Opinion ID: 793789
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Tampering With a Motor Vehicle

Text: 3 Following our recent en banc decision in United States v. McCall, 439 F.3d 967 (8th Cir.2006), when determining whether a prior conviction is a violent felony within the meaning of the otherwise involves provision in § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), we first determine whether the elements of that prior crime involved or described conduct that necessarily entails a serious potential risk of physical injury to another. Id. at 970 (internal quotation omitted). In Missouri, a person commits the crime of tampering with a motor vehicle if [h]e or she knowingly receives, possesses, sells, alters, defaces, destroys or unlawfully operates an automobile . . . without the consent of the owner thereof. Mo.Rev.Stat. § 569.080.1(2). In United States v. Johnson, 417 F.3d 990, 997-99 (8th Cir.2005), we analyzed whether this offense is a violent felony for purposes of the ACCA. We compared the offense of tampering by possession to tampering by operation, and reasoned tampering by operation represents an escalated, and more dangerous, form of tampering by possession. Johnson, 417 F.3d at 998. Under Missouri law, [t]ampering by possession . . . differs from tampering by operation in that the former offense merely requires a defendant to enter an automobile in a manner consistent with possession while the latter offense requires a defendant to start the automobile's engine. Id. We went on to hold the risks associated with tampering by operation are sufficient to warrant classifying it as a violent felony. Id. at 999. 4 Because the Missouri crime of tampering with a motor vehicle is overinclusive in that tampering by operation involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another, while tampering by possession does not, we next look to the judicial record to determine whether Adams's conduct involved tampering by operation. See McCall, 439 F.3d at 973-75 (noting the judicial record review is limited by Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 602, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990), and Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 125 S.Ct. 1254, 1263, 161 L.Ed.2d 205 (2005)). According to the charging document introduced with the government's sentencing memorandum in the case at bar, Adams knowingly and without the consent of the owner unlawfully operated an automobile. Because Adams's conduct involved tampering by operation, we hold the district court did not err in concluding Adams's conviction qualified as a violent felony predicate offense under the ACCA. See Johnson, 417 F.3d at 997-99.