Court Opinion

ID: 9490572
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:47:41.025572+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:10.797779
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I am pleased to join my colleagues in then-holding that the defendant’s previous conviction for “housebreaking” under Article 130 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. § 930, constitutes a “violent felony” for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). I only note that, in my view, the defendant’s separation of powers argument is totally without merit and deserving of far more summary treatment than the court’s opinion, in an abundance of caution, gives it.
I cannot agree that the government ought to have argued that the defendant’s substantive contention about the military conviction was barred by the terms of the plea agreement. The plea agreement was far too vague to preclude the defendant’s argument. Counsel for the government was quite responsible in declining not to submit the untenable point. The court and the Country are served well when counsel for the United States makes such balanced professional judgments with respect to the ground upon which a judgment obtained in the district court ought to be defended.