Opinion ID: 4570269
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Aggravated Battery Against a Household Member

Text: Under New Mexico law, aggravated battery against a household member “consists of the unlawful touching or application of force to the person of a household member with the intent to injure that person.” N.M. Stat. Ann. § 30-3-16. Aggravated battery is a felony if it “is committed: (1) by inflicting great bodily harm; (2) with a deadly weapon; (3) by strangulation or suffocation; or (4) in any manner whereby great bodily harm or death can be inflicted.” Id. § 30-3-16(C). Ybarra was convicted of the felony version of the crime. He argues the crime does not have as an element the violent physical force required under the ACCA because it focuses on the resulting harm to the victim, not the force behind the unlawful touching. According to Ybarra, the crime can be committed by any unlawful touching that may result in death or serious injury. Ybarra’s argument is foreclosed by this court’s recent decision in United States v. Manzanares, 956 F.3d 1220 (10th Cir. 2020). In Manzanares, we held that the New Mexico crime of aggravated battery is a violent felony for purposes of the ACCA, rejecting the identical argument Ybarra makes here, i.e., that the -4- degree of force required cannot be measured in terms of the resulting harm. Id. at 1228. The holding in Manzanares was compelled by the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Castleman, 572 U.S. 157, 169 (2014), a case in which the Court held that “knowing or intentional causation of bodily injury necessarily involves the use of physical force.” See also United States v. Ontiveros, 875 F.3d 533, 536 (10th Cir. 2017) (noting the Castleman Court “specifically rejected the contention that ‘one can cause bodily injury without the use of physical force’”). Manzanares also relied on United States v. Ontiveros, a post-Castleman case in which this court “concluded that Colorado second-degree assault is a crime of violence, even though the crime’s elements ‘focus on the result of the conduct (serious bodily injury), not the conduct itself.’” Manzanares, 956 F.3d at 1228. Because he was convicted of the felony version of aggravated battery against a household member, Ybarra, at a minimum, unlawfully touched another person with an “intent to injure,” and in a “manner whereby great bodily harm or death can be inflicted.” N.M. Stat. Ann. § 30-3-16(A), (C). Under this court’s holdings in Ontiveros and Manzanares, and the Supreme Court’s holding in Castleman, Ybarra’s crime categorically involved the degree of physical force necessary to satisfy the ACCA’s definition of violent felony. -5-