Court Opinion

ID: 9476915
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:09:04.426961+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:35.144547
License: Public Domain

PREGERSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent. I believe that in this case the Armed Career Criminal Act’s requirement of “three convictions” is not satisfied because two out of Wicks’ three convictions were for burglaries occurring on the same night.
Section 1202(a) of the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984,18 U.S.C.App. 1202(a) (repealed 1986), provides for a minimum fifteen year sentence for a person who receives, possesses, or transports a firearm and who has “three previous convictions ... for robbery or burglary.” The majority finds no ambiguity in this language. The majority follows the dictionary definition of conviction and holds that the language of section 1202(a) “encompasses any person with three predicate convictions, wherever obtained.” Majority Opinion at 193.
The majority’s approach, in my view, leads to an incorrect result. As Judge Learned Hand stated:
It is one of the surest indexes of a mature and developed jurisprudence not to make a fortress out of the dictionary; but to remember that statutes always have some purpose or object to accomplish, whose sympathetic and imaginative discovery is the surest guide to their meaning.
Cabell v. Markham, 148 F.2d 737, 739 (2d Cir.1945), aff'd, 326 U.S. 404, 66 S.Ct. 193, 90 L.Ed. 165 (1945). Judge Hand’s approach is supported by Supreme Court authority. The majority opinion at 193 relies on the following statement by the Supreme Court in Burlington Northern Co. v. Oklahoma Tax Comm’n, — U.S. —, 107 S.Ct. 1855, 1860, 95 L.Ed.2d 404 (1987): “Unless exceptional circumstances dictate otherwise, ‘[w]hen we find the terms of a statute unambiguous, judicial inquiry is complete.’ ” Burlington Northern, 107 S.Ct. at 1860 (quoting Rubin v. United States, 449 U.S. 424, 430, 101 S.Ct. 698, 701, 66 L.Ed.2d 633 (1981)). The Court also stated in Burlington Northern that “[i]n the absence of a ‘clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary, ’ the language of the statute itself ‘must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.’ ” Burlington Northern, 107 S.Ct. at 1860 (quoting United States v. James, — U.S. —, *195106 S.Ct. 3116, 3122, 92 L.Ed.2d 483 (1986)) (emphasis added). Thus, under the Supreme Court’s rulings, courts should adhere to the literal language of a statute unless the legislature has made it clear that a contrary meaning was intended.
I believe that section 1202(a) should not be read merely to require three convictions.1 The legislative history supports a more realistic reading of section 1202(a) than the majority opinion gives it in this case. The legislative history clearly indicates that this section, as part of the Armed Career Criminal Act, was not intended to apply to individuals like Wicks who received two out of three convictions for two acts of burglary occurring on the same night. The title of the Act indicates that it was aimed at career criminals, rather than those who merely commit three punishable acts. Statments made in Congress during consideration of the bill confirm that it was not targeted at individuals who have merely committed three robberies or burglaries. More was required. The bill was directed at individuals who are resistant to society’s efforts at rehabilitation. As stated in the Solicitor General’s brief filed April 13, 1987, on petition for a writ of certiorari in Petty, “the concern of [Department of Justice] officials in their Congressional testimony was with ‘hard core recidivist robbers and burglars,’ ‘repeat offenders,’ and ‘three-time losers.’ ” Id. at 8, citing, e.g., Armed Career Criminal Act, Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Crime of the House Comm, on the Judiciary, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 47-66 (1984) (testimony of Assistant Attorney General Stephen S. Trott) (“Trott Testimony”); Armed Career Criminal Act of 1983, Hearing Before the Senate Comm, on the Judiciary, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. 11, 15, 18-19 (1983) (testimony of Deputy Assistant Attorney General James Knapp).
During a 1984 hearing concerning legislation that would have required two rather than three convictions for an Armed Career Criminal Act violation, Assistant Attorney General Stephen S. Trott stated the following:
These are people who have demonstrated, by virtue of their definition, that locking them up and letting them go doesn’t do any good. They go on again, you lock them up, you let them go, it doesn’t do any good, they are back for a third time. At that juncture, we should say, “That’s it; time out, it is all over. We, as responsible people, will never give you the opportunity to do this again.
Trott Testimony, supra, at 64. Thus, it is clear that section 1202(a) is aimed at recidivists, not at individuals who commit three acts that result in three convictions.
I would follow the lead of the Eighth Circuit in United States v. Petty, 828 F.2d 2 (8th Cir.1987), and hold that something more than three convictions is required. In Petty, the Eighth Circuit held that defendant’s six convictions for six armed robberies committed together against six different persons in a restaurant were insufficient to justify imposing an enhanced sentence under section 1202(a). Here, where two of the three convictions stemmed from burglaries that occurred on the same night, I would hold that section 1202(a) was not intended to, and therefore does not, apply.

. The majority implies that the Supreme Court has already ruled on whether the term "convictions” bears any ambiguity for present purposes. Majority Opinion at 193. However, in the case cited by the majority for this point, Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55, 100 S.Ct. 915, 63 L.Ed.2d 198 (1980), the Supreme Court found that section 1202(a) is unambiguous only with regard to whether a defendant could challenge the validity of a prior conviction in fighting a section 1202(a) charge. The Supreme Court's ruling in Lewis has no bearing on the problem before us in the present case.