Court Opinion

ID: 9484043
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:39:00.304319+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:59.083564
License: Public Domain

E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I write separately to say that a fair interpretation of the United States Supreme Court’s opinion in Taylor v. U.S.1 does not bind us to an inflexible reading of Taylor's “requirements.”
The majority reads Taylor as establishing two “alternative but exclusive methods” which the government may use to prove that a defendant’s prior burglary conviction was in fact for a “generic” burglary. In addition to proving the fact of the prior conviction, the government must — on pain of reversal — present the trial court with either (1) “proper copies” of the burglary statute under which the defendant was previously convicted; or (2) copies of the indictment or the jury instructions under which the defendant was previously convicted.2 Thus, the majority establishes a per se rule that in my view was not intended by the Taylor court.
I would read Taylor as requiring presentation of either the statute under which the defendant was previously convicted, or the indictment, or the bill of information, or any other form of equally reliable proof showing that the defendant indeed had committed a “generic” burglary. I see the specific forms of proof enumerated by the Court as illustrative, not exclusive. Under the majority's literal interpretation, anomalous results will obtain; for example, if a defendant knowingly admits committing a generic burglary, the uncontested voluntary admission would yet be insufficient to uphold a § 924(e) enhancement. Surely, such a result could not have been intended by the Supreme Court.
*1418I favor the rationale adopted by this circuit in the Garza case, in which the court refused to adhere to a rigid reading of Taylor’s requirements when such an application produces nonsensical results. In Garza,3 we rejected a literal reading of Taylor that seemed to require the presentation of both the indictments and the jury instructions. There we recognized the serious flaw of a rigid application because in guilty pleas, jury instructions are obviously never formulated; instead we sensibly read the Supreme Court’s command as allowing proof of the indictments alone. The majority in this case rejects Garza’s path to common-sense interpretation of the Supreme Court’s requirements in Taylor.
Further, the majority rejects still another blazed trail to a sound interpretation of Taylor. In U.S. v. Fields,4, the defendant objected to the presentence report as means of proof of his prior felony convictions. In rejecting Fields’s argument, we unequivocally stated that “the report provided an adequate basis for the sentencing judge to determine that Fields had committed three prior felonies.”5 The majority dismisses Fields in its entirety by stating: “[t]he issue in Fields was one of reliability of the facially adequate evidence of the PSR. Here, the reliability or truth of the information in Martinez-Cortez’s PSR is not at issue.... rather, the evidence of the subject burglary conviction is challenged as being legally inadequate under Taylor.’6 The majority fails to recognize that Taylor is also concerned with reliability. It requires that the elements of the statute be established through a reliable source: either the statute itself, the indictment, the bill of information, or — in my view — any other equivalent form of proof, such as an uncontested voluntary admission of a fact. To say otherwise reduces Taylor to an arbitrary standard devoid of reason. Fields illustrates that this circuit has previously accepted PSRs as “legally adequate” proof to be used in § 924(e) enhancement proceedings. How the majority can con clude that an uncontested PSR (the equivalent of an admission) that proves the elements of a generic burglary is “legally inadequate” (to use the majority’s words), escapes me.
In truth, I think that the majority does a disservice to the Taylor opinion by construing its literal language so mechanically. We should endorse a common sense, reasonable interpretation of the opinion that allows equally reliable forms of proof of a generic burglary. In the light of the Fields opinion, I believe that the uncontested PSR upon which the trial judge relied in the instant case, which described the actual burglary of which the defendant was convicted, certainly provided sufficient proof of the conviction under Taylor to allow its use in § 924(e) enhancement proceedings. In any event, the majority’s creation of a per se rule in this ease is both unnecessary and unwarranted. For these reasons, while concurring in the result, I respectfully take exception to the majority’s application of Taylor.

. 495 U.S. 575, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990).

. To be sure, the Supreme Court in Taylor stated that “if the indictment or information and jury instructions show that the defendant was charged with a [generic] burglary ..., and that the jury necessarily had to find [the elements of a generic burglary] to convict, then the Government should be allowed to use the conviction for enhancement.” 495 U.S. at 602, 110 S.Ct. at 2160 (emphasis added). This circuit has previously interpreted this passage from Taylor in a flexible, common sense manner, holding that either the indictment or the bill of information or the jury instructions will suffice to prove a "generic” burglary sufficient to meet § 924(e)’s requirements. As will be discussed later, the majority offers no reason why such a common sense interpretation cannot be applied to the portion of the Taylor opinion currently before the court.

. United States v. Garza, 921 F.2d 59 (5th Cir.1991).

. 923 F.2d 358 (5th Cir.1991).

. Fields, 923 F.2d at 361.

. Majority slip opinion at 1413-14.