Opinion ID: 547604
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: propriety of defendant's sentence

Text: 46 Appellant next contends that the district court's imposition of a 21 year sentence, enhanced under the career offender provision of the sentencing guidelines, was clearly erroneous. Under the sentencing guidelines, a career offender is defined as follows: 47 A defendant is a career offender if (1) the defendant was at least eighteen years old at the time of the instant offense, (2) the instant offense is a crime of violence or trafficking in a controlled substance, and (3) the defendant has at least two prior felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense. 48 U.S.S.G. Sec. 4B1.1. Pratt argues that he was not a career offender, because, although he did have two prior convictions for assault and battery on a police officer, these were state misdemeanors rather than the violent felonies contemplated by the sentencing guidelines. Appellant contends that, although his prior convictions fall within the Sentencing Guideline Commentary's definition of a felony conviction because they carry more than a one-year maximum sentence, the crimes listed in the Commentary are all serious felonies which contemplate the infliction or threat of infliction of serious bodily harm. The simple assaults for which he was convicted, he argues, are not such crimes. 49 We do not agree. A crime of violence is defined in 18 U.S.C. Sec. 16 as: 50 (a) an offense that has as an element the use, attempted use or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another, or 51 (b) any other offense that is a felony and that by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense. 52 Pratt's pre-sentence report lists eighteen separate convictions or juvenile adjudications, and three of these convictions qualify as crimes of violence. The fact that simple assault and assault on a police officer are not listed as examples of crimes of violence in the Guidelines' Commentary is not significant in light of our finding that the Commentary is not meant to be an exhaustive list of all offenses qualifying as violent. The district court, having properly concluded that appellant qualified as a career offender, imposed a sentence within the applicable Guidelines range, and committed no error in doing so.