United States v. Terell Crump

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedNovember 6, 2023
Docket22-3379
StatusUnpublished

This text of United States v. Terell Crump (United States v. Terell Crump) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third 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. Terell Crump, (3d Cir. 2023).

Opinion

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ____________ No. 22-3379 ____________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

TERELL CRUMP, Appellant ____________

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (D.C. No. 2-17-cr-00150-001) District Judge: Honorable Paul S. Diamond ____________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) October 17, 2023 ____________

Before: CHAGARES, Chief Judge, PHIPPS, and CHUNG, Circuit Judges.

(Filed: November 6, 2023) ___________

OPINION* ___________

PHIPPS, Circuit Judge.

While on parole for convictions under Pennsylvania law for robbery and

aggravated assault, Terell Crump – during a Facebook livestream on October 27, 2016 –

fired a gun out the window of a rowhome in a densely populated Philadelphia

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. neighborhood. The video feed also captured Crump handing a second firearm to the gun’s owner, who later told an ATF agent that it had an obliterated serial number.

On those facts, Crump pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm

under 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). Crump’s plea agreement, which the District Court accepted, had an appellate waiver subject to specific exceptions. One of those

allowed him to appeal the District Court’s rulings that robbery and aggravated assault

each qualified as a “crime of violence” under the United States Sentencing Guidelines.

U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a).

In calculating Crump’s sentence, the District Court concluded that both offenses

constituted crimes of violence. That led to a twelve-point increase in Crump’s base offense level – eight points for the first crime of violence and four additional points for

the second. See id. § 2K2.1(a) (setting the base offense level for classes of firearms

convictions, including those under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), at 24 if the defendant had

previously been convicted of two or more crimes of violence, at 20 if the defendant had

been convicted of one prior crime of violence, and at 12 if the defendant had no prior

convictions for crimes of violence). The District Court also increased Crump’s offense

level by another eight points for two specific offense enhancements – four for possession

of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, see id. § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B), and four for

using a firearm in connection with felony reckless endangerment of another person, see id. § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B). In aggregate, those values, after a three-point deduction for

Crump’s acceptance of responsibility, yielded a total offense level of 29. That score,

when combined with his Category IV criminal history, resulted in a sentencing range of 121 to 151 months in prison for Crump. See U.S.S.G. ch. 5, pt. A. But at the time of his

offense, the statutory maximum sentence for a felon-in-possession conviction was 120

2 months. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2) (2012) (amended by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, Pub. L. No. 117-159, 136 Stat. 1313, 1329 (2022), which removed the

ten-year statutory maximum for 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)). In sentencing Crump on

September 20, 2022, the District Court did not vary the sentence downward from the Guidelines range but imposed that statutory maximum sentence.

Crump appealed his sentence and invoked this Court’s appellate jurisdiction. See

18 U.S.C. § 3742; see also 28 U.S.C. § 1291. He now disputes all of the determinations

that increased his total offense level, each of which had a significant consequence on his

Guidelines range. If Crump is correct as to one of his challenges, then his total offense

level would have been four points lower, at 25. And with a Category IV criminal history, the Guidelines range would have been 84 to 105 months – below the statutory maximum

of 120 months. See U.S.S.G. ch. 5, pt. A. If he prevails on one of his crime-of-violence

challenges and one of his other attacks, then his total offense level would drop by eight

points, to 21, which would result in a Guidelines range of 57 to 71 months. See id. If he

succeeds on both of his crime-of-violence challenges or one crime-of-violence challenge

and both of his other challenges, then Crump’s total offense level would decrease by 12

points to 17, generating a Guidelines range of 37 to 46 months. See id. If he is correct

about both of his crime-of-violence challenges and one of his other contentions, then his

total offense level would be 13, with an accompanying Guidelines range of 24 to 30 months. See id. And if Crump wins on all four of his challenges, then his total offense

level would be 9, which would result in a Guidelines range of 12 to 18 months. See id.

By rule, to raise these challenges, Crump had fourteen days to file a notice of appeal, see Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(1)(A), but he did not do so until 83 days after the

judgment was entered. Because that deadline is not jurisdictional for criminal cases, it

3 does not automatically bar Crump’s appeal. See Gov’t of V.I. v. Martinez, 620 F.3d 321, 328 (3d Cir. 2010). But upon a party’s objection, a court “must dismiss the appeal,” id. at

329. And here, the Government objects – but only partially. Following the same

dividing line as the appellate waiver in the plea agreement, the Government objects to Crump’s challenges to the four-point enhancements under § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B) for the

obliteration of a serial number and § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) for felony reckless endangerment of

another person. But the Government does not object to the timeliness of Crump’s appeal

of his two crime-of-violence challenges. Accordingly, Crump’s challenges to the four-

point enhancements imposed under § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B) and § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) will be

dismissed, but his two crime-of-violence arguments, which, if both successful, would yield a Guidelines range of 37 to 46 months, remain for consideration on appeal.

In those two challenges, Crump disputes that the Pennsylvania offenses of robbery

and aggravated assault qualify as crimes of violence under the elements clause or the

enumerated-offense clause of Guideline § 4B1.2(a). As an initial matter, Crump’s

arguments require an assessment of whether the state-law offenses are indivisible or

divisible. See Descamps v. United States, 570 U.S. 254, 257 (2013) (explaining that

unlike an indivisible statute, a divisible statute “sets out one or more elements of the

offense in the alternative”). From there, the application of the elemental matching

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Related

Shepard v. United States
544 U.S. 13 (Supreme Court, 2005)
Government of the Virgin Islands v. Martinez
620 F.3d 321 (Third Circuit, 2010)
Descamps v. United States
133 S. Ct. 2276 (Supreme Court, 2013)
United States v. Juan Ramos
892 F.3d 599 (Third Circuit, 2018)
United States v. Ronald Peppers
899 F.3d 211 (Third Circuit, 2018)

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