Opinion ID: 1196774
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Applicability of the ACCA

Text: We review de novo the district court's determination of whether a prior offense is a `violent felony' under the ACCA. United States v. Lynch, 518 F.3d 164, 168 (2d Cir.2008).
Mills was convicted in state court of escape in the first degree under Conn. Gen Stat. § 53a-169, the text of which is set forth in the margin at note 1 above. A person is guilty of this crime if, inter alia, he or she escapes from a correctional institution, Conn. Gen Stat. § 53a-169(a)(1), or escapes from any public or private, nonprofit halfway house, group home or mental health facility or community residence to which he was transferred pursuant to subsection (e) of section 18-100 and he is in the custody of the Commissioner of Correction or is required to be returned to the custody of said commissioner upon his release from such facility, id. at § 53a-169(a)(2). The Connecticut Supreme Court has interpreted escape within the meaning of Section 53a-169 to mean any unauthorized departure from, or failure to return to, whatever may be designated as [the defendant's] place of incarceration or confinement. State v. Lubus, 216 Conn. 402, 581 A.2d 1045, 1048 (1990). In Taylor [,] . . . the [Supreme] Court endorsed a `categorical approach' to determining whether a prior conviction qualifies as a `violent felony' under the ACCA. The sentencing court generally must `look only to the fact of conviction and the statutory definition of the prior offense.' United States v. Rosa, 507 F.3d 142, 151 (2d Cir. 2007) (quoting Taylor, 495 U.S. at 602, 110 S.Ct. 2143). But where, as in Taylor, Rosa, and the instant case, the statutory definition of the state crime of conviction encompasses both crimes that would qualify as a `violent felony' and crimes that would not, . . . the Taylor Court concluded that a broader inquiry is permissible. Id. When a statute encompasses both violent and non-violent felonies, as Conn. Gen Stat. § 53a-169 does, we make a limited inquiry into which part of the statute the defendant was convicted of violating. The inquiry is an easy one here. The government concedes that Mills's prior conviction for escape was pursuant to Conn. Gen Stat. § 53a-169(a)(2). The Connecticut Supreme Court has made clear that a violation of this section of the statute is consistent with both an affirmative escape from custody and a mere failure to return. See Lubus, 581 A.2d at 1048 (We conclude . . . that § 53a-169(a)(2) employs the term `escape' to contemplate an unauthorized departure from, or failure to return to, a `community residence.'). Moreover, the government also concedes that, having the burden of proof on the issue, see Rosa, 507 F.3d at 151, it did not establish, pursuant to [ Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 26, 125 S.Ct. 1254, 161 L.Ed.2d 205 (2005) (limiting court's review to specific documents when deciding under which provision of a statute encompassing both violent and non-violent crimes a defendant was convicted)], that the defendant had been convicted of an affirmative escape from custody rather than a failure to return. Government's Supplemental Letter Br. 2 (Feb. 4, 2009). The government therefore concluded: For this reason, the record would not support, in the wake of Chambers, a conclusion that the defendant had been convicted in state court of an escape crime that generically qualifies as a violent felony under § 924(e). . . . [E]ven the facts outside the scope of Shepard, if they could have been considered, would have narrowed Mills'[s] conviction only to either a failure to report or a walkaway escape from a non-secure facility. . . . [T]he Government concedes that a simple walkaway escape from a nonsecure community residence does not constitute the sort of purposeful, aggressive and violent behavior that is required. . . to constitute a violent felony for the purposes of § 924(e). Id. at 2-3. We need not address whether a walkaway escape is, as the government says, not a violent felony for these purposes under Chambers. Cf. Jackson, 301 F.3d at 63 (holding, prior to Chambers, that a walkaway escape is categorically a violent felony). For the purpose of deciding this appeal, it is sufficient to note our agreement with the government that after Chambers, a failure to report or failure to return is not a violent felony under the ACCA, and that the government concedes it has not proved  and cannot prove  that Mills was convicted of anything more than a failure to return. See Chambers, 129 S.Ct. at 693 ([W]e conclude that the crime here at issue [failure to report to a penal institution, in violation of Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 720, § 5/31-6(a)] falls outside the scope of ACCA's definition of `violent felony.'); see also id. at 691 (we believe that a failure to report (as described in the statutory provision's third, fourth, fifth, and sixth phrases)[, including, (3) failing to report to a penal institution, (4) failing to report for periodic imprisonment, (5) failing to return from furlough, (6) failing to return from work and day release,] is a separate crime, different from escape (the subject matter of the statute's first and second phrases)[, including (1) escape from a penal institution and (2) escape from the custody of an employee of a penal institution]). Mills's sentencing was thus improper, if understandably so. The district court's determination that Mills was an armed career criminal under the ACCA had two effects on his sentencing: (1) it required a mandatory minimum sentence of 180 months under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1); and (2) it changed Mills's base offense level from 24 to 33 pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 4B1.4(b)(3)(B), which led to a Guidelines imprisonment range of 188 to 235 months. As noted, the district court sentenced Mills to a term of 188 months, at the bottom of this range. Because the district court's calculation of the applicable Guidelines range was affected by its determination  which, in light of Chambers, we now recognize was incorrect  that Mills was an armed career criminal under the ACCA, we remand to the district court to vacate the sentence and to resentence Mills. [2] Cf. United States v. Fagans, 406 F.3d 138, 141 (2d Cir.2005) (In many circumstances, an incorrect calculation of the applicable Guidelines range will taint . . . [a sentence that] may have been explicitly selected with what was thought to be the applicable Guidelines range as a frame of reference.).