Opinion ID: 4528256
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Issue on which COA was granted

Text: Count 6 of the indictment charged Garcia with possessing and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). The district court instructed the jury that the predicate crime charged in Count 6, first-degree murder in violation of Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-5402, “is a crime of violence.” Supp. R., Vol. 1 at 59. For purposes of § 924(c)(1)(A), a “crime of violence” is “an offense that is a felony” that “(A) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another” or “(B) that by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.” § 924(c)(3). We refer to § 924(c)(3)(A) as the “elements” clause (Garcia calls it the “force” clause), and to § 924(c)(3)(B) as the “residual clause.” While Garcia’s direct appeal was pending, the Supreme Court decided Johnson II, holding unconstitutionally vague a similar residual clause in the definition of “violent 3 felony” in the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA)—“any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year . . . that . . . otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another,” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). 135 S. Ct. at 2557. In his § 2255 motion, Garcia’s entire argument regarding the Count 6 instruction was: “Per the holding in Johnson murder is not categorically a ‘crime of violence’ within the meaning of § 924(c)(3)(B) since physical force is not required to be held accountable for the offense of murder.” R., Vol. II at 141. The district court decided the claim was procedurally defaulted because Garcia did not present good cause for failing to raise it on direct appeal. In the alternative, the court determined the claim had no merit. The court concluded Garcia failed to show how the crime charged was not a crime of violence because Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-5402(a)(1) “defines murder in the first degree as a killing of a human being intentionally and with premeditation,” and the jury had returned a special verdict finding Garcia had committed first degree murder. R., Vol. II at 211.
The district court did not hold an evidentiary hearing where it made findings, so our review is de novo. See United States v. Copeland, 921 F.3d 1233, 1242 (10th Cir. 2019).
In his opening appellate brief, Garcia contends that Kansas first degree murder cannot qualify as a crime of violence under § 924(c)(3)’s residual clause because that clause is unconstitutionally vague under the reasoning of Johnson II. He also argues the 4 murder instruction was erroneous because the term “physical force” as used in § 924(c)(3)’s elements clause means “violent force” under the reasoning of Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133 (2010) (Johnson I). In Johnson I, the Supreme Court construed the ACCA’s elements clause, § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), which defines a “violent felony” as a felony that “has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.” The Court held that in defining “violent felony,” “the phrase ‘physical force’ means violent force—that is, force capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person.” Johnson I, 559 U.S. at 140. Relying on Johnson I’s holding, Garcia argues that first degree murder under Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-5402(a) does not require any “violent force” at all because it can be committed by poisoning, and under controlling case law at the time of his sentencing, murder by poisoning did not require violent physical force. In his reply brief, Garcia clarifies that the “essence” of his claim concerning Count 6 is that his murder conviction could only qualify as a crime of violence under the residual clause because it does not require the use of physical force necessary to satisfy the elements clause, and the residual clause is unconstitutionally vague under Johnson II and our decision in United States v. Salas, 889 F.3d 681 (10th Cir. 2018), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 2773 (2019).2 In Salas, we held that § 924(c)(3)’s residual clause is unconstitutional under Sessions v. Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. 1204, 1213-16 (2018), where the Supreme Court extended Johnson II’s 2 We decided Salas after Garcia filed his opening brief in this appeal. 5 reasoning to hold that a similarly worded clause in the definition of “violent felony” in 18 U.S.C. § 16(b) was unconstitutionally vague. Salas, 889 F.3d at 684–86. The government advances a number of procedural reasons why we should not entertain the merits of this argument, but we need not sort those out because none are jurisdictional and it’s clear the argument loses on the merits. See Brown v. Sirmons, 515 F.3d 1072, 1092-93 (10th Cir. 2008) (holding that for efficiency, we can avoid questions of procedural bar if it is easier to rule on the merits); Proctor & Gamble Co. v. Haugen, 222 F.3d 1262, 1271 (10th Cir. 2000) (noting this court’s discretion to depart from general rule that we do not consider matters not raised or argued in the district court “[w]here the issue is purely a matter of law and its proper resolution is certain” (ellipses and internal quotation marks omitted)). Our merits analysis proceeds from the observation that in United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319, 2336 (2019), the Supreme Court confirmed what Salas held—that like the ACCA residual clause at issue in Johnson II, § 924(c)(3)’s residual clause, “§ 924(c)(3)(B)[,] is unconstitutionally vague.”3 And we have said that “in striking down § 924(c)(3)(B) as void for vagueness, Davis created a new constitutional rule,” United States v. Bowen, 936 F.3d 1091, 1098 (10th Cir. 2019), that is “retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review,” id. at 1100. Further, we will assume, for the sake of argument, that Garcia’s § 924(c)(1)(A) conviction rested on the residual clause. See Bowen, 936 F.3d at 1108-09 (examining whether conviction “rested on § 924(c)(3)’s 3 The Supreme Court decided Davis after the parties in this appeal completed their briefing. 6 residual clause” in order to determine if district court’s reliance on that clause was harmless in light of fact that conviction did not categorically qualify under elements clause). Based on that assumption, we conclude that the district court erred in relying on the residual clause because Garcia’s “conviction was imposed under an invalid—indeed, unconstitutional—legal theory, and that [he] was, therefore, convicted in violation of the Constitution.” Id. at 1108 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). We now must determine if the error in the jury instruction was harmless by considering whether it “‘had a substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.’” Id. at 1109 (quoting Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 637 (1993)). Davis harmless-error review requires us to look at whether Garcia’s murder conviction would qualify as a crime of violence under the elements clause based on the current state of the law, not on what the law was at the time of sentencing. See United States v. Lewis, 904 F.3d 867, 873 (10th Cir. 2018) (“We apply current law . . . because Johnson [II] harmless error review goes to the question of remedies . . . .”). The Kansas first-degree-murder statute provides: “(a) Murder in the first degree is the killing of a human being committed: (1) Intentionally, and with premeditation; or (2) in the commission of, attempt to commit, or flight from any inherently dangerous felony.” Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-5402(a).4 Garcia argues this statute does not qualify as a 4 The parties debate whether § 21-5402(a) is a divisible statute and whether we should apply the categorical or the modified-categorical approach to determine if Garcia’s murder conviction qualifies as a crime of violence under § 924(c)(3)’s elements clause. We need not resolve this debate because Garcia’s argument fails under either approach. But we note (without deciding) that the statute itself strongly indicates it is not divisible. See § 21-5402(d) (“Murder in the first degree as defined in subsection (a)(2) is 7 crime of violence under the elements clause in § 924(c)(3)(A) because first-degree murder can be accomplished by poisoning, which does not require the use of violent physical force. We disagree. In two recent cases we have definitively rejected the argument that poisoning does not require the use of violent physical force. In United States v. Ontiveros, 875 F.3d 533, 536-38 (10th Cir. 2017), we explained that the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Castleman, 572 U.S. 157 (2014), fatally undermined contrary, earlier Tenth Circuit precedent on this point, including a case Garcia relies on here, United States v. Rodriguez-Enriquez, 518 F.3d 1191 (10th Cir. 2008). See also United States v. McCranie, 889 F.3d 677, 679 (10th Cir. 2018) (recognizing that Ontiveros “overruled” Rodriguez-Enriquez based on Castleman), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 1260 (2019). Although Ontiveros concerned whether the “use of physical force” rendered an offense a crime of violence under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(a), see 875 F.3d at 535, we extended Ontiveros’s reasoning to § 924(c)(3)(A) in United States v. Melgar-Cabrera, 892 F.3d 1053, 1066 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 494 (2018). To the extent Garcia relies on dictum in Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U.S. 263 (1980), it is not controlling in light of Castleman.5 an alternative method of proving murder in the first degree and is not a separate crime from murder in the first degree as defined in subsection (a)(1).”); see also Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243, 2256 (2016) (“[A] statute may itself identify which things must be charged (and so are elements) and which need not be (and so are means).”). 5 The Rummel dictum Garcia points to is a comment that “Caesar’s death at the hands of Brutus and his fellow conspirators was undoubtedly violent; the death of Hamlet’s father at the hands of his brother, Claudius, by poison, was not.” Rummel, 8 Because Garcia has failed to show that first-degree murder in violation of Kan. Stat. Ann. § 5402(a) is not a crime of violence as defined in § 924(c)(3)(A)’s elements clause, any error by the district court in relying on § 924(c)(3)(B)’s residual clause, recognized as unconstitutionally vague in Davis and Salas, was harmless under Brecht. We therefore affirm the district court’s denial of § 2255 relief on Garcia’s jury-instruction issue.