UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 09-4671
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
TA-THASIO MARTIN,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. J. Frederick Motz, Senior District
Judge. (1:08-cr-00598-JFM-1)
Submitted: May 19, 2011 Decided: August 9, 2011
Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and DUNCAN and WYNN, Circuit
Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
James Wyda, Federal Public Defender, Martin G. Bahl, OFFICE OF
THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellant.
Rod J. Rosenstein, United States Attorney, Debra L. Dwyer,
Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES
ATTORNEY, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Ta-Thasio Martin pleaded guilty to being a felon in
possession of a firearm and ammunition. See 18 U.S.C. §
922(g)(1). The district court concluded that Martin’s prior
convictions required him to be sentenced under the Armed Career
Criminal Act, see 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), and the court sentenced
Martin to 180 months’ imprisonment, the minimum sentence
permissible under the ACCA. Martin appeals, challenging his
designation as an armed career criminal.
A defendant who violates § 922(g) qualifies as an
armed career criminal if he has three prior convictions for
violent felonies or serious drug offenses. See id. § 924(e)(1).
Martin concedes that he has two prior convictions that qualify
as serious drug offenses under the Act. He argues, however,
that the district court erred by concluding that his Maryland
conviction for resisting arrest qualifies as a violent felony.
We disagree.
A violent felony is one that “has as an element the
use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against
the person of another,” id. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), or “is burglary,
arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise
involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of
physical injury to another,” id. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). In United
States v. Jenkins, 631 F.3d 680 (4th Cir. 2011), we applied the
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analysis set forth by the Supreme Court in Begay v. United
States, 553 U.S. 137 (2008), and Chambers v. United States, 555
U.S. 122 (2009), and concluded that Maryland’s common-law
offense of resisting arrest was properly treated as a crime of
violence. See Jenkins, 631 F.3d at 685. * That conclusion is
likewise supported by the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in
Sykes v. United States, ___ U.S. ____, No. 09-11311 (filed
June 9, 2011).
Given our ruling in Jenkins, it is clear that the
district court properly treated Martin’s conviction for
resisting arrest as a violent felony under the ACCA, and we
therefore affirm Martin’s sentence. We dispense with oral
argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately
presented in the materials before the court and argument would
not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
*
Although Jenkins addressed the violent-felony question
in the context of the career-offender enhancement under the
Sentencing Guidelines, the Guidelines’ definition of the phrase
is substantively identical to that of the ACCA, and cases
arising under the Guidelines apply with equal force to cases
arising under the ACCA. See Jenkins, 631 F.3d at 683.
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