012) (“[A] district court [may] make a finding for purposes of the ACCA as to whether a defendant committed three or more violent felonies or serious drug offenses on occasions different from one another.”); United States v. Thomas, 572 F.3d 945, 952 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (citing cases); United States v. Hendrix, 509 F.3d 362, 376 (7th Cir. 2007) (“[T]he district court’s determination from the PSR that [the defendant] had three 18 previous convictions to satisfy the Armed Career Criminal Act is not impermissible factfinding, and [the defendant’s] sentence does not violate the Sixth Amendment.”); United States v. Michel, 446 F.3d 1122, 1133 (10th Cir. 2006) (“[W]hether prior convictions happened on different occasions from one another is not a fact required to be determined by a jury but is instead a matter for the sentencing court.”); United States v. Thompson, 421 F.3d 278, 285 (4th Cir. 2005) (“The data necessary to determine the ‘separateness’ of the occasions is inherent in the fact of the prior convictions.”); United States v. Burgin, 388 F.3d 177, 186 (6th Cir. 2004) (“[T]he determinations by a district court that prior felony convictions exist and were committed on different occasions, are so intimately related that the ‘different occasions’ requirement of § 924(e) sufficiently comes within the exception in Apprendi for a prior conviction. Thus, … this issue need not be pled in an indictment, submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”); United States v. Santiago, 268 F.3d 151, 157 (2d Cir. 2001) (“[Section] 924(e)’s ‘different occasions’ requirement falls safely within the range of facts traditionally found by judges at sentencing and is sufficiently interwoven with the facts of the prior crimes that Apprendi does not require different fact-finders and different burdens of proof for Section 924(e)’s various requirements.”). We agree with that wide consensus and conclude that neither Descamps nor Alleyne undermines the District Court’s “fact of a prior conviction” analysis. The 1991 convictions cover four robberies committed in October of 1990. According to the charging documents, one robbery occurred “on or about” October 20, a second robbery occurred “on or about” October 22, and two 19 robberies occurred “on or about” October 23. Although the dates charged were not elements of the offenses, the charging documents nonetheless contained factual matter that was sufficient for the District Court to conclude that Blair’s 1991 convictions were for at least three robberies that occurred on separate occasions.8 Indeed, the date of an offense is integral to the fact of a prior conviction, and is customarily reflected in the kinds of documents that courts may, under Shepard and Taylor, use to determine whether a prior conviction exists. The offenses at issue here occurred on separate occasions because “the criminal episodes [were] distinct in time[,]” United States v. Schoolcraft, 879 F.2d 64, 73 (3d Cir. 1989) (citations omitted)(internal quotation marks omitted), and targeted “different geographic locations and victims,” Thompson, 421 F.3d at 285. See also United States v. Pope, 132 F.3d 684, 692 (11th Cir. 1998) (holding that a defendant’s convictions for burgling two different doctor’s offices located 200 yards apart constitute two crimes, even though the two burglaries were separated by only moments); United States v. Brady, 988 F.2d 664, 668-70 (6th Cir. 1993) (en banc) (holding that two armed robberies, separated in time by less than an hour, are two convictions).9 8 There is a good argument to be made that all four of the 1991 convictions took place on separate occasions, because even the robberies that occurred on the same day were committed at locations roughly two miles from each other, and each involved a separate victim. But we need not reach that conclusion here, as we may affirm the District Court based on three prior convictions. 9 For those reasons, Blair’s invocation of United States v. Fuller, 453 F.3d 274 (5th Cir. 2006), does not help his 20 Accordingly, the District Court’s conclusion that Blair’s 1991 convictions qualify as at least three predicate offenses under ACCA was correct, as was the imposition of the mandatory minimum sentence required by ACCA.10 cause. The Fuller court held that multiple burglary convictions were not necessarily for crimes committed on separate occasions when the indictment did not indicate whether the defendant had pled guilty to entering separate apartment units in the same complex, or simply to standing as a lookout as his accomplice entered the apartments. Id. at 279-80. The court recognized, however, that the case “turn[ed] on whether [the burglaries] occurred sequentially, as the district court held that they did, or simultaneously,” because “[t]he critical inquiry when deciding whether separate offenses occurred on ‘occasions different from one another’ for purposes of the ACCA is whether the offenses occurred sequentially.” Id. If they were sequential, meaning that one crime came to an end before the next commenced, they occurred on separate occasions. Id. Here, the charging documents clearly indicated that, at least as to the robberies occurring on different days, each of Blair’s robberies had been completed before the next commenced. They were separated in both time and distance and therefore could not be said to be a continuation of one crime. 10 Because we do not see any ambiguity as to whether ACCA applies here, we also reject Blair’s argument that the rule of lenity should apply. “The rule of lenity requires ambiguous criminal laws to be interpreted in favor of the defendants subjected to them.” United States v. Santos, 553 U.S. 507, 514 (2008). 21