Opinion ID: 202903
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The State Law Conviction

Text: Turning to Appellant's 1989 conviction, we begin with the elements of the offense. Appellant was convicted under a statute that prohibited indecent assault and battery on a child under fourteen. [4] See Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265, § 13B (1989) (Section 13B). As one Massachusetts court has explained, An indecent assault and battery is essentially an act or series of acts which are fundamentally offensive to contemporary moral values. It is behavior which the common sense of society would regard as immodest, immoral and improper. Thus, in order to prove indecent assault and battery, the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed an intentional, unprivileged and indecent touching of the victim. It has been held that the intentional, unjustified touching of private areas such as the breasts, abdomen, buttocks, thighs, and pubic area of a female constitutes an indecent assault and battery. Commonwealth v. Mosby, 30 Mass.App.Ct. 181, 567 N.E.2d 939, 941 (Mass.App.Ct. 1991) (alterations, internal citations, and quotation marks omitted); see, e.g., Commonwealth v. Taylor, 50 Mass.App.Ct. 901, 733 N.E.2d 584, 584 (Mass.App.Ct.2000). On several prior occasions, we have addressed whether inappropriate sexual touching is a crime that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another. In United States v. Leahy, we held that Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265, § 13H, which criminalizes indecent assault and battery on a person over fourteen, was a violent felony for ACCA purposes. 473 F.3d 401, 411 (1st Cir.2007). While helpful, Leahy is not dispositive because Section 13H, unlike Section 13B, includes lack of the victim's consent as an element. The Second Circuit, in Sutherland v. Reno, found this element (i.e., lack of consent) to be determinative in holding that Section 13H was a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. § 16. [5] See 228 F.3d 171, 177 (2d Cir.2000) ([I]n indecent assault and battery cases, the non-consent of the victim is a touchstone for determining whether a crime `involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person . . . may be used.'). In adopting the reasoning of Sutherland with respect to the classification of Section 13H under the ACCA, we noted that just as there is `a substantial risk that force may be used in order to overcome the victim's lack of consent,' so too is there a substantial risk of physical injury from the unwanted touching. Leahy, 473 F.3d at 411 (citation omitted). Our caselaw has also established that indecent sexual contact crimes perpetrated by adults against children categorically present a serious potential risk of physical injury. In United States v. Richards, for example, we held that unlawful sexual contact offenses against children under fourteen by a person at least three years older under Maine law are violent felonies under the ACCA. 456 F.3d 260, 264-65 (1st Cir. 2006), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2097, 167 L.Ed.2d 816 (2007). Similarly, in United States v. Sherwood, we held that under Rhode Island law a conviction for second-degree child molestation involving the sexual touching of persons under thirteen years of age typically presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another within the meaning of the sentencing guidelines even though the statute can encompass both violent and non-violent conduct. 156 F.3d 219, 221 (1st Cir.1998); cf. United States v. Meader, 118 F.3d 876, 881-82 (1st Cir.1997) (concluding that a statutory rape conviction qualified as a crime of violence where the charging documents established that the crime involved a thirty-six-year-old man and a thirteen-year-old girl because of the age of the girl and the chronological gap). These decisions rest on the common-sense recognition that crimes involving indecent sexual contact with a child typically occur in close quarters, and are generally perpetrated by an adult upon a victim who is not only smaller, weaker, and less experienced, but is also generally susceptible to acceding to the coercive power of adult authority figures. Sherwood, 156 F.3d at 221 (quoting United States v. Velazquez-Overa, 100 F.3d 418, 422 (5th Cir. 1996)); see, e.g., United States v. Curtis, 481 F.3d 836, 838-39 (D.C.Cir.2007) ([C]ourts have universally recognized that sex offenses against minors are crimes of violence . . . because of the substantial likelihood that the perpetrator will use physical force to ensure the child's compliance.); United States v. Munro, 394 F.3d 865, 870 (10th Cir.2005) (attempted sexual activity with a minor is a crime of violence because [i]n cases involving sex crimes against minors, we have found that `there is always a substantial risk that physical force will be used to ensure [a] child's compliance' with an adult's sexual demands (citation omitted)); United States v. Pereira-Salmeron, 337 F.3d 1148, 1153-54 (9th Cir.2003) ([S]exual contact with a minor inherently presents a risk of force sufficient to characterize such misconduct as a `crime of violence' under the Sentencing Guidelines.). To be sure, a sex crime involving indecent touching of a child does not have an obvious analogue in the enumerated crimes in clause (ii). Still, the substantial likelihood of physical injury inherent in indecent sexual contact crimes by an adult with a child presents at least as much risk as burglary. Cf. Velazquez-Overa, 100 F.3d at 422 (If burglary, with its tendency to cause alarm and to provoke physical confrontation, is considered a violent crime under 18 U.S.C. § 16(b), then surely the same is true of the far greater intrusion that occurs when a child is sexually molested.); see also Sutherland, 228 F.3d at 177 (citing the Velazquez-Overa child molestation-burglary analogy with approval). Appellant argues that Section 13B, unlike other child sexual contact offenses, does not qualify categorically under the residual clause because it expressly provides that the child's consent is not a defense and does not require a minimum age gap between victim and perpetrator. As such, the statute sweeps in consensual sexual contact between similarly-aged teenagers, for example, a fourteen-year-old and a thirteen-year-old who are simply making out. Because this situation would not ordinarily create a serious potential risk of physical injury, he maintains that conviction under Section 13B cannot be classified as a violent felony because it spans both violent and non-violent conduct. Although this argument gives us pause, it ultimately fails. While the statute potentially punishes consensual sexual touching between underage teenagers, the likelihood that a conviction for a Romeo-and-Juliet [6] offense could serve as an ACCA predicate is low. We have scoured the caselaw and could not discover a single reported case in which a juvenile was convicted under Section 13B for consensual sexual activity with a similarly-aged youth. Counsel has pointed us to none under Massachusetts law. Significantly, the ACCA prescribes a higher standard for sentencing enhancements based on juvenile convictions. A juvenile conviction qualifies as a violent felony only if it involves the use or carrying of a firearm, knife, or destructive device and otherwise satisfies the criteria applicable to adult offenses. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B). Thus to trigger ACCA enhancement, a juvenile conviction under the statute would necessarily involve an unconsented-to indecent sexual touching of a child under fourteen while using or carrying a weapon. Further, in order for a juvenile to be tried as an adult in Massachusetts, a defendant would have to be at least fourteen years old and, under the law applicable at the time of Cadieux's 1989 conviction, a judge would have to issue a written order supported by clear and convincing evidence 1) that the child presents a significant danger to the public as demonstrated by the nature of the offense charged and the child's past record of delinquent behavior, and 2) that the child is not amenable to rehabilitation as a juvenile. Commonwealth v. Traylor, 29 Mass.App.Ct. 584, 563 N.E.2d 243, 244 (1990) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added); see also Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 119, § 61 (repealed 1996). Accordingly, as a practical matter, the odds that a conviction for consensual touching between similarly-aged youths would qualify as an ACCA predicate approach zero. Cf. Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 815, 822, 166 L.Ed.2d 683 (2007) ([T]o find that a state statute creates a crime outside the generic definition of a listed crime in a federal statute requires more than the application of legal imagination to a state statute's language. It requires a realistic probability, not a theoretical possibility, that the State would apply its statute to conduct that falls outside the generic definition of a crime.). Moreover, under the categorical approach, the sentencing court is allowed to look at undisputed facts in the record. Here, under Section 13B, we know that the victim is always under fourteen years of age. Compare Sherwood, 156 F.3d at 221 (despite fact that the chronological gap between a perpetrator and his victim is not obvious from the face of the [Rhode Island second-degree child molestation] statute, we do know from the statute that, in every instance, the victim is at most 12 years old and that offenses under the statute are generally perpetrated by an adult). Further, as appellant concedes, under Shepard, we can look at the indictment. The 1989 indictment establishes that he pled guilty to violations of Section 13B occurring on various occasions between September 1984 and February 1985. See 544 U.S. at 26, 125 S.Ct. 1254 (approving use of charging document for ACCA enhancement). The presentence report, to which Cadieux did not object, indicates that Cadieux was born on September 20, 1959. See Miller, 478 F.3d at 52 (adopted admissions by a defendant may be used for ACCA enhancement purposes); cf. United States v. Morillo, 8 F.3d 864, 872-73 (1st Cir.1993) (A defendant that accepts . . . without contesting the facts set forth in the [presentence] report can scarcely be heard to complain when the sentencing court uses those facts to make its findings.). Thus, Cadieux was an adult in his mid-twenties when he committed the offense at issue. This chronological age gap falls squarely within the sexual touching caselaw holding that age differences of this magnitude necessarily create a serious potential risk of physical injury to another. We understand that establishing a dividing line in this area involving like-aged teenagers is fraught with peril. United States v. Sacko, 178 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir.1999) (involving statutory rape of a fourteen-year-old girl by someone over eighteen). If and when a person is convicted under section 13B for consensual sexual contact with a youth of the same or similar age, and sentencing enhancement based on that conviction is sought, we reserve the right to revisit the issue. Compare Emile v. INS, 244 F.3d 183, 188 (1st Cir.2001) (construing Section 13B to constitute the deportable offense of sexual abuse of a minor under the alien removal statute, but reserving the right to revisit that classification in the event removal is sought for a defendant convicted of conduct shown to be markedly less serious than the statute was interpreted to capture); cf. United States v. Shannon, 110 F.3d 382, 388-89 (7th Cir.1997) (en banc) (mindful that statutory rape is more often thought of as a `morals offense' than as a `crime of violence,' limiting holding that sexual contact with a minor is a crime of violence to thirteen-year-olds and younger, though statute applied to persons under the age of sixteen). Accordingly, Appellant's 1989 conviction was properly classified as a violent felony under the ACCA's residual provision.