Court Opinion

ID: 9479773
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:28:45.910936+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:16.428580
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I agree with the majority opinion’s holding that the “pistol-pointing” offense for which defendant was convicted could only be treated as one “of violence” for purposes of federal sentencing by looking to § 16(b). The attempted, threatened or actual use of physical force is not an “element” of the South Carolina offense as defined by statute, hence is not one covered by § 16(a).
I also agree with the result reached by the majority: that the conviction here qualifies under § 16(b). But I disagree with the majority’s analysis of why that is so. And because I think that analysis could have unfortunate precedential effects, I concur only in the result for the following reasons.
The majority opinion errs, I think, in believing that to find an offense one which qualifies under § 16(b) for “career offender” purposes, a court must conclude that any commission of the offense would “involve[] a substantial risk that physical force ... may be used_” In other words, the majority reads the § 16(b) qualifier, “by its nature,” as referring to the intrinsic nature of the offense as defined by the relevant sovereign. The majority then proceeds to conclude that the South Carolina statutory firearm-pointing offense meets this “intrinsic nature” test by a process of reasoning that I cannot accept, relying as it does principally on the unremarkable fact that most, or perhaps all, of the reported appeals from convictions under this statute (and related ones from other states) did involve acts of violence and correspondingly stiff sentences. As I read the South Carolina statute, however, it creates a form of strict liability criminal offense, which allows convictions for everything from horseplay to the most dire form of threat by pistol-pointing. This wide range of possibilities is reflected in the fact that the sentencing range under South Carolina law is apparently unlimited. I don’t think that such an offense is one which “by its intrinsic nature” would qualify as one “of violence” under § 16(b).
If we had only the statutory text of § 16(b), I would interpret the critical phrase “by its nature” exactly as the majority does — as referring to the intrinsic nature of the offense as defined by the relevant sovereign, but would then disagree with the conclusion that the offense here in issue qualified in that sense. But we have more than the text, which admittedly is not unambiguous in the critical respect. The Sentencing Commission’s Application Note 1 to Guideline § 4B1.2(1) directs a different reading of “by its nature” in the § 16(b) context. Specifically, it directs a fact-specific inquiry to determine whether a particular prior conviction qualifies under § 16(b). An offense, per the Commission’s note, is covered by § 16(b) “only if the conduct for which the defendant was specifically convicted meets the above definition [that in § 16(b) ]” (emphasis added). A clinching illustration is then given in the Note: a conviction for “escape” may or may not be covered by § 16(b), depending upon whether it was done by force or threat of force, or by stealth. See id.
The effect of this reading is to refer the phrase “by its nature” to the specific conduct proven rather than to its literal referent, “offense,” in the incorporated statute. That reading is certainly not without its *512difficulties — both in logic and in practical application. Cf. United States v. Headspeth, 852 F.2d 753 (4th Cir.1988) (Maryland “housebreaking” offense cannot be treated under principles of lenity as necessarily a “crime of violence” for purposes of enhancing sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)). But we presumably owe the Commission the usual deference to agency interpretations of statutes or regulations for whose application the agency has some responsibility, and so I think we must accord deference to this Application Note’s interpretation.
On that basis, the analysis here should proceed simply and directly to whether the pistol-pointing “conduct” for which this defendant was “specifically convicted” did “involve a substantial risk, etc.” While the majority opinion does not identify that conduct except in the most general sense that it necessarily involved pistol-pointing, the record discloses that it involved pointing it at a pharmacist who declined to accommodate the defendant. See Joint Appendix at 55. That conduct would clearly suffice to bring the particular offense under § 16(b); it obviously was not horseplay. The sentence should therefore be upheld on that basis.