Court Opinion

ID: 9494237
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:32:48.041404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:17.920313
License: Public Domain

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Defendant was convicted of drunk driving resulting in bodily injury, in violation of California Vehicle Code § 23153. The question we must answer is whether — taking a categorical approach — this is an aggravated felony under 18 U.S.C. § 16. My colleagues treat the California statute as if it punished merely negligent conduct; they say: “The statute plainly provides, and the government does not dispute, that violation can occur through negligent acts, so long as the driver is legally intoxicated when those negligent acts are committed.” Maj. Op. at 10337. The majority spends the rest of its opinion nit-picking the words of section 16 in a futile effort to distinguish our prior opinions in United States v. Ceron-Sanchez, 222 F.3d 1169 (9th Cir.2000), and Park v. INS, 252 F.3d 1018 (9th Cir.2001). While I disagree that Ceron-San-chez and especially Park can be distinguished,* I get off the bus at an earlier station: The majority’s analysis overlooks its own limitation — “so long as the driver is legally intoxicated when those negligent acts are committed.” Maj. Op. at 10337.
Trinidad-Aquino was not convicted under a draconian state statute that turns mere negligent driving into a felony. In order to obtain a conviction, the state must prove three things: (1) defendant was driving a motor vehicle while intoxicated; (2) he committed a negligent act; and (3) someone was killed or injured as a result. Cal. Veh.Code § 23153. Compare this to the definition of “aggravated felony” in section 16(b): a felony 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.” Does a crime that meets the three criteria above satisfy this definition? Of course it does. Driving a vehicle while intoxicated and then killing or injuring somebody is the classic example of an offense that “by its nature, involves a substantial risk” that physical force will be used against another. Intoxication vastly increases the likelihood that the driver will commit a negligent act resulting in injury or death.
As the Seventh Circuit explained in United States v. Rutherford, 54 F.3d 370, 376 (7th Cir.1995):
The dangers of drunk driving are well-known and well documented. Unlike other acts that may present some risk of physical injury, such as pickpocketing (cf. [United States v.] Lee, [22 F.3d 736 (7th Cir.1994) ]) or perhaps child neglect or certain environmental crimes like the mishandling of hazardous wastes or pollutants, the risk of injury from drunk driving is neither conjectural nor speculative. Driving under the influence vastly increases the probability that the driver will injure someone in an accident. Out of the more than 34,000 *1148fatal traffic accidents in 1992, 36.1 percent involved a driver with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of over .10 percent, and another 9 percent involved a driver with a BAC of between .01 and .09 percent. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 114th ed., Table 1016, p. 633 (1994). Drunk driving, by its nature, presents a serious risk of physical injury.... Drunk driving is a reckless act that often results in injury, and the risks of driving while intoxicated are well-known.
Id. (footnote omitted).
The majority recognizes, as it must, that recklessly disregarding a known risk is a sufficient mental state to form the basis of an aggravated felony under 18 U.S.C. § 16. Maj. Op. at 10340. It goes astray by focusing only on the negligent conduct that causes the accident, while ignoring the reckless conduct — drinking and driving — which causes the negligence and turns a civil tort into a criminal offense under California law. When a legally-intoxicated driver causes an accident which injures or kills somebody, he has acted in a criminally negligent or reckless manner. Under Cemrir-Sanchez and Park, this is an aggravated felony. Because the majority’s contrary conclusion is contrary to the law of the circuit and common sense, I dissent.

Park held that "criminal negligence," when used in California’s manslaughter statute, was a sufficient state of mind to satisfy the requirement of section 16. 252 F.3d at 1021-22, 1024-25. The statute here does not use the term “criminal negligence,” but it is a criminal statute defining a felony. It strikes me as a strained reading of California law to construe one of its criminal statutes as calling for a mental state less stringent than criminal negligence. Is the majority saying that someone could be convicted of a felony under section 23153 based on civil negligence? I am aware of no California case that holds this, and would be surprised to find one. My guess is, California judges reading our opinion today will chortle.