Opinion ID: 1233746
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Whether There Was an Error

Text: Deviation from a legal rule is `error' unless the rule has been waived. Olano, 507 U.S. at 732-33, 113 S.Ct. 1770. The Guidelines provide a base offense level of eight for unlawfully entering or remaining in the United States. See U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(a). The specific offense characteristic provides that an increase by sixteen levels applies [i]f the defendant previously was deported, or unlawfully remained in the United States, after(A) a conviction for a felony that is ... (ii) a crime of violence. U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii). The commentary for § 2L1.2(b)(1) of the Guidelines provides the following definition for crime of violence: Crime of violence means any of the following: murder, manslaughter, kidnaping, aggravated assault, forcible sex offenses, statutory rape, sexual abuse of a minor, robbery, arson, extortion, extortionate extension of credit, burglary of a dwelling, or any offense under federal, state, or local law that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another. U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2 cmt. n.1(B)(iii) (2006) (emphasis added). Because criminal possession of a weapon is not an enumerated offense, to constitute a crime of violence under this definition, it must have as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another. See id. At the time of Gamez's guilty plea in 2000, N.Y. Penal Law § 265.03 [4] provided: A person is guilty of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree when, with intent to use the same unlawfully against another: (1) He possesses a machine-gun; or (2) He possesses a loaded firearm; or (3) He possesses a disguised gun. Criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree is a class C felony. Therefore, to establish criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, the prosecution must demonstrate, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a person: (1) possessed one of the described weapons; and (2) had intent to use such weapon unlawfully against another. See N.Y. Penal Law § 265.03 (McKinney 2000). As the New York Court of Appeals has instructed: The essence of the illegal conduct defined in sections 265.01-265.05 of the Penal Law is the act of possessing a weapon unlawfully.... Once the unlawful possession of the weapon is established, the possessory crime is complete and any unlawful use of the weapon is punishable as a separate crime. People v. Almodovar, 62 N.Y.2d 126, 130, 476 N.Y.S.2d 95, 464 N.E.2d 463 (1984) (internal citations omitted). Because unlawful possession of a firearm under N.Y. Penal Law § 265.03 does not include as an element any unlawful use, attempted use or threatened use of physical force against another person, Gamez is correct that intent to use a gun unlawfully against another, an element of the offense for which he was convicted, cannot be equated with the actual, attempted or threatened use of physical force, which all involve some affirmative conduct beyond the mere possession of a gun. See id. That Gamez actually used the firearm he possessed to shoot two persons is irrelevant because the applicable Guidelines definition of crime of violence in the context of immigration offenses requires that the statutory offense of which the defendant was previously convicted have as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force. New York State second-degree weapon possession does not require proof of any of these elements. The government contends the district court did not err in its calculations because no courts have considered whether courts sentencing illegal reentry defendants previously convicted under [N.Y. Penal Law] § 265.03 should look beyond the statutory definition to the underlying facts of the offense and the analogous case law that does exist supports application of the 16-level enhancement in Gamez's case. According to the government, N.Y. Penal Law § 265.03 does not differ materially from the Iowa statute at issue in United States v. Gomez-Hernandez, 300 F.3d 974 (8th Cir.2002), because possessing a loaded firearm with intent to use it against another certainly can, and almost invariably will, encompass actions where the perpetrator is manifesting that intent by using, attempting to use, or threatening the use of force. We are not persuaded. In Gomez-Hernandez, the court determined, based on the underlying conduct rather than the statutory definition of the predicate state offense, that the defendant committed a crime of violence. Id. at 980. At the time Gomez-Hernandez was sentenced, Iowa Code § 708.8, under which he was convicted, provided: A person who goes armed with any dangerous weapon with the intent to use without justification such weapon against the person of another commits a class `D' felony. Gomez-Hernandez argued that going armed with intent is not a crime of violence under the amended guideline because `[i]t is possible to commit this offense without using, attempting to use, or threatening to use force against the person of another.' Gomez-Hernandez, 300 F.3d at 980. Relying on two decisions of the Iowa Supreme Court, State v. Ray, 516 N.W.2d 863, 865 (Iowa 1994), and State v. Slayton, 417 N.W.2d 432, 434 (Iowa 1987), the Eighth Circuit applied a modified categorical approach to analyzing the Iowa statute because it is clear that [Iowa Code] § 708.8 includes at least some offenses that involve an actual, attempted, or threatened use of force. Gomez-Hernandez, 300 F.3d at 980. A portion of the Iowa Supreme Court's discussion in Ray is key to understanding both the distinction between going armed ... with intent under § 708.8 of the Iowa Code and the possession offense under N.Y. Penal Law § 265.03 and also the reason the Iowa provision can be read as constituting an attempted use of physical force. See Gomez-Hernandez, 300 F.3d at 980. In Ray, discussing the elements of the crime the court stated: As for `going' armed, we believe the term necessarily implicates proof of movement. That requirement is met here by uncontradicted testimony that Ray pursued Kelly from inside the house onto the front lawn while carrying the knife. Ray, 516 N.W.2d at 865 (emphasis added). Similarly in Slayton, while the issue before the Iowa court was the sufficiency and nature of the proof of the defendant's intent, the evidence as to the other elements of the crime demonstrated that the defendant was moving through his victim parents' house carrying a shotgun. Slayton, 417 N.W.2d at 435. There is no question, therefore, that in many circumstances, the act of carrying a dangerous weapon and the act of moving while carrying it, all done with the intent to use it against another person, can amount to an attempted use of physical force against that person. Because the element of movement required to be proven under the Iowa statute is absent in N.Y. Penal Law § 265.03, however, and because the required act to be proven under New York law is only possession, which when [o]nce ... established, the possessory crime is complete, Almodovar, 62 N.Y.2d at 130, 476 N.Y.S.2d 95, 464 N.E.2d 463, § 265.03 cannot in and of itself involve an attempted use of physical force. The government also argues that it is the entire course of Gamez's conduct, which involves the use of force in his shooting of two persons, that manifests his intent to use a firearm unlawfully against another. This argument also misses the mark because the manner in which intent is manifested is irrelevant to our analysis since it is the conduct, i.e., the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force, and not the mental state, i.e., the intent to use physical force, that operates to define a prior conviction as a crime of violence under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii). Put another way, although it is possible that during the time Gamez committed the crime of possession of a weapon in the second degree he also committed another crime that would constitute a crime of violence, he was not convicted of such crime, and under the applicable Guidelines provisions, it is only a conviction for a felony that is ... (ii) a crime of violence, U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2 cmt. n. 1(B)(iii) (emphasis added), that will yield the sentencing enhancement at issue here. For the reasons articulated, we hold that a violation of N.Y. Penal Law § 265.03 for which Gamez was convicted is not a crime of violence as defined in U.S.S.G., § 2L1.2(b)( l )(A)(ii) because it is not an offense that includes as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another. Accordingly, the determination to the contrary was error.