Court Opinion

ID: 9382860
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-28 21:00:32.001683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:42.197506
License: Public Domain

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                                             PUBLISHED

                              UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                  FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 20-7131

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                            Plaintiff - Appellee,

                     v.

        JOSEPH E. WILLIAMS,

                            Defendant - Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at
        Alexandria. Leonie M. Brinkema, District Judge. (1:04-cr-00160-LMB-1; 1:16-cv-00773-LMB)

        Argued: January 26, 2023                                      Decided: March 27, 2023

        Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, HARRIS, and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges.

        Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Chief Judge Gregory wrote the opinion, in
        which Judge Harris and Judge Quattlebaum joined.

        ARGUED: Geremy C. Kamens, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER,
        Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Richard Daniel Cooke, OFFICE OF THE UNITED
        STATES ATTORNEY, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Frances H. Pratt,
        Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER,
        Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Jessica D. Aber, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF
        THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.
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        GREGORY, Chief Judge:

               Joseph Williams was convicted of two firearm possession offenses in violation of

        18 U.S.C. § 922(g). In determining Williams’s sentence, the trial court applied the Armed

        Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”) sentence enhancement, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1), based on

        Williams’s prior state felony convictions.

               Williams now moves to vacate and correct his sentence pursuant to 18 U.S.C.

        § 2255, challenging the sentencing court’s application of the ACCA enhancement. After

        concluding that Williams’s three Virginia robbery convictions qualified as predicate

        “violent felonies” under § 924(e), the district court denied his motion. While Williams’s

        appeal of that decision was pending, this Court held that Virginia common-law robbery is

        not a violent felony for purposes of § 924(e). See United States v. White, 24 F.4th 378, 382

        (4th Cir. 2022). We conclude that White controls this case and precludes Williams’s

        robbery convictions from qualifying as valid ACCA predicates. Accordingly, we vacate

        the district court’s order denying Williams’s § 2255 motion and remand for further

        proceedings.

                                                     I.

                                                     A.

               In 2004, a federal grand jury indicted Williams for possessing a firearm as a felon in

        violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and for possessing a firearm as an unlawful drug user in

        violation of § 922(g)(3). Following a trial, a jury convicted Williams of both counts. The

        jury also answered several special interrogatories in which it found that the Government had

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        proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Williams had deliberately and maliciously shot and

        killed a neighbor during the commission or attempted commission of a robbery.

               At Williams’s sentencing, the court applied the ACCA sentence enhancement after

        finding that Williams had at least “three previous convictions . . . for a violent felony . . .,

        committed on occasions different from one another.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). In total, Williams

        had six prior convictions under Virginia law: three for robbery (Va. Code § 18.2-58), and three

        for using or displaying a firearm while committing a felony (Va. Code § 18.2-53.1). These

        convictions stemmed from three separate robberies Williams committed in 1977 and 1982.

        While § 922(g) offenses normally carry a maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment, the

        ACCA sentence enhancement mandates a prison term of at least fifteen years. After merging

        Williams’s two § 922(g) convictions and applying the ACCA enhancement and U.S.

        Sentencing Guidelines, the court sentenced Williams to life imprisonment.

               On direct appeal, this Court affirmed Williams’s conviction. United States v. Williams,

        445 F.3d 724, 741 (4th Cir. 2006), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 933 (2006). However, we vacated

        his sentence and remanded for resentencing because the trial court had sentenced Williams

        before the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), which

        established that the Sentencing Guidelines are advisory rather than mandatory. Williams, 445

        F.3d at 741. On remand, the court again sentenced Williams to life imprisonment, and we

        affirmed. United States v. Williams, 257 F. App’x 674, 678 (4th Cir. 2007).

                                                      B.

               In April 2009, Williams filed his first motion to vacate and correct his sentence

        pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The district court dismissed the motion, and we declined to

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        grant a certificate of appealability. United States v. Williams, 381 F. App’x 269, 269 (4th

        Cir. 2010).

               On June 26, 2016, Williams sought and received authorization to file a second or

        successive § 2255 motion. In his second § 2255 motion, he argues that his life sentence

        should be vacated and corrected because he no longer qualifies as an armed career criminal

        after the Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591 (2015). In

        Johnson, the Supreme Court struck down the “residual clause” in § 924(e)—which set out

        one way a predicate offense could qualify as a violent felony—as unconstitutionally

        vague. 1 As a result of that decision, Williams’s ACCA sentence enhancement is valid only

        if at least three of his Virginia convictions satisfy § 924(e)’s “elements clause.” 2 That

        clause defines a “violent felony” as any crime punishable by more than one year of

        imprisonment that “has 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). The Supreme Court has

        defined “physical force” as “violent force—that is, force capable of causing physical pain

               1
                  Williams filed his second § 2255 motion within one year of the Johnson decision,
        which made the motion timely. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(3) (providing that a movant may
        file a § 2255 motion within one year of “the date on which the right asserted was initially
        recognized by the Supreme Court, if that right has been newly recognized by the Supreme
        Court and made retroactive to cases on collateral review”). The new rule the Supreme
        Court recognized in Johnson applies retroactively to cases on collateral review. See Welch
        v. United States, 578 U.S. 120, 135 (2016).
               2
                Section 924(e) also enumerates four specific crimes that qualify as violent felonies:
        burglary, arson, extortion, and crimes involving the use of explosives. See 18 U.S.C.
        § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). However, Williams’s Virginia robbery and firearm convictions do not
        align with any of the enumerated offenses.
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        or injury to another person.” Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133, 140 (2010) (emphasis

        in original).

               After staying the proceedings pending further guidance from this Court and the

        Supreme Court, the district court dismissed Williams’s § 2255 motion in May 2020. It

        held that Johnson’s invalidation of § 924(e)’s residual clause did not affect Williams’s

        sentence because his three Virginia robbery convictions qualify as violent felonies under

        the elements clause. To reach that conclusion, the court largely relied on the Supreme

        Court’s decision in Stokeling v. United States, which held that Florida common-law

        robbery is a violent felony because it requires a level of “force necessary to overcome a

        victim’s resistance,” which amounts to “physical force” under the elements clause. 139 S.

        Ct. 544, 555 (2019). Looking to Virginia case law, the district court concluded that

        Virginia common-law robbery, like Florida common-law robbery, “requires the use of

        force sufficient to overcome a victim’s resistance.” J.A. 116.

               Most relevant to this appeal, the district court was unpersuaded by Williams’s

        argument that Virginia common-law robbery does not require “physical force” because a

        person may commit the offense by threatening to accuse the victim of sodomy (the

        “sodomy-threat theory”). For support, Williams cited a few Virginia cases that appeared

        to recognize the sodomy-threat theory, the most recent of which was decided in 1938.

        However, the district court found those references to the theory insufficient to establish

        that Virginia common-law robbery could be committed without “physical force.” The

        court emphasized that the discussions of the sodomy-threat theory were mere dicta in cases

        that did not actually involve prosecutions for sodomy-threat robbery, and the court was

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        “unaware of any Virginia case, let alone a recent case, in which a defendant has been

        prosecuted for robbery committed via a threatened charge of sodomy.” J.A. 118–19. It

        also noted that the Virginia General Assembly had enacted a robbery statute in 1975 that

        appeared to exclude the sodomy-threat theory, which suggested that “that conduct is no

        longer considered a robbery crime.” J.A. 119.

               Based on this analysis, the district court upheld Williams’s sentence enhancement

        without addressing whether his three convictions for violating Virginia’s use-or-display-

        of-firearm statute also qualify as violent felonies. Williams timely appealed.

                                                    C.

               While Williams’s appeal was pending, we decided United States v. White, which

        addressed whether Virginia common-law robbery qualifies as a violent felony under the

        ACCA. 3 Like Williams, the defendant in White argued that Virginia common-law robbery

        does not satisfy § 924(e)’s elements clause because a person can commit the offense “by

        threatening to accuse the [robbery] victim of having committed sodomy.” United States v.

        White, 987 F.3d 340, 341–42 (4th Cir. 2021). The defendant called attention to the same

        decades-old Virginia precedents that endorsed the sodomy-threat theory. Id. at 344. After

        finding no controlling precedent on this issue, we certified the following question to the

        Virginia Supreme Court: “Under Virginia common law, can an individual be convicted of

               3
                 We had previously determined that Virginia common-law robbery did not qualify
        as a violent felony under § 924(e)’s elements clause because it “can be committed when a
        defendant uses only a ‘slight’ degree of force that need not harm a victim.” United States
        v. Winston, 850 F.3d 677, 685 (4th Cir. 2017). However, we have since recognized that
        our holding in Winston was abrogated by Stokeling. See United States v. White, 987 F.3d
        340, 343 (4th Cir. 2021).
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        robbery by means of threatening to accuse the victim of having committed sodomy?” Id.

        at 341.

                  The Virginia Supreme Court answered our question in the affirmative, holding that

        a person can commit Virginia common-law robbery by means of a threatened sodomy

        accusation “if the accusation of ‘sodomy’ involves a crime against nature under extant

        criminal law.” White v. United States, 863 S.E.2d 483, 483 (Va. 2021). Based on that

        answer, we held that Virginia common-law robbery does not qualify as a violent felony

        under the elements clause because it “can be committed without proving as an element the

        ‘use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force.’” White, 24 F.4th at 380 (quoting

        18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i)).

                  With that recent decision in mind, we granted Williams a certificate of appealability

        “on the issue of whether [he] no longer qualifies as an armed career criminal in light of

        [White].” Order, United States v. Williams, No. 20-7131 (4th Cir. Feb. 1, 2022), ECF No. 12.

                                                       II.

                  “We review de novo a district court’s legal conclusions concerning a denial of

        § 2255 relief, including whether certain prior convictions qualify as violent felonies under

        the ACCA.” United States v. Dinkins, 928 F.3d 349, 353 (4th Cir. 2019). When deciding

        whether an offense satisfies § 924(e)’s elements clause, we must follow the categorical

        approach, “focusing on the elements of the crime of conviction and not on the underlying

        facts.” Id. at 354. Under that approach, all that matters is whether Williams could have

        been convicted of sodomy-threat robbery under Virginia law; if so, then his robbery

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        convictions did not necessarily require “physical force” and therefore do not satisfy the

        elements clause. To identify the elements of a state offense and the minimum conduct

        needed to prove them, we “look to state law” and “the interpretation of [the] offense

        articulated by that state’s courts.” Id. (quoting United States v. Bell, 901 F.3d 455, 469

        (4th Cir. 2018)).

               The Virginia Supreme Court’s opinion in White made clear that Virginia common-

        law robbery does not satisfy § 924(e)’s elements clause because one method of committing

        the offense—robbery by threatened sodomy accusation—does not involve the “use,

        attempted use, or threatened use of physical force.” However, the Government argues that

        White is not controlling because Williams was convicted and sentenced under a version of

        the Virginia robbery statute, Va. Code § 18.2-58, that clearly excluded the sodomy-threat

        theory. But Williams and the defendant in White were convicted under the same version

        of the robbery statute, which the Virginia Supreme Court addressed in its White opinion.

        Therefore, despite the Government’s arguments to the contrary, the Virginia Supreme

        Court’s conclusion in White applies with equal force here and precludes Williams’s

        robbery convictions from satisfying the elements clause.

                                                   A.

               For each of his three robbery offenses, Williams was convicted and sentenced under

        Va. Code § 18.2-58. Importantly, this statute “prescribes the degrees of punishments for

        robbery, but not its elements.” White, 863 S.E.2d at 484. Virginia courts “look[] to the

        common law definition for the offense.” Branch v. Commonwealth, 300 S.E.2d 758, 759

        (Va. 1983); see also Durham v. Commonwealth, 198 S.E.2d 603, 605 (Va. 1973) (“In

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        Virginia, . . . there is no statutory definition of robbery.”). In Virginia, common-law

        robbery is defined as “the taking, with intent to steal, of the personal property of another,

        from his person or in his presence, against his will, by violence or intimidation.” Durham,

        198 S.E.2d at 605 (quoting Jones v. Commonwealth, 1 S.E.2d 300, 301 (Va. 1939)).

               We look to the version of § 18.2-58 that was in effect at the time of Williams’s 1978

        and 1982 convictions to determine whether those convictions satisfy § 924(e)’s elements

        clause. See, e.g., United States v. Alfaro, 835 F.3d 470, 472–73 (4th Cir. 2016). That

        version read as follows:

               Robbery; how punished.—If any person commit robbery by partial
               strangulation, or suffocation, or by striking or beating, or by other violence
               to the person, or by assault or otherwise putting a person in fear of serious
               bodily harm or by the threat of [sic] 4 presenting of firearms, or other deadly
               weapon or instrumentality whatsoever, he shall be guilty of a felony and shall
               be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for life or any term not less
               than five years.

        Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-58 (1975).

               Although § 18.2-58 does not define the elements of robbery, the Government

        contends that the 1975 version of the statute did not provide any means of punishing

        sodomy-threat robbery and therefore must have abrogated this common-law rule. See Va.

        Code Ann. § 18.2-16 (1975) (“A common-law offense, for which punishment is prescribed

        by statute, shall be punished only in the mode so prescribed.”). To support its position, the

        Government points out that versions of the statute that preceded and followed the 1975

        version included a catch-all clause designed to capture all possible forms of robbery, but

               4
                In 1978, the General Assembly corrected this grammatical error (replacing “of”
        with “or”), but otherwise made no changes to the statute. See 1975 Va. Acts 1001.
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        the 1975 version did not. For instance, the 1960 version of the statute covered “robbery in

        any other mode.” 5 Va. Code. Ann. § 18.1-91 (1960). Similarly, a 2021 amendment—

        which replaced the 1975 version—makes “[a]ny person who commits robbery by using

        threat or intimidation or any other means not involving a deadly weapon [] guilty of a Class

        6 felony.” 6 Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-58(B)(4) (2021). By contrast, the 1975 statute included

        no such catch-all clause. According to the Government, this shows that the 1975 statute

        excluded the sodomy-threat theory of robbery.

               However, the Virginia Supreme Court’s opinion in White forecloses this argument.

        To begin, the defendant in White, like Williams, was convicted of Virginia common-law

        robbery when the 1975 version of § 18.2-58 was in effect. See White, 987 F.3d at 341.

        Further, we highlighted the statutory issue in our opinion certifying the question to the

        Virginia Supreme Court. We noted that § 18.2-58, “when detailing various means of

        commission of the crime, does not mention robbery by threatening to accuse the victim of

        sodomy,” but recognized that the statute was not necessarily “dispositive of the question

        presented, because we look to the common law for [the crime’s] definition.” Id. at 344

        (internal quotation marks omitted).

               5
                The General Assembly first removed the catch-all clause from the robbery statute
        in 1966. Compare 1960 Va. Acts 433 with 1966 Va. Acts 557. In 1975, the General
        Assembly made minor amendments to the statute but did not reintroduce a catch-all
        provision. See 1975 Va. Acts 1265.
               6
                The 2021 amendment assigned different felony levels to robbery offenses based
        on the method of commission. See Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-58 (2021).
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               Most importantly, the Virginia Supreme Court addressed the possible effects of the

        statute when answering our certified question. In concluding that a defendant may be

        convicted of robbery under the sodomy-threat theory, the court clarified that “the General

        Assembly has not abrogated the [sodomy-threat] doctrine.” White, 863 S.E.2d at 492

        (emphasis added). From this statement, we can infer that the court considered the 1975

        version of the statute and determined that it did not modify the common-law rule.

               To be sure, the Virginia Supreme Court did not analyze the specific text of § 18.2-58

        in its opinion, instead focusing mostly on English common law and historical Virginia

        precedents. See White, 863 S.E.2d at 486–92. Ultimately, though, the Government cannot

        escape the court’s express statement that the “General Assembly has not abrogated” the

        sodomy-threat theory. Id. at 492. The court’s discussion of the statutory issue was cursory,

        but that does not make its conclusion any less clear.

                                                    B.

               In an attempt to convince us that White is not controlling, the Government contends

        that it was possible for the 1975 statute to eliminate the punishment for sodomy-threat

        robbery without actually abrogating the common-law rule. It points out that a different

        offense—suicide—“remains a common law crime in Virginia” even though “the General

        Assembly has rescinded the punishment” for that offense. Wackwitz v. Roy, 418 S.E.2d

        861, 864 (Va. 1992). According to the Government, this demonstrates that the 1975

        version of § 18.2-58 could have restricted the punishable forms of robbery even if the

        common-law definition of robbery remained unchanged. And, the Government asserts, it

        would violate both Virginia law and federal due process protections to convict and sentence

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        a defendant for sodomy-threat robbery when no statute prescribed any punishment for that

        form of the offense.

               We find it hard to believe that the Virginia Supreme Court failed to consider this

        issue in White. For one, the issue was squarely presented to the court. We expressed our

        uncertainty about whether sodomy-threat robbery was punishable under § 18.2-58 when

        we certified the question, and the Government’s briefing in the Virginia Supreme Court

        specifically argued that “there is no punishment for” sodomy-threat robbery under the 1975

        version of the statute. Brief of United States, White, 863 S.E.2d 483, 2021 WL 8315270,

        at *32 (Va. May 21, 2021). Moreover, if the 1975 statute had made sodomy-threat robbery

        unpunishable, the Virginia Supreme Court would have addressed that issue in White, given

        that it very well could have been “determinative” to whether the defendant’s robbery

        conviction qualified as a violent felony under § 924(e). White, 863 S.E.2d at 483. For

        these reasons, the plain import of the court’s White opinion is that the 1975 statute did not

        remove the sodomy-threat theory from the punishable forms of robbery. 7

               Finally, as a last resort, the Government asks us to find that the Virginia Supreme

        Court interpreted Virginia common law incorrectly in White. But we must decline that

               7
                  The Government separately argues that we must treat § 18.2-58’s penalty
        provisions as elements requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt—and therefore as a
        divisible offense from the common-law rule—because the statute imposes a five-year
        mandatory minimum sentence. See Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S. 99, 103 (2013).
        Because we read the Virginia Supreme Court’s White opinion as concluding that sodomy-
        threat robbery remained punishable under the 1975 statute, we do not need to address this
        argument.
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        invitation, as we are bound by “the interpretation of the offense articulated by [Virginia]

        courts.” See Dinkins, 928 F.3d at 354 (cleaned up).

                                                *       *      *

               In sum, the Virginia Supreme Court’s opinion in White establishes that the version

        of § 18.2-58 in effect at the time of Williams’s robbery convictions continued to cover

        sodomy-threat robbery.        For this reason, Williams’s robbery convictions did not

        categorically require “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), and therefore do not

        constitute ACCA violent felonies.

                                                       III.

               Because the district court held that Williams’s three Virginia robbery convictions

        qualified as violent felonies, it did not address whether his three convictions for violating

        Virginia’s use-or-display-of-firearm statute also so qualified. If Williams’s Virginia firearms

        convictions do satisfy § 924(e)’s elements clause, they would provide an independent basis

        for applying the ACCA sentence enhancement. We take no position as to the answer to that

        question and leave it for the district court to address in the first instance on remand.

                                                       IV.

               For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the district court’s judgment denying

        Williams’s § 2255 motion and remand for further proceedings.

                                                                        VACATED AND REMANDED

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