FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS April 3, 2009
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee, No. 08-1161
v. (D. Colorado)
DARNELL YOUNG, (D.C. No. 1:07-CR-00333-LTB-1)
Defendant - Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before KELLY, McKAY, and HARTZ, Circuit Judges.
Defendant Darnell Young pleaded guilty in the United States District Court
for the District of Colorado to a charge of felon in possession of a firearm. See
18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). In calculating his offense level under USSG
§ 2K2.1(a)(2), the court determined that he had two prior convictions for “crimes
of violence”—namely, a third-degree assault and an escape. On appeal
Mr. Young contends that neither prior conviction should have been counted. He
argues that (1) his assault offense did not qualify because he had not been
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited,
however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th
Cir. R. 32.1.
sentenced for that offense when he committed the instant offense and (2) under
the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Chambers v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 687
(2009), the escape for which he was convicted was not a “crime of violence.”
Mr. Young also contends that the district court erroneously denied his motion for
a downward departure. We hold that (1) the district court properly considered
Mr. Young’s assault offense because it is immaterial under § 2K2.1(a)(2) that he
was sentenced for the assault after he committed the instant offense; (2) as the
parties agreed at oral argument, further district-court proceedings are necessary to
determine whether Mr. Young’s escape offense was a “crime of violence” under
Chambers; and (3) because the district court presumed that it had authority to
depart downwards, we cannot review the denial of Mr. Young’s downward-
departure motion. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and remand for
resentencing.
I. BACKGROUND
Understanding Mr. Young’s claims on appeal requires a timeline of events.
In 1997 Mr. Young was convicted of accessory to first-degree sexual assault and
sentenced to three years in a community correctional facility. About two weeks
after he began serving that term, he “left the facility and was placed on escape
status.” R. Vol. III at 9. The record does not establish how Mr. Young “left the
facility”—we do not know, for example, whether he broke free, walked out, or
failed to report after a furlough. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Young was convicted in
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Colorado state court of the crime of escape and was sentenced to two and one-half
years’ imprisonment for that offense. On October 19, 2006, he committed the
crime of assault; he pleaded guilty on February 13, 2007. Then on July 1, 2007,
before he had been sentenced on the assault offense, he committed the offense of
felon in possession of a firearm. Mr. Young was sentenced for the assault
conviction on August 15, 2007. He pleaded guilty to the firearm charge on
February 20, 2008, and received the challenged sentence for that offense on
April 25, 2008.
At sentencing for the firearm offense, the district court adopted the
Guidelines calculation recommended in the probation office’s presentence report
(PSR). The PSR applied USSG § 2K2.1(a)(2), which sets the base offense level
at 24 for possession of a firearm in violation of § 922(g)(1) if the defendant has
previously sustained two or more “felony convictions of either a crime of
violence or a controlled substance offense.” USSG § 2K2.1(a)(2); see id. cmt.
(this section covers, inter alia, violations of §§ 922(a)–(p)). The PSR concluded
that § 2K2.1(a)(2) applied because Mr. Young had been convicted of an escape
and an assault, both felony crimes of violence, before committing the firearm
offense. The PSR reduced Mr. Young’s base offense level by three levels (to 21)
in consideration of his acceptance of responsibility, and assigned him a criminal-
history category of VI. This resulted in a Guideline range of 77-96 months.
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At the sentencing hearing the district court rejected Mr. Young’s challenges
to the PSR’s calculation of his base offense level, ruling that (1) Mr. Young’s
assault offense counted under § 2K2.1(a)(2) even though he had not been
sentenced for that offense before he committed the firearm offense, and (2)
Mr. Young’s escape offense was a “crime of violence” under this circuit’s
precedents. Finding no reason to depart from the Guidelines, the district court
also denied Mr. Young’s motion for a downward departure, sentencing him to a
77-month term of imprisonment (the low end of the Guideline range).
II. DISCUSSION
On appeal Mr. Young contends that neither his assault nor his escape
conviction should have been considered in the calculation of his base offense
level. He also argues that the district court erroneously denied his motion for a
downward departure. We address these contentions in turn.
A. Assault
Mr. Young’s primary argument on appeal is that a conviction is not counted
under USSG § 2K2.1(a)(2) if sentence had not been imposed before the instant
offense was committed. Although Mr. Young had pleaded guilty to assault before
committing the firearm offense, he was not sentenced for the assault offense until
one and one-half months after he committed the firearm offense. In Mr. Young’s
view, his assault offense was therefore not a prior conviction and § 2K2.1(a)(2)
was erroneously applied to calculate his base offense level. Our review of this
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legal issue is de novo. See United States v. Whitehead, 425 F.3d 870, 871 (10th
Cir. 2005).
Mr. Young’s argument, however, is inconsistent with our holding in United
States v. Dell, 359 F.3d 1347, 1349–50 (10th Cir. 2004). In that case the
defendant had pleaded guilty to a Utah drug charge, but he was never sentenced
for the offense. See id. at 1348. The state court had entered an order, termed a
“plea in abeyance,” Utah Code Ann. 77-2a-1(1), under which the charge was
dismissed when he successfully completed treatment. See id. The defendant was
later convicted of federal firearm offenses and he argued at sentencing for those
offenses that the dismissed drug charge was not a prior conviction. Id. at
1347–48. Because the defendant had never been sentenced under his plea in
abeyance, the federal offenses obviously did not occur after sentencing on the
drug charge. Nevertheless, we held that the plea in abeyance counted as a
conviction under § 2K2.1(a)(4)(A) because it received a criminal history point
under § 4A1.1(c). Id. at 1349. Mr. Young does not, and could not, reasonably
dispute that he properly received a criminal-history point for his assault
conviction. See USSG § 4A1.2(a)(4) (“‘Convicted of an offense’ . . . means that
the guilt of the defendant has been established, whether by guilty plea, trial, or
plea of nolo contendere.”). Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s treatment
of Mr. Young’s assault conviction as a prior conviction.
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B. Escape
Mr. Young contends that his escape conviction was not a “crime of
violence.” After this claim was rejected below, the Supreme Court decided
Chambers, 129 S. Ct. 687, ruling that a failure to report to a penal institution is
not a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). Although
Mr. Young was not sentenced under the ACCA, the applicable Guidelines
definition of a “crime of violence,” see USSG § 4B1.2(a), is almost identical to
the ACCA’s definition of a “violent felony,” see 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B).
Accordingly, we have said that in this context the Supreme Court’s analysis under
the ACCA “applies equally to the sentencing guidelines.” United States v. Tiger,
538 F.3d 1297, 1298 (10th Cir. 2008). In this case, however, the record does not
provide the information that we would need to apply Chambers. Although it
establishes that Mr. Young escaped from a community correctional facility, it
does not establish the nature of that escape or the escape statute under which Mr.
Young was convicted. Thus, as the parties agreed at oral argument, further
district-court proceedings are required to determine whether, in light of
Chambers, Mr. Young’s prior escape conviction was a crime of violence.
C. Downward Departure
Mr. Young’s final argument is that the district court erred in denying his
motion for a downward departure. We “lack jurisdiction to review the
discretionary denial of a downward departure.” United States v. Fonseca, 473
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F.3d 1109, 1112 (10th Cir. 2007). And because we presume that district courts
“recognize [their] discretion,” we review the denial of a downward departure only
if the court “unambiguously states it lacks discretion to grant the departure.” Id.
Here, the district court made no such unambiguous statement. To the contrary, at
the sentencing hearing the district court rejected Mr. Young’s argument to depart
downwards by noting that it “[was] not persuaded that the defense ha[d] met its
burden.” R. Vol. II at 14. Later, the court found “no reason to depart from the
Guideline range.” Id. at 16. We lack jurisdiction to review the discretionary
denial of Mr. Young’s downward-departure motion.
III. CONCLUSION
We REVERSE Mr. Young’s sentence and REMAND for further sentencing
proceedings consistent with Chambers v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 687 (2009) and
this opinion. We GRANT the Stipulated Motion to Supplement Record.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Harris L Hartz
Circuit Judge
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