Opinion ID: 2975286
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Two Recent Supreme Court Decisions

Text: Finally, the Attorney General calls our attention to two recent Supreme Court decisions: Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez, 549 U.S. ____, 127 S. Ct. 815 (2007), and James v. United States, 549 U.S. ____, 127 S.Ct. 1586 (2007). Neither helps the Attorney General. In Duenas-Alvarez, the Supreme Court addressed whether a conviction for aiding and abetting a theft, under California law, qualified as a “generic theft offense” under the INA. 127 S. Ct. at 820. In holding that the California conviction qualified, the Supreme Court rejected Duenas- - 12 - No. 06-3467 Mendieta-Robles v. Gonzales Alvarez’s argument that the California statute, under which he was convicted, punished conduct outside the scope of generic definition of theft (as the term is now used in the criminal codes of most states). Id. at 822. The Supreme Court explained that, [m]oreover, in our view, to 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. To show that realistic possibility, an offender, of course, may show that the statute was so applied in his own case. But he must at least point to his own case or other cases in which the state courts in fact did apply the statute in the special (nongeneric) manner for which he argues. Id. The Attorney General takes Duenas-Alvarez to mean that we should proceed assuming Mendieta-Robles was convicted of selling cocaine instead of offering to sell cocaine because it is less likely he was simply a cocaine offerer—despite the relevant documents’ silence as to the specifics of Mendieta-Robles’s conviction. This argument fails for two reasons. First, it requires us to ignore the clear language of ORC § 2925.03(A)(1) (“No person shall . . . [s]ell or offer to sell a controlled substance”), which expressly and unequivocally punishes both sales and offers. Second, that a defendant could be convicted under ORC § 2925.03(A)(1) for offering to sell a controlled substance is not a “theoretical possibility,” nor does it require “the application of legal imagination.” Rather, as the Ohio Supreme Court has repeatedly stated, “[u]ndoubtedly, a person can be convicted for offering to sell a controlled substance in violation of [ORC] § 2925.03(A)(1) without actually transferring a controlled substance to the buyer.” Chandler, 846 N.E.2d at 1236-37; accord, e.g., Mughni, 514 N.E.2d at 872; Scott, 432 N.E.2d at 799. Thus, Duenas-Alvarez is inapposite. - 13 - No. 06-3467 Mendieta-Robles v. Gonzales Neither does James v. United States assist the Attorney General. In James, the Supreme Court addressed whether attempted burglary, under Florida law, is a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminal Act. 127 S. Ct. at 1590. In holding that the Florida attempted-burglary statute did qualify as a “violent felony,” the Supreme Court explained that Taylor’s categorical approach does not “require[] that every conceivable factual offense covered by a statute . . . necessarily present a serious potential risk of injury before the offense can be deemed a violent felony.” Id. at 1597 (citing Duenas-Alvarez, 127 S. Ct. at 815). “Rather, the proper inquiry is whether the conduct encompassed by the elements of the offense, in the ordinary case, presents a serious potential risk of injury to another.” Id. (emphasis added). Here, the Attorney General relies on James to contend that “selling” is the ordinary conviction under ORC § 2925.03(A)(1) and “offering to sell” is merely a conceivable factual offense covered by the statute. We do not agree for the same two reasons that Duenas-Alvarez is inapposite. First, “offering to sell” is more than a conceivable factual offense covered by ORC § 2925.03(A)(1). Section 2925.03(A)(1) by its own terms expressly contemplates and punishes offers to sell. ORC § 2925.03(A)(1) (“No person shall . . . [s]ell or offer to sell a controlled substance”). Moreover, as noted, the Ohio Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that an offense under section 2925.03(A)(1) is complete merely by making an offer to sell. See, e.g., Chandler, 846 N.E.2d at 1236-37; Mughni, 514 N.E.2d at 872; Scott, 432 N.E.2d at 799.