Opinion ID: 3064716
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction over juvenile female

Text: A juvenile alleged to have committed an act of juvenile delinquency . . . shall not be proceeded against in any court of the United States unless the Attorney General, after investigation, certifies to the appropriate district court of the United States that . . . the offense charged is a crime of violence that is a felony . . . , and that there is a substantial Federal interest in the case or the offense to warrant the exercise of Federal jurisdiction. 18 U.S.C. § 5032. “Certification is a jurisdictional requirement.” United States v. Juvenile Male (Kenneth C.), 241 F.3d 684, 686 (9th Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). JF argues that a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 111 is not a crime of violence, and that the District Court erred in assuming jurisdiction over her.
[1] When exercising jurisdiction over a juvenile, this Court follows what has been termed a “categorical approach” to determine whether an offense is a crime of violence. See Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U.S. 1, 8 (2004) (using a categorical approach to determine whether a crime was a crime of violence warranting deportation); United States v. David H., 29 F.3d 489, 494 (9th Cir. 1994); United States v. Baker, 10 F.3d 1374, 1393-94 (9th Cir. 1993), overruled on other grounds by United States v. Norby, 225 F.3d 1053 (9th Cir. 2000). [2] Under the categorical approach, “the generic, rather than the particular, nature of the predicate offense is determinative in defining a crime of violence.” Baker, 10 F.3d at 1394 (internal quotations omitted). A crime “qualifies as a crime of violence . . . if and only if the full range of conduct covered by it falls within the meaning of that term.” Valencia UNITED STATES v. JUVENILE FEMALE 6263 v. Gonzales, 439 F.3d 1046, 1049 (9th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). [3] We recently held that 18 U.S.C. § 111 sets out three separate crimes. United States v. Chapman, 528 F.3d 1215, 1218 (9th Cir. 2008) (“[S]everal of our sister circuits have held that § 111 creates three distinct offenses, one misdemeanor and two felonies. We agree that this formulation of the statute is required.”) (internal citations omitted). [4] Unfortunately, “[t]he statute itself offers little guidance on the precise contours of the three separate offenses created by § 111.” United States v. Hathaway, 318 F.3d 1001, 1007 (10th Cir. 2003); see also Chapman, 528 F.3d at 1218 (“Section 111(a) is inartfully drafted.”). In Chapman, we held that “[v]iolations of the ‘simple assault’ provision constitute misdemeanors. Violations of the ‘all other cases’ or dangerous weapon or bodily harm provisions constitute felonies.” 528 F.3d at 1218 (internal citation omitted). In differentiating between the two offenses described in section 111(a), “simple assaults” and “all other cases,” some of our sister circuits require physical contact, whereas others require physical contact or a similar aggravating factor, such as the intent to commit a murder or a serious felony.2 Id. at 1219. In Chapman, we declined to adopt a rule, and held that under either approach, “while a defendant could be charged with resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating, or interfering, he could not be convicted unless his conduct also amounted to an assault.” Id. (emphasis added). [5] The third offense, which is the one at issue in this case, was not specifically addressed in Chapman. Id. Our sister circuits, however, have held that section 111(b) describes an “assault involving a deadly or dangerous weapon or resulting in 2 In light of the 2007 revision, this issue is moot and limited solely to defendants who were charged under the prior version of the statute. 6264 UNITED STATES v. JUVENILE FEMALE bodily injury.” United States v. Vallery, 437 F.3d 626, 630 (7th Cir. 2006); see also United States v. Gagnon, 553 F.3d 1021, 1024 (6th Cir. 2009); Hathaway, 318 F.3d at 1007-09; United States v. Yates, 304 F.3d 818, 821 (8th Cir. 2002); United States v. McCulligan, 256 F.3d 97, 102 (3d Cir. 2001); United States v. Chestaro, 197 F.3d 600, 607-08 (2d Cir. 1999); United States v. Nunez, 180 F.3d 227, 233 (5th Cir. 1999). In light of these cases, the plain language of the statute, and our determination that “convictions under this statute require at least some form of assault,” Chapman, 528 F.3d at 1221, JF’s argument that the third offense subsumes five other non-assaultive offenses, because it also lists those who resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, or interfere with designated officers, fails. JF also argues that regardless of whether § 111 lays out three separate offenses, under the categorical approach, the panel must consider the entire range of conduct criminalized by the statute. This is unpersuasive. The categorical approach does not focus on a criminal statute in its entirety, but on the offense or crime. See, e.g., Leocal, 543 U.S. at 7 (The Court “look[s] to the elements and the nature of the offense of conviction.”) (emphasis added); United States v. Gomez-Leon, 545 F.3d 777, 783 (9th Cir. 2008) (considering only subsection (c)(3) of Cal. Pen. Code § 192); Baker, 10 F.3d at 1394 (“[T]he generic, rather than the particular, nature of the predicate offense is determinative.”) (emphasis added).
The appropriate question before us, therefore, is whether an “assault involving a deadly or dangerous weapon or resulting in bodily injury,” under 18 U.S.C. § 111, is, categorically, a crime of violence. We hold that it is. [6] Under 18 U.S.C. § 16, a crime of violence is defined as UNITED STATES v. JUVENILE FEMALE 6265
attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another, or (b) any other offense that is a felony and 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. “In construing both parts of § 16, we cannot forget that we ultimately are determining the meaning of the term ‘crime of violence.’ The ordinary meaning of this term, combined with § 16’s emphasis on the use of physical force against another person . . . suggests a category of violent, active crimes.” Leocal, 543 U.S. at 11. There are two variants of this offense: (1) assault involving a deadly or dangerous weapon, and (2) assault resulting in bodily injury. “To constitute an assault, an action must be either a willful attempt to inflict injury upon the person of another, or . . . a threat to inflict injury upon the person of another which, when coupled with an apparent present ability, causes a reasonable apprehension of immediate bodily harm.” Chapman, 528 F.3d at 1219-20 (internal quotation marks omitted). This court also requires intent to assault. United States v. Spears, 631 F.2d 114, 117 n.5 (9th Cir. 1980). A deadly or dangerous weapon is “any object which, as used or attempted to be used, may endanger the life of or inflict great bodily harm on a person.” United States v. Sanchez, 914 F.2d 1355, 1358 (9th Cir. 1990) (internal quotation marks omitted). [7] A defendant charged with the first variant, assault with a deadly or a dangerous weapon, must have always “threatened [the] use of physical force,” 18 U.S.C. § 16(a), because he or she will have either made a “wilful attempt to inflict injury” or a “threat to inflict injury,” Chapman, 528 F.3d at 1219-20 (internal quotation omitted), with an object that “may endanger the life of or inflict great bodily harm on a person,” 6266 UNITED STATES v. JUVENILE FEMALE Sanchez, 914 F.2d at 1358. Similarly, a defendant charged under the second variant, assault resulting in bodily injury, necessarily must have committed an act of force in causing the injury. Thus, both variants are “crimes of violence” pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 16(a). Moreover, because the offense is a felony, section 16(b) also applies. See Chapman, 528 F.3d at 1218. Section 16(b) sweeps more broadly than section 16(a) because it encompasses offenses where a person merely disregards a risk that physical force will be used in commission of the offense. Leocal, 543 U.S. at 10-11. For the same reasons described above, the two variants on this crime will always involve a substantial risk that physical force against the person may be used, even if physical force is not an element of the offense. [8] Thus, because JF was charged with a crime of violence, the District Court did not err in assuming jurisdiction over her.