Opinion ID: 196196
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The 1985 Florida Sexual Battery

Text: 35 Pierce's fourth argument is that the district court erred in deciding that his 1985 Florida conviction for sexual battery is a crime of violence and therefore a cognizable predicate conviction for purposes of Sec. 4B1.1. Central to his argument is an assertion that the statute defining the offense for which he was convicted, Fla.Stat.Ann. Sec. 794.011(5), does not, inter alia, have as an element the use, attempted use or threatened use of physical force against the person of another. See Sec. 4B1.2(1) (defining phrase crime of violence for purposes of Sec. 4B1.1). Regardless of whether Pierce is correct about the current version of the statute (a matter on which we express no opinion), a plain reading of the statute under which Pierce was convicted reveals that, in 1985, the use of force was an element of the offense. See Fla.Stat.Ann. Sec. 794.011(5) (West 1984) (A person who commits sexual battery upon a person 12 years of age or older, without that person's consent, and in the process thereof uses physical force and violence not likely to cause serious personal injury is guilty of a felony....) (emphasis supplied). And because the statutory formulation of the predicate crime, and not the actual facts of the case itself, dictates whether the offense is a crime of violence for purposes of the federal sentencing guidelines, see United States v. DeLuca, 17 F.3d 6, 8 (1st Cir.1994), our inquiry is at an end. 36 The 1985 Florida sexual battery was a crime of violence under Sec. 4B1.2(1). We therefore reject Pierce's argument that the district court erred in counting the sexual battery as a predicate conviction for purposes of the career offender guideline.