Opinion ID: 2766467
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Crime-of-Violence Enhancement

Text: We review the district court’s interpretation and application of the Sentencing Guidelines—including the characterization of a prior offense—de novo and its findings of fact for clear error. United States v. Klein, 543 F.3d 206, 213 (5th Cir. 2008). Whether a conviction under the Texas stalking statute is a COV is an issue of first impression in this Court. The Guidelines define COV to include several enumerated offenses and “any other offense under federal, state, or local law that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.” § 2L1.2 n.1(B)(iii). A defendant uses force if he “intentionally avail[s] himself of that force.” United States v. Vargas–Duran, 356 F.3d 598, 599 (5th Cir. 2004) (en banc). “If any set of facts would support a conviction without proof of that component, then the component most decidedly is not an element—implicit or explicit—of the crime.” Id. at 605. Because stalking is not an enumerated offense, it can only qualify as a COV as a “force offense.” See United States v. Calderon–Pena, 383 F.3d 254, 255–56 (5th Cir. 2004) (en banc). To determine whether a crime is a force offense, we look at the elements of the offense in the statute of conviction, not at the defendant’s conduct. Id. at 257; see also Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600 (1990) (setting out the categorical approach). However, “if the statute of conviction contains a series of disjunctive elements, this [C]ourt may look beyond the statute to certain records made or used in adjudicating guilt to determine which subpart of the statute formed the basis of conviction.” United States v. Moreno–Florean, 542 F.3d 445, 449 (5th Cir. 2008). The Court may consider the “charging papers 5 Case: 13-51021 Document: 00512887770 Page: 6 Date Filed: 01/02/2015 No. 13-51021 to see which of the various statutory alternatives were involved in a particular case.” United States v. Andino–Ortega, 608 F.3d 305, 309 (5th Cir. 2010). The Texas stalking statute under which Rodriguez was convicted contains disjunctive elements. See Tex. Penal Code § 42.072. Rodriguez pleaded guilty to the following charging document: Rodriguez . . . knowingly engage[d] in conduct directed specifically toward [the victim, DG] that [he] knew or reasonably believed [DG] would regard as threatening bodily injury and death to [DG], towit: contacting [DG] by phone and threatening [DG], and the . . . conduct would cause a reasonable person to fear, and did cause [DG] to fear, bodily injury and death for [DG]. And . . . [Rodriguez] knowingly engage[d] in conduct directed specifically toward [DG] that [he] knew or reasonably believed [DG] would regard as threatening bodily injury and death to [DG], to-wit: coming to [DG]’s residence and threatening [DG], and the . . . conduct would cause a reasonable person to fear, and did cause [DG] to fear, bodily injury and death for [DG]. When narrowed by the language of the indictment, the statute states in relevant part: (a) A person commits an offense if the person, on more than one occasion and pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct that is directed specifically at another person, knowingly engages in conduct . . . that: (1) . . . the actor knows or reasonably should know the other person will regard as threatening: (A) bodily injury or death for the other person; ... (2) causes the other person . . . to be placed in fear of bodily injury or death . . . ; and (3) would cause a reasonable person to fear: (A) bodily injury or death for himself or herself . . . Tex. Penal Code § 42.072. 6 Case: 13-51021 Document: 00512887770 Page: 7 Date Filed: 01/02/2015 No. 13-51021 The Texas stalking offense for which Rodriguez was convicted is not a force offense within the meaning of § 2L1.2. The use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force is not a required element of the statute under a plain reading of the text. See Tex. Penal Code § 42.072. The statute criminalizes behavior that another person fears is threatening bodily injury. Id. But as this Court has consistently held, one can cause bodily injury without the use or attempted use of physical force. See Andino–Ortega, 608 F.3d at 311 (concluding that the offense injury to a child “can be committed by intentional act without the use of physical force by putting poison or another harmful substance in a child’s food or drink”); United States v. Villegas–Hernandez, 468 F.3d 874, 882 (5th Cir. 2006) (holding that a Texas assault statute requiring “that the defendant ‘intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly cause[s] bodily injury to another’ . . . may be violated by the defendant so causing such injury by means other than the actual, attempted, or threatened ‘use of physical force against the person of another,’ and hence does not have such use of force as an element” (alteration in original)); Calderon–Pena, 383 F.3d at 260 (stressing that “[a]s a matter of simple logic,” an endangerment offense requiring that the defendant “places a child younger than 15 years in imminent danger of . . . bodily injury” “can—but need not—involve the application of physical force to the child’s person” (quoting Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.041(c) (omission in original)). It follows that the threat of bodily injury can occur even in the absence of a threat to use physical force. See, e.g., Ploeger v. State, 189 S.W.3d 799, 808– 09 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2006, no pet.) (finding sufficient evidence to support stalking conviction requiring reasonable fear of bodily injury or death where defendant continually watched, followed, and sent gifts to victim). In United States v. Cruz–Rodriguez, 625 F.3d 274, 275–77 (5th Cir. 2010) (per curiam), this Court addressed a California criminal-threat statute that, like 7 Case: 13-51021 Document: 00512887770 Page: 8 Date Filed: 01/02/2015 No. 13-51021 the Texas stalking statute, prohibits a person from “willfully threaten[ing] to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person, with the specific intent that the statement . . . be taken as a threat . . . and thereby cause[] that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety,” Cal. Penal Code § 422. We held that a conviction under this California statute was not a COV because the defendant could be found guilty of that offense under a set of facts not involving the actual, attempted, or threatened use of physical force against another. Cruz–Rodriguez, 625 F.3d at 276–77; see also United States v. De La Rosa–Hernandez, 264 F. App’x 446 (5th Cir. 2008) (per curiam) (unpublished) (noting that “threatening . . . to poison another” does not involve force as defined by this Court). We hold that Rodriguez’s conviction under the Texas stalking statute, as narrowed by the indictment, was not for a COV under § 2L1.2 of the Sentencing Guidelines. Therefore, the district court erred in imposing a sixteen-level enhancement. We turn next to whether the error was harmless. A procedural error during sentencing (such as a Guidelines miscalculation) is harmless if it did not affect the district court’s selection of the sentence imposed. United States v. Delgado–Martinez, 564 F.3d 750, 753 (5th Cir. 2009). The burden is on the Government to show the miscalculation was harmless. United States v. Ramos, 739 F.3d 250, 253 (5th Cir. 2014). The government does not discharge its burden simply by pointing to the record to “hypothesize some other explanation that might render the sentence reasonable.” United States v. Johnson, 648 F.3d 273, 279–80 (5th Cir. 2011). Rather, it must show “both (1) that the district court would have imposed the same sentence had it not made the error, and (2) that it would have done so for 8 Case: 13-51021 Document: 00512887770 Page: 9 Date Filed: 01/02/2015 No. 13-51021 the same reasons it gave. . . .” United States v. Ibarra–Luna, 628 F.3d 712, 714 (5th Cir. 2010) (emphasis added). This is a “heavy burden.” Id. at 717–18. The Government argues that “[f]ully three pages of the sentencing transcript reflect the district court’s review of the evidence and reasoning behind its decision to eschew the guidelines and instead impose [a] sentence based on the [18 U.S.C.] § 3553(a) sentencing factors.” Indeed, at Rodriguez’s sentencing, the district court considered and rejected a sentence in the range that would have been applicable without the sixteen-level COV enhancement (here, fifteen to twenty-one months). The district court explicitly indicated that it “would not have found that [to be] a satisfactory sentencing range.” It reasoned that such a sentence “would not have adequately taken into account [Rodriguez’s] history and characteristics.” It stressed: “I will be very honest, Mr. Rodriguez, your sentence would be the same using the sentencing factors or the guidelines. No matter what system we use, guidelines/non-guidelines, your sentence would be the same.” Because here “the district court: (1) contemplated the correct Guideline range in its analysis and (2) stated that it would have imposed the same sentence even if that range applied,” we cannot say that the district court’s miscalculation of Rodriguez’s Guidelines range caused him harm. United States v. Duhon, 541 F.3d 391, 396 (5th Cir. 2008). 2 Based on the district court’s 2 See also Ramos, 739 F.3d 253–54 (finding error harmless where the district court focused on the nature of the offense and the § 3553(a) factors); United States v. Richardson, 676 F.3d 491, 512 (5th Cir. 2012) (finding error harmless where district court “(1) considered all of the possible guidelines ranges that could have resulted if it had erred in applying one or more of the enhancements to [defendant’s] offense level; (2) found all of those resulting ranges to be insufficient in this case; and (3) stated that it would have imposed the same 65month sentence even if one of those ranges had applied”); United States v. Bonilla, 524 F.3d 647, 656 (5th Cir. 2008) (finding error harmless where district court stated, “I believe that I have calculated the guidelines correctly, but even if I am wrong about the guidelines, this is the sentence that I would impose in any event”); cf. Martinez–Flores, 720 F.3d at 300–01 (finding error was not harmless where “the district court did not clearly state (and [the panel 9 Case: 13-51021 Document: 00512887770 Page: 10 Date Filed: 01/02/2015 No. 13-51021 lengthy recitation of reasons for imposing the sentence it selected, we are persuaded that the court would have sentenced Rodriguez to sixty months in prison even if it had correctly determined that his stalking conviction was not for a COV. The Guidelines error was therefore harmless.