United States v. Phillip Fields

863 F.3d 1012, 2017 WL 3082875, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 13062
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedJuly 20, 2017
Docket16-4140
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 863 F.3d 1012 (United States v. Phillip Fields) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth 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. Phillip Fields, 863 F.3d 1012, 2017 WL 3082875, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 13062 (8th Cir. 2017).

Opinions

MELLOY, Circuit Judge.

Phillip Fields pleaded guilty to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2), The district court sentenced Fields to 41 months in prison. On appeal, • Fields argues the district court erred in calculating his advisory sentencing range. Specifically, Fields contends his prior Missouri conviction for second-degree assault is not a crime of violence under the United States Sentencing Guidelines, We reverse and remand for resentencing.

L

Fields’s presentence investigation report (“PSR”) concluded that he had one prior felony conviction for a controlled substance offense and one prior felony conviction for a crime of violence. The PSR thus recommended a base offense level of 24. See U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(a)(2) (stating a base offense level of 24 applies if the defendant unlawfully possesses a firearm “subsequent to sustaining at least two felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense”).

Fields objected. He argued before the district court that his second-degree- assault conviction under Missouri Revised Statutes § 565.060.1(3) (2003)1 was not a crime of violence. Thus, Fields argued, his base offense level should be 20. See U.S.S.G, § 2K2.1(a)(4) (stating a base offense level of 20 applies if the defendant unlawfully possesses a firearm “subsequent to sustaining one felony conviction of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense”).

The district court concluded that the assault conviction was a crime.of violence and overruled Fields’s objection. After acceptance-of-responsibility. adjustments, the district court found that Fields had a total offense level of 21 ■ and a criminal history category of II. This resulted in a Guidelines range of 41 to 51 months. The district court sentenced Fields to the bottom of this range: 41 months in prison. If the district court had sustained Fields’s crime-of-violence objection, the resulting Guidelines range would have been 27 to 33 months.

II.

“We review de novo a district court’s determination that an offense qualifies as a crime of violence under the Guidelines.” United States v. Harrison, 809 F.3d 420, 425 (8th Cir. 2015). As material to the present case, the Guidelines define a crime of violence as “any offense under federal [1014]*1014or state law, punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, that ... has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.” U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a); see also id. § 2K2.1 cmt. 1 (incorporating definition under § 4B1.2(a)).2

“To determine whether a prior conviction was for a crime of violence, ‘we apply a categorical approach, looking to the elements of the offense as defined in the ... statute of conviction rather than to the facts underlying the defendant’s prior conviction.’” United States v. Rice, 813 F.3d 704, 705 (8th Cir. 2016) (alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Dawn, 685 F.3d 790, 794 (8th Cir. 2012)). “If the statute of conviction ... encompasses multiple crimes, some of which are crimes of violence and some of which are not, we apply a modified categorical approach to ‘look at the charging document, plea colloquy, and comparable judicial records’ for determining which part of the statute the defendant violated.” Id. (quoting Dawn, 685 F.3d at 794-95). “We then determine whether a violation of that statutory sub-part is a crime of violence.” Id.

Here,' the parties have simplified our analysis. There is no dispute that Fields was convicted of second-degree assault under Missouri Revised Statutes § 565.060.1 (2003). Further, there is no dispute that Fields was convicted under subsection (3) of that statute, so the government concedes we need not apply the modified categorical approach to determine the statutory subpart of conviction. Under subsection (3), “[a] person commits the crime of assault in the second degree if he ... [r]ecklessly causes serious physical injury to another person.” Mo. Rev. Stat. § 565.060.1(3). The only question before this Court, then, is whether a conviction under subsection (3) is categorically a crime of violence. In other words, because we may not look to the facts underlying the prior conviction, the question before us is whether the mere fact that Fields was convicted under subsection (3) necessarily demonstrates he committed a crime of violence.

Fields argues that our decision in United States v. Ossana, 638 F.3d 895 (8th Cir. 2011), provides the controlling answer. In Ossana, we held that a conviction under an Arizona assault statute was not categorically a crime of violence under the Guidelines because the assault statute also criminalized reckless driving resulting in injury. Id. at 903. In so holding, we reasoned from the Supreme Court’s decision in Begay v. United States, 553 U.S. 137, 139, 128 S.Ct. 1581, 170 L.Ed.2d 490 (2008), which held that a conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol was not a “violent felony” for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”). We have reaffirmed Ossana on at least two occasions. See United States v. Boose, 739 F.3d 1185, 1187 (8th Cir. 2014) (“So long as ... Arkansas[’s first-degree battery] statute ... encompasses reckless driving which results in serious injury, [a] conviction [under that statute] [i]s not a qualifying crime of violence under the force clause of the Guidelines.”); Dawn, 685 F.3d at 795 (applying Ossana and holding that a conviction under Arkansas’s second-degree battery statute did not categorically qualify as a crime of violence because the statute also encompassed reckless driving).

[1015]*1015In the present case, the government concedes that a defendant may be convicted of second-degree assault under subsection (3) for reckless driving that results in injury. See, e.g., State v. Reando, 313 S.W.3d 734, 739 (Mo. Ct. App. 2010). Fields’s conviction, therefore, is not a crime of violence under Ossana and its progeny.

The government, however, argues that Ossana is no longer binding on this Court. To support this argument, the government points to the Supreme Court’s decision in Voisine v. United States, — U.S. —, 136 S.Ct. 2272, 195 L.Ed.2d 736 (2016), and our subsequent decision in United States v. Fogg, 836 F.3d 951 (8th Cir. 2016). In Voisine, the Supreme Court considered whether a misdemeanor assault conviction with a mens rea of recklessness is a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” for purposes of triggering the firearms ban under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9). 136 S.Ct. at 2276.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

United States v. Jermaine Daye
90 F.4th 941 (Eighth Circuit, 2024)
United States v. Christopher Chappell
69 F.4th 492 (Eighth Circuit, 2023)
Minnis v. United States
E.D. Missouri, 2022
Roberts v. United States
E.D. Missouri, 2022
Clark v. United States
E.D. Missouri, 2021
United States v. Robert Hoxworth
11 F.4th 693 (Eighth Circuit, 2021)
United States v. Howard Ross, III
969 F.3d 829 (Eighth Circuit, 2020)
Brian McCoy v. United States
960 F.3d 487 (Eighth Circuit, 2020)
United States v. William Shine
910 F.3d 1061 (Eighth Circuit, 2018)
United States v. Schneider
911 F.3d 504 (Eighth Circuit, 2018)
United States v. Aaron Harris
907 F.3d 1095 (Eighth Circuit, 2018)
United States v. Leland Schneider
905 F.3d 1088 (Eighth Circuit, 2018)
United States v. Mann
899 F.3d 898 (Tenth Circuit, 2018)
United States v. Reuben Stewart
711 F. App'x 810 (Eighth Circuit, 2018)
United States v. Cortrell Ramey
880 F.3d 447 (Eighth Circuit, 2018)
United States v. Joe Welch
879 F.3d 324 (Eighth Circuit, 2018)
United States v. Donald Gordon, Jr.
709 F. App'x 395 (Eighth Circuit, 2017)
United States v. Haines
296 F. Supp. 3d 726 (E.D. Pennsylvania, 2017)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
863 F.3d 1012, 2017 WL 3082875, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 13062, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-phillip-fields-ca8-2017.