Opinion ID: 583325
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Applicability of Mandatory Minimum Sentence

Text: 48 The Supreme Court has recently interpreted the meaning of violent felony under § 924(e). In Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990), the Court considered whether a conviction for second-degree burglary under Missouri law was sufficient to qualify as a violent felony. The Court rejected the view adopted by the court of appeals that burglary under § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) means whatever a state chooses to define as burglary. The Court reasoned that Congress intended a common, uniform definition of burglary so that the imposition of the fifteen-year mandatory minimum penalty would not depend on what the state in which the previous conviction occurred happened to call burglary. Without a clear indication that with the 1986 amendment Congress intended to abandon its general approach of using uniform categorical definitions [295 U.S.App.D.C. 302] to identify predicate offenses, Taylor, 495 U.S. at 591, 110 S.Ct. at 2154, the Court interpreted the statute as incorporating a federal definition of burglary. 49 We therefore hold that an offense constitutes burglary for purposes of a § 924(e) sentence enhancement if either its statutory definition substantially corresponds to generic burglary, or the charging paper and jury instructions actually required the jury to find all the elements of generic burglary in order to convict the defendant. 50 Id. at 602, 110 S.Ct. at 2160. 51 In this case, we are faced with the similar question of whether appellant's 1975 robbery conviction qualifies as a predicate offense for the imposition of the mandatory minimum penalty under § 924(e). To answer this question, we must first determine what Congress intended to include in the category of violent felon[ies] against the person, and then we must examine whether appellant's 1975 robbery conviction belongs in that category. 52
53 Under the enhancement provision, a defendant in possession of a firearm or ammunition who has previously been convicted of three violent felonies receives a mandatory minimum sentence of fifteen years. A violent felony is a crime punishable by more than one year imprisonment and that 54 (i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or 55 (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. 56 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B) (1988). 57 It is evident from this definition that Congress created two subcategories of prior criminal conduct: First, there are felonies against the person that have as an element the use or threat of physical force; and, second, there are felonies against property (such as burglary, arson, extortion, etc.) that present a serious potential risk of physical injury. Whereas Taylor focused on the category of felonies against property, we must examine what Congress intended by its broad definition of felonies against the person, i.e., felonies that have as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another. Id. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i). 58 A brief examination of the legislative history of this definition of violent felonies against the person reveals that Congress intended that the penalty enhancement provision apply primarily to career criminals who have committed violent crimes. The enhancement provision was first enacted as chapter 18 of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 (known as the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984), Pub.L. No. 98-473, §§ 1801-1803, 98 Stat. 1976, 2185 (codified at 18 U.S.C. app. § 1202 (Supp. II 1984) ). 10 Instead of referring to violent felonies and serious drug offenses, the original version of the provision referred to previous convictions for robbery or burglary, or both. 11 Furthermore, it defined robbery to mean 59 any felony consisting of the taking of the property of another from the person or presence of another by force or violence, or by threatening or placing another person in fear that any person will imminently be subjected to bodily injury. 60 18 U.S.C. § 1202(c)(8) (Supp. II 1984). 61 Congress clearly intended to invoke the common-law definition of robbery. 12 [295 U.S.App.D.C. 303] In its report on the bill that became the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984, S.REP. NO. 190, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. (1983) (1983 Senate Report), the Senate Judiciary Committee stated that the definition of robbery was taken from a previous bill which had been discussed in considerable detail in an earlier Judiciary Committee report. Id. at 20. In that earlier report, the Committee expressly acknowledged that the definition of robbery follows present Federal law in adopting the terminology of common law robbery and thus makes it a crime to take property from another by force or violence, or by threatening or placing another person in fear. S. REP. NO. 307, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. 668 (1981) (1981 Senate Report). 13 62 Under the common law, the use or threatened use of force or violence is a necessary element of the crime of robbery, whereas [t]he taking of property from the person of another by stealth, i.e., without force or threatened force, does not constitute robbery. Thus, the picking of a person's pocket, using only such force as is necessary to lift and remove the property from the pocket, is not robbery. 4 TORCIA, supra, § 479 at 65 (footnote omitted) (emphasis added); see also 2 LAFAVE & SCOTT, supra, § 8.11(d)(1) at 445-46 ([t]aking the owner's property by stealthily picking his pocket is not taking by force and so is not robbery; but if the pickpocket or his confederate jostles the owner, or if the owner, catching the pickpocket in the act, struggles unsuccessfully to keep possession, the pickpocket's crime becomes robbery (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added) ). 63 The definition of robbery discussed in the 1981 Senate Report required the government to prove, as an element of the offense, 64 the use of force and violence or the act of threatening or placing another person in fear. The traditional requirement of a violent (as opposed to merely forceful) taking is designed to exclude those situations such as pickpocketing or removing property from a drunk or unconscious person, which do not pose special dangers of violence and, thus, are more appropriately dealt with as theft. 65 1981 Senate Report at 671 (emphasis in original). By explicitly invoking the 1981 Senate Report when discussing the definition of robbery, Congress clearly intended to exclude pickpocketing or stealthy seizure from its definition of robbery in the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984. 14 66 The 1984 version of the enhancement provision was amended to its current form by Subtitle I (known as the Career Criminals Amendment Act of 1986) of the Anti[295 U.S.App.D.C. 304] Drug Abuse Act of 1986, Pub.L. No. 99-570, § 1402,100 Stat. 3207, 3207-39 to -40. The House Committee on the Judiciary explained the reason for expanding the predicate offenses beyond robbery and burglary: 67 At [the] hearing a consensus developed in support of an expansion of the predicate offenses to include serious drug trafficking offenses under both State and Federal law and violent felonies, generally. This concept was encompassed in [the bill] by deleting the specific predicate offenses for robbery and burglary and adding as predicate offenses [drug trafficking] ... and violent felonies under Federal or State law if the offense has an element the use, attempted use or threatened use of physical force against a person. This latter provision would include such felonies involving physical force against a person such as murder, rape, assault, robbery, etc. 68 The other major question involved in these hearings was as to what violent felonies involving physical force against property should be included in the definition of violent felony. The Subcommittee agreed to add the crimes punishable for a term exceeding one year that involve conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to others. This will add State and Federal crimes against property such as burglary, arson, extortion, use of explosives and similar crimes as predicate offenses where the conduct involved presents a serious risk of injury to a person. 69 H.R.REP. NO. 849, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 3 (1986) (emphasis in original) (reporting favorably H.R. 4885, a compromise bill that, with an amendment not relevant to this case, was finally enacted). 70 Upon introducing the bill that was one of the sources of the Career Criminals Act of 1986, Senator Specter stated that the statute can be greatly more effective if it is amended--as the Department of Justice urges--to apply to career criminals whose prior offenses may be murder, rape, or heroin smuggling. 132 CONG.REC. 7698 (1986) (statement of Sen. Specter on S. 2312). In introducing a virtually identical bill in the House, Representative Wyden stated that it will give us another opportunity to zero in on the worst criminal offenders in our society. Id. at 7878 (statement of Rep. Wyden on H.R. 4639). The legislative history of the amendment supports the conclusion that Congress was primarily concerned with broadening the scope of the provision to encompass truly serious crimes. 15 We conclude that when Congress amended the enhancement provision to cover all violent felonies that have as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i) (1988), it did not intend to include felonies in which the use of force was de minimis or which do not pose special dangers of violence and, thus, are more appropriately dealt with as theft. 1981 Senate Report at 671. 16 71 [295 U.S.App.D.C. 305] 2. Robbery by Stealthy Seizure 72 The Supreme Court in Taylor established two principles for lower courts to follow when interpreting and applying § 924(e): The first, which we have already considered, is that Congress intended that the three predicate offenses justifying the mandatory minimum penalty trigger the enhancement provision regardless of the label they may have received in the state of conviction; the second is that when deciding whether a prior conviction qualifies as a predicate offense, the sentencing court must look only to the statutory definition, not to the underlying facts or evidence presented. Taylor, 495 U.S. at 602, 110 S.Ct. at 2160. Appellant was convicted in 1975 of robbery in violation of D.C.CODE ANN. § 22-2901 (1973). The district court below properly recognized that it should not examine the actual conduct underlying the offense when determining whether to include it as a predicate offense under § 924(e). Mathis, 739 F.Supp. at 17 (emphasis in original). So the particular circumstances under which the 1975 crime was committed are irrelevant for the purposes of determining whether the conviction was for a felony that includes as an essential element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force. 73 In 1975, the D.C. robbery statute read as follows: 74 Whoever by force or violence, whether against resistance or by sudden or stealthy seizure or snatching, or by putting in fear, shall take from the person or immediate actual possession of another anything of value, is guilty of robbery, and any person convicted thereof shall suffer imprisonment for not less than two years nor more than fifteen years. 75 D.C.CODE ANN. § 22-2901 (1973). Appellant argues that this statute should be understood as applying to two separate categories of theft: The first--theft involving force or violence--occurs when the defendant acts against resistance; the second--theft involving stealthy seizure or snatching--occurs when the defendant engages in pickpocketing, that is, without force or violence. The district court rejected this reading of the statute, concluding instead that the phrase [w]hoever by force or violence applies to each category of theft. See Mathis, 739 F.Supp. at 18 (Thus, 'stealthy seizure' is considered a form of 'force or violence.' ). 76 We agree with the district court's interpretation of the statutory language. The statute applies only to one who by force or violence ... take[s] from the person or immediate actual possession of another anything of value. The dependent clause--whether against resistance or by sudden or stealthy seizure or snatching--clearly modifies force or violence. The statute was intended to change the common-law definition of robbery to include an unlawful taking of property from the person of another, by sudden or stealthy seizure or snatching, without violence or putting in fear, and with the exercise of only sufficient force to accomplish the actual taking of the property. Turner v. United States, 16 F.2d 535, 536 (D.C.Cir.1926). 77 But even though the statute must be interpreted to include stealthy seizure as a form of force or violence, such a modification of the common-law definition of robbery still effects a change in the generic meaning of force or violence. As the district court recognized, a D.C. jury may convict a defendant of a section 22-2901 robbery offense for an act of pickpocketing. Mathis, 739 F.Supp. at 19. Indeed, courts interpreting section 22-2901 have consistently held that the requirement for force is satisfied within the sense of the statute by an actual physical taking of the property from the person of another, even though without his knowledge and consent, and though the property be unattached to his person. Turner, 16 F.2d at 536; see also Spencer v. United States, 116 F.2d 801, 802 (D.C.Cir.1940) (force used to remove money from pocket of trousers that the victim had removed and placed on a chair is sufficient to satisfy the statutory requirement of 'force or violence' ); Harris v. United States, 41 F.2d 976 (D.C.Cir.1930) (despite fact that evidence demonstrated defendants used no more [295 U.S.App.D.C. 306] force than was necessary to lift wallet from pocket, evidence was sufficient to sustain robbery conviction under D.C. law). 78 While, as the district court acknowledged, force against another person is a constituent part of any § 22-2901 offense, Mathis, 739 F.Supp. at 19, it is not true that whatever a state happens to mean by force will invariably correspond to the meaning of that term which Congress drafted into § 924(e). Although force or violence are not generally considered to be ambiguous or controversial terms, under D.C. law, a defendant may be convicted of a crime requiring proof of force or violence when the only force used is that necessary to lift a wallet from a pocket. Congress, in its capacity as the District of Columbia's legislature, may, of course, prosecute pickpocketing in any way it chooses, within the limits of the Constitution. But stealthy seizure under section 22-2901 is not a violent felony within the meaning of § 924(e), because the proof required to satisfy the element of force in the local statute falls below that which Congress intended in enacting § 924(e). 79 To hold otherwise would produce unacceptable consequences: A conviction for robbery under section 22-2901--which has force as an element of the crime--would be treated as a predicate offense under § 924(e) while a conviction for larceny in another state--which would not require proof of force--would not be treated as a predicate offense even though the criminal conduct in both cases--pickpocketing--is identical. But as Taylor makes clear, the differences in the criminal law from state to state must not be permitted to frustrate the intent of Congress to apply the mandatory fifteen-year minimum penalty in a consistently uniform manner. 80 In Taylor, the Court remanded to the district court because the record was not clear as to what crime the defendant had been previously convicted of. 17 The requirement that the sentencing judge look no further than the statutory elements of the crime may, on occasion, require more than simply reading the statute: 81 This categorical approach, however, may permit the sentencing court to go beyond the mere fact of conviction in a narrow range of cases where a jury was actually required to find all the elements of generic burglary. For example, in a State whose burglary statutes include entry of an automobile as well as a building, if the indictment or information and jury instructions show that the defendant was charged only with a burglary of a building, and that the jury necessarily had to find an entry of a building to convict, then the Government should be allowed to use the conviction for enhancement. 82 Taylor, 495 U.S. at 602, 110 S.Ct. at 2160. 83 Similarly, if the indictment and/or jury instructions in Mathis' 1975 robbery conviction demonstrate that the jury necessarily found that appellant used or threatened to use physical force in taking the money from the victim, then the government may rely on that conviction as one of the three prior violent felonies. However, if the jury was never required to find that true physical force was used or threatened--as opposed to the force minimally necessary to reach into a purse and take out the money--then the 1975 conviction was not a violent felony and the mandatory minimum penalty does not apply. The record on appeal contains only a copy of the Judgment and Commitment Order identifying the case number and indicating that appellant had pled not guilty to Robbery and was subsequently found guilty by a jury. See Attachment to Letter from Russell D. Duncan to R. Kenneth Mundy (dated July 22, 1990). Because Taylor tells us that we may not look into the underlying evidence supporting the 1975 conviction to determine [295 U.S.App.D.C. 307] whether or not sufficient force was involved to qualify as a violent felony, the only permissible inquiry is whether or not the jury found a use or attempted use or threatened use of physical force that would satisfy the uniform, federal definition of violent felony. 18 If the record of the previous conviction is ambiguous--i.e., if it is possible, on the basis of the indictment or jury instructions, to conclude that the element of force was satisfied solely by a jury finding that the defendant had lifted money out of a purse--then the conviction may not be used as a predicate offense for purposes of § 924(e). We thus find it necessary, under Taylor, to remand this case to the district court for an examination of the record of Mathis' 1975 robbery conviction to see whether it satisfies the uniform, federal standard of use of force thereby qualifying as a violent felony under § 924(e).