Court Opinion

ID: 9486166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:39:53.513828+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:33.692904
License: Public Domain

CANBY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in that portion of Judge Noonan’s opinion that deals with sufficiency of the evidence. I also concur in the result reached with regard to the sentence, but on different grounds.
In my view the sentencing issue is controlled by 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), which provides an enhanced sentence for a person who “has three previous convictions by any court referred to in section 922(g)(1) of this title for a violent felony or a serious drug offense, or both, committed on occasions different from one another....” (Emphasis added). When the question is whether several crimes that are tried together constitute one offense or multiple offenses for purposes of federal enhancement, this language controls. If the offenses of which Frushon was previously convicted were committed on different occasions, as the presentence report suggests, they each count as one offense for purposes of career offender enhancement.
It is true that 18 U.S.C. § 20 provides that “[w]hat constitutes a conviction of such a crime shall be determined in accordance with the law of the jurisdiction in which the pro- • ceedings were held.” But that reference is clearly intended to deal with the meaning of “conviction” itself, not with the ascertainment of the number of convictions. That intent is clear from the rest of section 20, which explains that convictions that are expunged or set aside, or that have been the subject of a pardon or restoration of civil rights, cannot be counted unless the terms of the expungement, pardon or restoration prohibit possession of firearms. Id. Section 20’s reference to the law of the convicting court, therefore, is simply inapplicable to the question before us.
I would consequently rely on federal law, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), and not state law, in support of the remand for resentencing.