Opinion ID: 199153
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Categorical Approach and the Guilty Plea

Text: 42 Not surprisingly, our precedents separate into two strands that reflect the two distinct questions addressed by the Supreme Court in Taylor. We will discuss them accordingly. 43 1. Whether the Applicable State Statute Defines a Violent Felony or a Crime of Violence 44 As we noted, the Taylor Court first decided what common elements of burglary would make it a violent felony under the ACCA. In United States v. Damon, 127 F.3d 139 (1st Cir. 1997) and in United States v. Sacko, 178 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 1999), the comparable question was whether the statutory offenses at issue in those cases constituted a crime of violence within the meaning of the Guidelines (Damon) or a violent felony within the meaning of the ACCA (Sacko). This was a general definitional question that did not depend on documents specific to that case. 45 In Damon, we considered the district court's use of a PSR to determine whether a Maine conviction for aggravated criminal mischief constituted a crime of violence. The charging document indicated that Damon was convicted under subsection B of the statute, which applies to a person who intentionally or knowingly damages or destroys property valued at over $2,000 in order to collect insurance proceeds. See Damon, 127 F.3d at 142-43. Thus, [t]he inquiry is whether the elements of subsection B fit the definition of a crime of violence under U.S.S.G. 4B1.2(1)(ii). Id. at 143. We looked to the mine run of conduct that the statute was intended to cover and concluded that the typical conduct reachable under subsection B does not involve a serious potential risk of physical injury to another. Id. at 143-44. We concluded that the district court erred by considering the fact that the defendant set fire to his house to collect insurance proceeds because [u]nder Taylor, when the predicate statutory crime has been determined to be typically non-violent, the inquiry ends. Id. at 145. 46 In Sacko, we concluded that the district court erred by considering the statement in the PSR that the defendant's prior statutory rape conviction involved non-consensual intercourse. That consideration involved the very reliance proscribed by Taylor--reliance on the facts of Sacko's crime in order to determine whether his conviction was for a violent or a non-violent crime, Sacko, 178 F.3d at 5. We held that under the categorical approach, the proper inquiry was whether the category of the offense, statutory rape of a fourteen year-old, constituted a violent felony. We noted that there was no legal basis . . . no studies or medical journals to ground a holding that intercourse with an adult is physically dangerous for a fourteen-year-old female. Id. at 6. We remanded the case to the district court to take evidence on this issue. 47 Both Damon and Sacko posed the definitional question whether the statutory offenses at issue constituted a crime of violence under the career offender guideline (Damon) or a violent felony within the meaning of the ACCA (Sacko). 8 There was no uncertainty about whether a violent or non-violent offense encompassed within a statute was involved in the fact of conviction. As we noted in Damon, such cases do not raise the question of what documents beyond the charging document or the jury instructions may be examined to determine which subsection of the multi-faceted crime is involved. The question about what subsection or type of statutory crime is involved is resolved here by the charging document. 127 F.3d at 144 n.5. 48 2. Whether the Fact of Conviction was for a Violent or Non-Violent Felony When the Applicable State Statute Encompasses Both 49 The second question addressed in Taylor was whether a conviction under a nongeneric burglary statute, which included violent and nonviolent offenses, could be a conviction for a predicate offense under the ACCA. In United States v. Harris, 946 F.2d 1234 (1st Cir. 1992) and United States v. Dueno, 171 F.3d 3 (1st Cir. 1999), we addressed a comparable question. There was no definitional uncertainty in those cases about whether a statutory offense constituted a violent crime. Instead, the uncertainty was whether the fact of conviction related to a violent crime or a nonviolent crime. As we recognized, that uncertainty could only be resolved by considering case specific documents. 50 In Harris, the defendant pled guilty to a Massachusetts assault and battery statute which covered both actual or potential physical harm and unharmful but nonconsensual touching. We acknowledged the general rule under Taylor that when the statute encompasses violent and non-violent conduct, the sentencing court should look to the indictment and information or jury instructions to make the violent felony determination. However, we recognized that Harris's case posed a further question: What . . . should a court do when there are no jury instructions to look at . . . because the defendant pled guilty? Harris, 964 F.2d at 1235. In answer to that question, we said the sentencing court should: 51 look to the conduct in respect to which the defendant was charged and pled guilty, not because the court may properly be interested . . . in the violent or non-violent nature of that particular conduct, but because that conduct may indicate that the defendant and the government both believed that the generically violent crime . . . rather than the generically non-violent crime . . . was at issue. 52 Id. at 1236. 53 We concluded in Harris that [t]he record before us provides adequate information to make the required determination relatively simply. Id. In particular, we considered a PSR which recited facts from the case file revealing that both of the defendant's assault and battery convictions involved violent beatings. Id. at 1236-37. We found the PSR to be a reliable source for establishing whether the defendant pled guilty to a violent crime because the basic facts alleged in the PSR--i.e., that the defendant perpetrated a violent assault--were uncontested and uncontradicted. Id. at 1237. Given the PSR's uncontradicted account of the defendant's conduct, we concluded that the defendant and the government both believed that a generically violent crime was the basis for the defendant's guilty pleas. Id. at 1236. 54 In United States v. Dueno, 171 F.3d 3, 6-7 (1st Cir. 1999), despite strong urging from the defendant, we refused to retreat from Harris's limited inquiry into conduct in respect to which the defendant was charged and pled guilty. Dueno, 171 F.3d at 5 (analyzing the Guidelines' career offender enhancement). As here, Dueno involved a predicate Massachusetts breaking and entering conviction memorialized by a judgment which was ambiguous as to whether the defendant broke into or entered a building or a vehicle. See id. at 5. On appeal, the government conceded that the district court had engaged in erroneous reasoning in concluding that the conviction was for breaking into and entering a building, 9 but urged us to sustain the enhancement on the ground that Dueno never contradicted the PSR's account of the break-in, which described a building invasion. See id. at 6. Although we regarded the issue as close, we declined to affirm on the government's alternative ground and instead remanded. Id. at 7. Applying Harris, we concluded that on the present record, a reasonable jurist could conclude that there is insufficiently reliable evidence to ground a finding that Dueno pleaded guilty to breaking into and entering a building. Id. at 7. Specifically, we noted several problems with the evidence presented to the sentencing court. First, instead of offering the police report from which the facts were taken, the government offered only the PSR which incorporated facts from the police report. Second, the evidence did not include a single document that was before the judge who accepted Dueno's plea. Id. at 7. Third, there was no account of what took place at Dueno's plea hearing. 55 At the conclusion of Dueno, we said the following: 56 Dueno's sentence for this crime can reflect only those prior crimes of which he has been convicted -- either by a trier of fact or by his own admission. As matters now stand, the evidence is insufficient for us to conclude, as a matter of law, that Dueno's 1994 guilty plea constituted an admission to the building invasion described by the police report. 57 Dueno, 171 F.3d at 7 (emphasis added). In its decision in this case, the district court relied on the language we emphasize. Although the court's reliance on this language is understandable, that reliance nevertheless reflects a misapplication of Harris, reaffirmed by the Dueno decision, and of Dueno itself. 58