Opinion ID: 78486
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Escape Conviction

Text: Lee argues that his conviction for escape in the third degree based on his leaving a halfway house was not a violent felony because the statute under which he was convicted did not have as an element actual violence or the threat of violence and because the conduct underlying the offense did not involve any purposeful, violent, or aggressive conduct, as required by Begay v. United States, 553 U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 1581, 1586-88, 170 L.Ed.2d 490 (2008). Although the government initially responded that Lee's escape conviction was a violent felony under our holdings in United States v. Taylor, 489 F.3d 1112 (11th Cir. 2007) (per curiam), vacated, Taylor v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 990, 173 L.Ed.2d 286 (2009), and United States v. Gay, 251 F.3d 950, 954 (11th Cir.2001) (per curiam), it submitted a letter of supplemental authority following the Supreme Court's decision in Chambers, advising this court of its intention to abandon its pre- Chambers position. The government concedes that, after Chambers, a walkaway escape is not a violent felony or a crime of violence and asks this court to remand the case to the district court for resentencing. Because the government's concession with regard to Lee's escape conviction is not dispositive, see Roberts v. Galen of Va., Inc., 525 U.S. 249, 253, 119 S.Ct. 685, 687, 142 L.Ed.2d 648 (1999) (per curiam), we must determine as a matter of first impression in this circuit whether a non-violent walkaway escape is a violent felony for purposes of the ACCA. We conclude that it is not. A defendant convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) is ordinarily subject to a statutory mandatory maximum sentence of ten years' imprisonment. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2). Where a defendant has three prior violent felony convictions, however, he is subject to a statutory mandatory minimum of fifteen years' imprisonment as an armed career criminal. 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1); see U.S.S.G. § 4B1.4(a). The prosecution bears the burden of proving that a sentencing enhancement under the ACCA is warranted. United States v. Harrison, 558 F.3d 1280, 1294 n. 24 (11th Cir.2009). The ACCA defines a violent felony as: any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year . . . that  (i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or (ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another. 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B). Where a crime does not fit within (i) or the first clause of (ii), the court must determine whether the crime comes within (ii)'s residual clause, that is, whether it otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another. In making this determination, courts employ the categorical approach, under which they may look only to the fact of conviction and the statutory definition of the prior offense and must consider whether the elements of the offense are of the type that would justify its inclusion within the residual provision, without inquiring into the specific conduct of this particular offender. James v. United States, 550 U.S. 192, 202, 127 S.Ct. 1586, 1593-94, 167 L.Ed.2d 532 (2007) (quotation marks, alterations, and citations omitted). [3] When determining whether a state crime not enumerated in § 924(e) falls within the residual provision, courts look[] to the particular state statute to supply the elements of the relevant crime. Harrison, 558 F.3d at 1285. Before Begay, this inquiry focused exclusively on the degree of risk posed by violation of the state statute. See id. Under this approach, any crime that posed a serious risk of harm would come within the ACCA's residual provision and thus qualify as a violent felony. See id. at 1286 (noting that the serious potential risk of injury posed by a crime alone would have been enough to qualify [as a violent felony] under James ). Thus, we held in Gay that escape, even a peaceful walkaway escape, was a crime of violence for purposes of the career-offender designation under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2 because it always posed a serious potential risk of physical injury. See Gay, 251 F.3d at 954-55. Based on our reasoning in Gay, we subsequently held in Taylor that the defendant's non-violent failure to return to a halfway house was categorically a violent felony under the ACCA. See Taylor, 489 F.3d at 1114. Before Begay and Chambers, all of the circuits, with the lone exception of the Ninth Circuit, also held that all escapes were crimes of violence and/or violent felonies under § 4B1.2(a) and § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), respectively. [4] As we noted in Harrison, Begay added a new requirement to the violent felony analysis. Harrison, 558 F.3d at 1286. The question before the Court in Begay was whether a prior conviction for driving under the influence (DUI) is a violent felony within the meaning of § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). See Begay, 128 S.Ct. at 1583. The Court first held that under the ACCA's residual provision it is not enough that the crime pose a serious potential risk of injury; to qualify as a violent felony, the crime must be roughly similar, in kind as well as in degree of risk posed, to the examples themselves. Id. at 1585. The Court reasoned that the presence of the enumerated crimes in (ii)  burglary, arson, extortion, and crimes involving explosives  indicates that the statute covers only similar crimes, rather than every crime that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another. Id. at 1584-85. (quotation marks and citation omitted). Accordingly, although a DUI offense manifestly poses a serious risk of harm, the Court held that it is not a violent felony because [i]t is simply too unlike the provision's listed examples for [the Court] to believe that Congress intended the provision to cover it. Id. at 1584. Whereas DUI criminaliz[es] conduct in respect to which the offender need not have had any criminal intent at all, burglary, arson, extortion, and crimes involving the use of explosives all typically involve purposeful, violent, and aggressive conduct and are characteristic of the armed career criminal, the eponym of the statute. Id. at 1586-87 (quotation marks and citations omitted). In the wake of Begay, then, courts must determine not only whether a non-enumerated state crime poses a serious potential risk of harm, but also whether it is similar in kind to the ACCA's enumerated crimes, i.e., whether it involves purposeful, violent, and aggressive conduct. A crime that does not involve such conduct is not a violent felony under the ACCA's residual provision, regardless of the degree of danger it presents. See id. at 1588. Decided less than a year after Begay, Chambers addressed whether a failure to report for penal confinement, in violation of an Illinois statute that criminalized various types of escape, [5] was a violent felony under the ACCA. See Chambers, 129 S.Ct. at 689. Answering this question in the negative, the Court first ruled that failures to report and escapes from custody, though sometimes grouped together within a single criminal statute, do not belong to the same category of crime for purposes of the violent felony determination because [t]he behavior that likely underlies a failure to report would seem less likely to involve a risk of physical harm than the less passive, more aggressive behavior underlying an escape from custody. Id. at 691. Having determined that escape from custody and failure to report are two separate and distinct crimes, the Court held that the offense of failure to report does not fall within § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii)'s residual clause because it does not involve conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another. Id. at 691 (quotation marks and citation omitted). The Court observed that a failure to report amounts to a form of inaction, a far cry from the purposeful, violent, and aggressive conduct potentially at issue when an offender uses explosives against property, commits arson, burgles a dwelling or residence, or engages in certain forms of extortion. Id. at 692 (quotation marks and citation omitted). [6] Although Chambers does not address walkaway escapes, it nevertheless is significant to our analysis in this case because in establishing that a failure to report or failure to return is not a violent felony under the ACCA, it rejects the notion that all escapes are created equal. Harrison, 558 F.3d at 1294; see also United States v. Charles, 576 F.3d 1060, 1069 (10th Cir.2009) (concluding that Chambers compelled a modification of Tenth Circuit precedent that all escape convictions are crimes of violence under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1); United States v. Pratt, 568 F.3d 11, 21 (1st Cir.2009) (concluding that Chambers eroded [the court's prior holding] that all escape crimes should be treated equally under [the] categorical approach to analyzing predicate crimes); United States v. Ford, 560 F.3d 420, 423 (6th Cir.2009) (concluding that Chambers required modification of prior decisions suggesting that all manner of escape convictions... constitute crimes of violence). In revisiting the issue, several of our sister circuits have overruled their prior precedents and concluded that walkaway escapes are no longer properly classifiable as violent felonies under the ACCA or crimes of violence under the Sentencing Guidelines in the aftermath of Chambers and Begay. For example, in United States v. Hopkins, 577 F.3d 507, 515 (3d Cir.2009), the Third Circuit held that the defendant's prior conviction for violating a Pennsylvania escape statute was not a conviction for a crime of violence within the meaning of U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2. [7] That escape statute provides, in pertinent part, that [a] person commits an offense if he unlawfully removes himself from official detention or fails to return to official detention following temporary leave granted for a specific purpose or limited period. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 5121(a). The statute further defines a third degree offense as one in which (i) the actor was under arrest for or detained on a charge of felony or following conviction of crime; (ii) the actor employs force, threat, deadly weapon or other dangerous instrumentality to effect the escape; or (iii) a public servant concerned in detention of persons convicted of crime intentionally facilitates or permits an escape from a detention facility. Id. § 5121(d)(1). Any other offense under this section is classified as a second degree misdemeanor. Id. § 5121(d)(2). A second degree misdemeanor under the statute is punishable by a maximum term of two years of imprisonment. Id. § 1104(2). The court first categorized Hopkins' crime of conviction as unlawfully removing himself from arrest on a misdemeanor charge without employing force, threat, deadly weapon or other dangerous instrumentality. Hopkins, 577 F.3d 507, 513-14 (quotation marks, alterations, and citation omitted). The court next determined that, in the ordinary case, this crime did not pose a degree of risk of physical injury to another similar to that posed by burglary, arson, extortion, or the other offenses enumerated in U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a). Id. Further, the court found, an ordinary case falling within the crime of conviction is not `similar in kind' to the enumerated offenses. Id. The court reasoned that although an escape from custody is purposeful conduct, the escape crime for which Hopkins was convicted requires no force, threat, deadly weapon or other dangerous instrumentality, and therefore involves conduct materially less violent and aggressive than the enumerated offenses. Id. (quotation marks omitted). The Sixth Circuit has similarly held that escape under a Kentucky statute that is virtually identical in all material respects to the New Jersey statute at issue in this case is not a crime of violence under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a). See Ford, 560 F.3d at 426. The Kentucky statute under which Ford had been convicted differentiates between first-degree escape, which covers escapes from custody or a detention facility by the use of force or threat of force against another person, Ky.Rev.Stat. § 520.020(1), and second-degree escape, which covers any other escape from a detention facility or escape from custody by an individual charged with or convicted of a felony, Ford, 560 F.3d at 422 (quotation marks and citation omitted); see Ky. Rev.Stat. § 520.030. Ford had been convicted of second-degree escape under this latter provision. Acknowledging that Chambers involved a failure to report and not a walkaway escape, the court nevertheless found that Chambers undermine[d] the notion that a `walkaway' conviction is a crime of violence and reasoned that if failures to report to custody represent a distinct form of escape after Chambers, then so, too, do walkaways. Ford, 560 F.3d at 423-24 (noting that after Chambers, a `walkaway' is a meaningfully distinct and meaningfully distinguishable category of escape as a matter of federal law). Applying Begay, the court first found that a walkaway does not present the risk of physical injury to others that the listed crimes of violence do. Id. at 424. Unlike the prototypical escape scenario in which an individual must overcome physical barriers, a walkaway escape involves simply leav[ing] a facility without removing a physical restraint, without breaking a lock on a door, without climbing over a prison wall or security fence or without otherwise breaking through any other form of security designed to keep them put. Id. Further, the court observed, an individual who simply walks away from custody was just as unlikely as an individual who fails to report to custody to call attention to his whereabouts by simultaneously engaging in additional violent and unlawful conduct. Id. at 425 (quotation marks and citation omitted). The court then found that walkaway escape offenses do not involve the same type of purposeful, violent, and aggressive conduct that the listed crimes of violence do. Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted). It concluded that [i]f driving under the influence ( Begay ) and a failure to report or return to prison ( Chambers ) are not sufficiently `purposeful, violent, and aggressive' to satisfy this requirement, neither is a walkaway offense. Id. Writing without the benefit of Chambers, the Seventh Circuit also has held that a walkaway escape in violation of a Wisconsin statute is not a crime of violence for purposes of U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2 after Begay. See United States v. Templeton, 543 F.3d 378, 383 (7th Cir.2008). The statute at issue in Templeton made it a crime to intentionally escape[] from custody. Id. (quoting Wis. Stat. § 946.42). It defined escape as leav[ing] in any manner without lawful permission or authority and custody to include the constructive custody of persons placed on supervised release or temporarily outside the institution whether for the purpose of work, school, medical care, ... or otherwise. Id. (alterations and citation omitted). Thus, an escape offense under this statute includes both failing to report or return to custody and leaving unsupervised confinement (a walkaway escape). Id. Comparing burglary to walkaway escape, the court acknowledged that in both cases injuries may follow confrontations, but pointed out that  Begay requires similarities other than risk of injury, to wit, it requires the crime to be aggressive or violent. Id. Like a simple failure to report to custody, a walkaway escape do[es] not involve `aggressive' conduct against either a person (as in extortion) or property (arson). Id. The court further noted that although both burglary and walkaway escape require intent as an element, this did not render them similarly violent. Id. Burglary, the court reasoned, involves two intents  the intent to enter a building and the intent to commit a crime once inside; it is this second intent that makes burglary purposeful, violent, and aggressive in all cases.  Id. (emphasis added) (quotation marks omitted). To violate the Wisconsin escape statute, on the other hand, all an escapee need do is leave; he need not engage in any violent or aggressive act. Id. Thus, unlike burglary, many escapes under Wisconsin law are passive. [8] Id. Most recently, the Seventh Circuit held that a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 751(a), as a categorical matter, is not a crime of violence under the Sentencing Guidelines because, unlike burglary or arson, one could violate the federal escape statute, which covers a wide range of conduct, from violent jailbreaks to quiet walkaways to passive failures to report, without creating a risk of harm to oneself or to others. United States v. Hart, 578 F.3d 674, 681 (7th Cir.2009) (noting that one can commit `escape' under the federal statute simply by staying home on the day one is supposed to surrender). [9] As previously noted, we have not addressed whether a non-violent walkaway escape is still categorically a violent felony or crime of violence after Chambers and Begay. We have, however, concluded that fleeing and eluding in violation of Florida Statute § 316.1935(2), which makes it a third-degree felony to willfully flee[] or attempt[] to elude a law enforcement officer in an authorized law enforcement patrol vehicle ... with siren and lights activated, is not a violent felony under the standard set forth in Begay. Harrison, 558 F.3d at 1293, 1295-96. Having characterized the crime of conviction under the Florida statute as willfully failing to stop after a police officer signals one to do so, we concluded that it was not roughly similar to the ACCA's enumerated crimes in terms of the degree of risk posed because the behavior underlying [the] crime, in the ordinary case, involves only a driver who willfully refuses to stop and continues driving on  but without high speed or recklessness  mak[ing] it unlikely that the confrontation will escalate into a high-speed chase that threatens pedestrians, other drivers, or the officer. Id. at 1294. We next found that the offense was not similar in kind to the ACCA's enumerated crimes because while purposeful, disobeying a police officer's signal and continuing to drive on, without high speed or reckless conduct, is not sufficiently aggressive and violent ... to be like the enumerated ACCA crimes. Id. at 1295 (emphasis added). Such conduct, we explained, though neither passive nor a form of inaction, is not the kind of conduct that show[s] an increased likelihood that the offender is the kind of person who might deliberately point the gun and pull the trigger. Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted). With these decisions as a guide, we now turn to the case before us. The record reflects that Lee was convicted under a New Jersey statute that makes it a felony offense for a person to remove himself without authorization from, or fail to return to, official detention. See N.J.S.A. § 2C:29-5(a). An offense under this subsection is a crime of the second degree where the actor employs force, threat, deadly weapon or other dangerous instrumentality to effect the escape. Otherwise, it is a crime of the third degree. Id. § 2C:29-5(e). This statute, like the Kentucky statute in Ford, thus proscrib[es] general departures from custody and general failures to return, Ford, 560 F.3d at 423, but also differentiates between violent and non-violent departures by separately criminalizing escapes involving the use of force and placing those offenses in a separate, more serious, felony class, see Chambers, 129 S.Ct. at 691 (noting that the fact that the Illinois statute not only lists escape and failure to report separately ... but also places the behaviors in two different felony classes ... of different degrees of seriousness provided further indication that a failure to report ... is a separate crime, different from escape). Although grouped together within a single statutory section, violent and non-violent escapes, which describe different behaviors, are thus separate and distinct crimes under New Jersey law. [10] There is no dispute in this case that Lee was convicted for violating the statute in the third degree based on his leaving a halfway house without permission. The question we must answer is whether Lee's non-violent walkaway escape is roughly similar, in kind as well as in degree of risk posed, to arson, burglary, extortion, or crimes involving the use of explosives. Begay, 128 S.Ct. at 1585. We find that it is not. In order to be convicted of third degree escape under the New Jersey statute, a person need only leave or fail to return to an unsecured area where he is supposed to remain. Given that the conduct underlying the offense does not involve the use or threat of physical force, it is unlikely to lead to escalated confrontations with law enforcement or to otherwise create a serious potential risk of physical injury to others. As the Ninth Circuit aptly observed, the circumstances apparent in a walkaway escape are of an entirely different order of magnitude than escapes from jails and prisons. Residents of halfway houses have certain privileges of ingress and egress, do not live behind concrete walls and barbed wire, and are not under constant surveillance by armed guards. Those who leave without returning do not pose an automatic risk of danger and therefore do not categorically raise a serious potential risk of physical harm. Thus, convictions for walkaway escape could clearly take place on the basis of conduct that did not present a serious potential risk of physical injury to another. Piccolo, 441 F.3d at 1088 (quotation marks and citation omitted); cf. Pratt, 568 F.3d at 22 (noting that escape from secure custody is a stealth crime that is likely to cause an eruption of violence if and when it is detected). Further, though there is no empirical evidence in this case regarding the likelihood of physical harm to others during or as a result of a walkaway escape, at least one circuit has analyzed relevant statistical data and concluded that walkaway escapes do not pose such a risk. See Templeton 543 F.3d at 382 (citing a 2005 study finding that while 8% of escapees commit violence against guards in the process of getting away, and ... at least 6% of escapees commit violent crimes such as murder or robbery against civilians while on the lam[,] ... walkaways produced no deaths or injuries). In sum, we cannot conclude that a walkaway escape under N.J.S.A. § 2C:29-5(a), as ordinarily committed, involves the same degree of risk that is presented by the dangerous conduct underlying the ACCA's enumerated crimes. Nor can we conclude that a walkaway offense under N.J.S.A. § 2C:29-5(a), while certainly purposeful, involves the same kind of violent and aggressive conduct that characterizes the ACCA's enumerated crimes. See Ford, 560 F.3d at 425. Unlike crimes such as burglary and arson, or escape from secured custody, a walkaway escape from an unsecured halfway house does not depend on aggression. Templeton, 543 F.3d at 382. As previously noted, an escapee need only remove himself without authorization from official detention to be convicted under N.J.S.A. § 2C:29-5(a). One could easily violate this statute without intending or accomplishing the destruction of property or acting in an aggressive, violence-provoking manner that could jeopardize guards or bystanders. Id. at 383. A prior conviction for violating N.J.S.A. § 2C:29-5(a) thus does not show an increased likelihood that the offender is the kind of person who might deliberately point the gun and pull the trigger. Begay, 128 S.Ct. at 1587. Accordingly, we have little difficulty concluding that, as in the case of an individual who eludes law enforcement without engaging in reckless conduct, there is no sound reason for believing that an individual who simply departs from a halfway house, without the use or threat of force, is cut from the same cloth as burglars, arsonists, extortionists, or those that criminally detonate explosives. Harrison, 558 F.3d at 1296. Like the eluding offense in Harrison, a walkaway is not the type of conduct that one hears about and remarks, `that's the kind of thing an armed career criminal would do.' Id. at 1295. In sum, we hold that a non-violent walkaway escape from unsecured custody is not sufficiently similar in kind or in degree of risk posed to the ACCA's enumerated crimes to bring it within § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii)'s residual provision. To hold otherwise would render our decision in Harrison an anomaly; if continuing to drive a motor vehicle without reckless conduct or high speed after being ordered by law enforcement to stop is not roughly similar in kind or degree of risk posed to the ACCA's enumerated crimes, then neither is merely walking away without permission from a halfway house that lacks physical barriers. See Piccolo, 441 F.3d at 1088 (finding that court's previous holding that a prior conviction for attempting to elude a police vehicle, which involved close physical confrontation under circumstances leading to a much greater possibility of violence than walkaway escape, did not constitute a crime of violence, resolv[ed], a fortiori, that a walkaway escape is not a crime of violence). [11]