United States v. Michael Herrold

941 F.3d 173
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedOctober 18, 2019
Docket14-11317
StatusPublished
Cited by47 cases

This text of 941 F.3d 173 (United States v. Michael Herrold) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Michael Herrold, 941 F.3d 173 (5th Cir. 2019).

Opinion

Case: 14-11317 Document: 00515165055 Page: 1 Date Filed: 10/18/2019

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT United States Court of Appeals

No. 14-11317 Fifth Circuit

FILED October 18, 2019

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Lyle W. Cayce Clerk Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

MICHAEL HERROLD,

Defendant - Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas

ON REMAND FROM THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT

Before OWEN, Chief Judge, and JOLLY, HIGGINBOTHAM, JONES, SMITH, STEWART, DENNIS, CLEMENT, ELROD, SOUTHWICK, HAYNES, GRAVES, HIGGINSON, COSTA, WILLETT, HO, DUNCAN, ENGELHARDT, and OLDHAM, Circuit Judges.

PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge: If the Texas burglary statute 1 is “generic” burglary, as the Armed Career Criminal Act case law has defined it, Michael Herrold will receive a 15-year sentence enhancement. When Herrold pled guilty in 2014 to possession of a firearm by a former felon, he had three prior felony convictions from 1992—for possession of LSD with intent to deliver, for burglary of a building, and for

1 TEX. PENAL CODE § 30.02(a). Case: 14-11317 Document: 00515165055 Page: 2 Date Filed: 10/18/2019

No. 14-11317 burglary of a habitation. 2 Determining whether these burglary convictions count toward Herrold’s tally of predicate convictions under the ACCA has set this case on a winding path. Since we last considered the issue, two Supreme Court decisions have foreclosed Herrold’s prior arguments. We now consider whether his remaining arguments offer an escape from the sentencing enhancement. They do not. I. A panel originally affirmed the district court’s application of the ACCA enhancement. 3 Then the Supreme Court—based on its intervening decision in Mathis v. United States 4— issued an order granting cert, vacating the lower court, and remanding for further proceedings (collectively known as a GVR order). 5 Still, bound by our decision in United States v. Uribe, 6 the panel again affirmed. 7 Hearing the case en banc, however, we vacated that decision 8 and abrogated the district court. 9 In our en banc decision, we reversed Uribe in holding that the Texas

2 The ACCA enhancement is triggered by three previous “violent felony” or “serious drug offense” convictions. 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). The possession of LSD conviction is a serious drug offense. Thus, if Herrold’s burglary convictions are violent felonies, the enhancement applies. The “violent felony” definition enumerates “burglary, arson, [and] extortion,” id. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), but only “crimes having certain specified elements” count as predicates, not “crimes that happen[] to be labeled ‘robbery’ and ‘burglary’” by the state in question, Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 588–89 (1990). Burglary under the ACCA requires “unlawful or unprivileged entry into, or remaining in, a building or other structure, with intent to commit a crime.” Id. at 598. Burglary statutes no broader than this formulation are deemed “generic”; those broader “non-generic.” Convictions under non-generic statutes do not count toward an ACCA sentencing enhancement. 3 United States v. Herrold, 813 F.3d 595 (5th Cir. 2016). 4 136 S. Ct. 2243 (2016). 5 Herrold v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 310 (2016). 6 838 F.3d 667, 671 (5th Cir. 2016) (holding that Section 30.02(a) is divisible and that

Section 30.02(a)(1) is generic). 7 United States v. Herrold, 685 F. App’x 302 (5th Cir. 2017). 8 United States v. Herrold, 693 F. App’x 272 (5th Cir. 2017) (en banc). 9 United States v. Herrold, 883 F.3d 517 (5th Cir. 2018) (en banc).

2 Case: 14-11317 Document: 00515165055 Page: 3 Date Filed: 10/18/2019

No. 14-11317 burglary statute, Section 30.02(a), was indivisible. 10 Next, we concluded that “to be guilty of generic burglary, a defendant must have the intent to commit a crime when he enters or remains in the building or structure.” 11 We held that Section 30.02(a)(3), by contrast, “contains no textual requirement that a defendant’s intent to commit a crime contemporaneously accompany a defendant’s unauthorized entry.” 12 Section 30.02(a)(3) was thus non-generic, which disqualified Herrold’s burglary convictions as ACCA enhancement predicates, so we vacated his sentence and remanded to the district court for re-sentencing. 13 We left another question unresolved: whether burglary of a “habitation” under Section 30.02(a)(1) is broader than generic burglary, given that “habitation” is defined to apply to vehicles that are “adapted for overnight accommodations of persons” as well as conventional buildings. 14 As its resolution was not required, we detailed the “powerful arguments on both sides of the question” but did not decide it. 15

10 Id. at 523. We considered whether Section 30.02(a) sets out alternative means of committing a single substantive crime—making the statute “indivisible”—or whether it sets out separate elements—effectively defining distinct offenses, making the statute “divisible.” Mathis, 138 S. Ct. at 2248–49. For indivisible statutes, we compare the whole statute to the generic definition. For divisible statutes, we apply the generic definition only to the alternative under which the defendant was convicted. The Texas burglary statute, TEX. PENAL CODE § 30.02(a), reads: (a) A person commits an offense if, without the effective consent of the owner, the person: (1) enters a habitation, or a building (or any portion of a building) not then open to the public, with intent to commit a felony, theft, or an assault; or (2) remains concealed, with intent to commit a felony, theft, or an assault, in a building or habitation; or (3) enters a building or habitation and commits or attempts to commit a felony, theft, or an assault. 11 Herrold, 883 F.3d at 531. 12 Id. 13 Id. at 541–42. 14 See TEX. PENAL CODE § 30.01(1). 15 Herrold, 883 F.3d at 537.

3 Case: 14-11317 Document: 00515165055 Page: 4 Date Filed: 10/18/2019

No. 14-11317 On remand after the en banc decision, the district court sentenced Herrold to time served. 16 Meanwhile, the Government filed a petition for certiorari. Two intervening Supreme Court decisions, Quarles v. United States 17 and United States v. Stitt, 18 foreclosed the two principal grounds on which Herrold contested his ACCA sentencing enhancement, so the Court issued another GVR order. 19 First, in Stitt, the Supreme Court answered the “habitation” question we left unresolved. The Court considered whether burglary of a “nonpermanent or mobile structure that is adapted or used for overnight accommodation can qualify as ‘burglary’ under the [ACCA].” 20 It did so in the context of two state burglary statutes that apply to vehicles or structures “designed or adapted for the overnight accommodation of persons” (Tennessee) 21 and those “customarily used for overnight accommodation of a person whether or not a person is actually present” (Arkansas). 22 For reference, the language in the Texas statute—defining “habitation” as “a structure or vehicle that is adapted for the overnight accommodation of persons”—matches that in the Tennessee statute; if Tennessee’s statute is generic on this ground, so is Texas’s. The Stitt Court held that the Tennessee and Arkansas statutes fell within generic burglary.

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Bluebook (online)
941 F.3d 173, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-michael-herrold-ca5-2019.