Opinion ID: 3051053
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sixth Amendment Challenge to Judicial

Text: Categorization of Prior Offenses as Violent Felonies [7] Preliminarily, Jennings contends that there is constitutional doubt as to whether a district court may determine that prior convictions qualify as violent felonies for purposes of increasing the statutory maximum under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). He contends that, due to this supposed constitutional doubt, the ACCA should be interpreted to require formal pleading and proof of prior convictions and their nature as violent felonies. This contention is squarely foreclosed by Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit precedent, which rejects Sixth Amendment challenges to the judicial categorization of prior convictions under the ACCA. See James v. United States, 127 S. Ct. 1586, 1600 (2007) (holding that application of the Taylor categorical approach to determine whether an offense presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to others “raises no Sixth Amendment issue”); Shepard, 544 U.S. at 24-26 (four justices stating that limiting documents regarding a prior conviction that a court may consider was necessary to avoid the Sixth Amendment problems that might otherwise result if a judge were to make findings as to disputed facts underlying the conviction); id. at 36-38 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (three more justices concluding that there would have been no constitutional problem with a rule that allowed judges to consult doc- uments such as police reports and complaint applications, where the underlying facts were undisputed); United States v. Von Brown, 417 F.3d 1077, 1079 (9th Cir. 2005) (per curiam) (“When the Taylor approach is followed, the categorization of a prior conviction as a ‘violent felony’ or a ‘crime of vioUNITED STATES v. JENNINGS 1675 lence’ is a legal question, not a factual question coming within the purview of Apprendi, Blakely, and Booker.”);8 Smith, 390 F.3d at 666-67 (holding that application of modified categorical approach to determine whether prior offenses fell under ACCA did not violate defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights). We thus reject Jennings’ “constitutional doubt” contention.