Opinion ID: 217430
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Adult Conviction

Text: 5 Section 2L1.2 of the Sentencing Guidelines provides for a sixteen-level increase in the defendant’s offense level if the defendant was previously deported after certain kinds of felony convictions, including a crime of violence. U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii). The enhancement “does not apply to a conviction for an offense committed before the defendant was eighteen years of age unless such conviction is classified as an adult conviction under the laws of the jurisdiction in which the defendant was convicted.” Id. cmt. n.1(A)(iv).2 Here, we conclude that Cortes’s withheld adjudications are “adult convictions” under Florida law. First, Florida law defines a “conviction” as “a determination of guilt that is the result of a plea or a trial, regardless of whether adjudication is withheld.” Fla. Stat. § 921.0021(2). Thus, the fact that Cortes’s adjudications were withheld did not prevent application of § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)’s sixteen-level enhancement. Second, under Florida’s Criminal Procedure Law, adult criminal convictions occur in the criminal division of the state’s Circuit Courts. See Fla. Stat. § 900.03. Under Florida’s Juvenile Justice Act, adjudications of law violations by children under the age of 18 occur in the juvenile court (i.e., the juvenile division of the 2 We review de novo the district court’s legal interpretation of the Sentencing Guidelines. United States v. Burge, 407 F.3d 1183, 1186 (11th Cir. 2005). 6 Circuit Courts) “unless, in compliance with the Act, juvenile jurisdiction is waived or the juvenile falls under a statutory exception.” State v. Griffith, 675 So.2d 911, 912-13 (Fla. 1996); see also Fla. Stat. § 985.0301(1) (conferring jurisdiction), § 985.35 (providing for adjudicatory hearings in juvenile court). Florida law provides several ways the criminal case of a child fourteen or older may be transferred from juvenile court to adult court for prosecution. See id. §§ 985.556985.56 (providing for transfer to adult court by voluntary and involuntary waiver and for direct filing of an information in adult court for certain offenses). It is undisputed that Cortes’s criminal case began in the juvenile court, but was transferred, pursuant to Florida’s Juvenile Justice Act, to the criminal division of the Florida Circuit Court for adult prosecution. Third, we agree with the district court that the Florida Youthful Offender Act, Florida Statutes § 958.04, does not negate a juvenile’s adult conviction in the criminal division of a Florida Circuit Court. See United States v. Wilks, 464 F.3d 1240, 1242-43 (11th Cir. 2006) (concluding that prior Florida convictions supported U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 career offender enhancement and application of the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1), despite sentencing as a youthful offender because defendant was sentenced in adult court and was 7 otherwise treated as an adult criminal).3 Section 958.04 gives the criminal division of the Florida Circuit Court the discretion to sentence eligible defendants who are under 21 years of age as “youthful offender[s].” Fla. Stat. § 958.04(1). If the Florida Circuit Court decides to sentence a defendant as a youthful offender, “[i]n lieu of other criminal penalties authorized by law,” the court is given an array of alternative sentencing options, such as probation, placement in a community control program, incarceration in county facilities, restitution centers or public or private community residential facilities, and to split sentences between options. Id. § 958.04(2)(a)-(c); see also id. § 958.021 (stating that the purpose of the Florida Youthful Offender Act is “to provide an additional sentencing alternative to be used in the discretion of the court when dealing with offenders who have demonstrated that they can no longer be handled safely as juveniles and who require more substantial limitations upon their liberty to ensure the protection of society” while at the same time encouraging their rehabilitation “by preventing their association with older and more experienced criminals during the terms of their confinement”). Nothing in Florida’s youthful offender statute suggests that a 3 We note that, while Wilks involved U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1’s career offender provision, that provision, like U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1), counts only prior adult convictions and limits an adult conviction for an offense committed before age 18 to one “classified as an adult conviction under the laws of the jurisdiction in which the defendant was convicted . . . .” See U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2 cmt. n.1. 8 youthful offender’s conviction in the criminal division of the Florida Circuit Court is not an adult conviction under Florida law.4 In sum, the fact that the Florida Circuit Court later sentenced Cortes as a youthful offender did not change the fact that, under Florida law, it first convicted him as an adult of two counts of battery on an officer and one count of resisting an officer with violence. Accordingly, the district court did not err in counting these withheld adjudications as predicate offenses for purposes of the § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A) sixteen-level enhancement.