F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH
July 15, 2005
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
TENTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. No. 04-1321
RAMON PEREZ-VARGAS, a/k/a
Ramon Perez, Jr.,
Defendant-Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
(D.C. NO. 04-CR-79-B)
Lynn C. Hartfield, Research and Writing Specialist (Robert W. Pepin, Assistant
Federal Public Defender, and Raymond P. Moore, Federal Public Defender, on the
briefs), Office of the Federal Public Defender, District of Colorado and Wyoming,
Denver, Colorado for Defendant-Appellant.
John M. Hutchins, Assistant United States Attorney (William J. Loene, Acting
United States Attorney, with him on the brief), Office of the United States
Attorney, Denver, Colorado for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Before SEYMOUR , KELLY , and TYMKOVICH , Circuit Judges.
TYMKOVICH , Circuit Judge.
Ramon Perez- Vargas challenges the district court’s 16-level sentence
enhancement of his sentence, which resulted from the court’s conclusion that his
prior conviction for third degree assault in Colorado was a “crime of violence,” as
defined by United States Sentencing Guideline (USSG) § 2L1.2. In addition,
Perez-Vargas argues the district court violated United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct.
738 (2005), when it mandatorily applied the Guidelines to his sentence. Taking
jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we reverse the district court’s
application of the crime of violence enhancement, and remand for re-sentencing.
I. BACKGROUND
Perez-Vargas pled guilty to one count of unlawful reentry in violation of 8
U.S.C. § 1326(a) and (b)(2). The plea agreement included an admission of the
relevant facts surrounding the unlawful reentry. The agreement also set forth
Perez-Vargas’s criminal history, including two prior convictions in Colorado.
One conviction stemmed from a third degree assault, for which he received two
years imprisonment; a second conviction resulted from an attempted theft of
between $500 and $15,000, for which he received three years imprisonment. The
plea agreement contained no other information about these prior convictions.
The plea agreement established Perez-Vargas’s criminal history as category
VI, the total offense level as either 21 or 13, and the range of sentence as either
77 to 96 months or 33 to 41 months. The variations were the result of the
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disagreement that forms the basis of this appeal, i.e., whether Perez-Vargas’s
prior convictions should increase the base offense level by 8 or 16 levels.
The base offense level for unlawful reentry is 8. USSG § 2L1.2(a). The
government contended a 16-level enhancement applied based on the third degree
assault, which the presentence report (PSR) characterized as a violent felony. See
USSG § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A) (the base offense level is increased 16 levels “[i]f the
defendant previously was deported, or unlawfully remained in the United States
after—a conviction for a felony that is . . . (ii) a crime of violence”). Perez-
Vargas, on the other hand, contended that third degree assault is not necessarily a
crime of violence under the Guidelines since some nonviolent conduct could be
covered by the broad language of Colorado’s third degree assault statute. Thus,
he argued that only an 8-level enhancement should apply based on his prior
conviction for attempted theft, which Perez-Vargas admitted was an aggravated
felony. See USSG § 2L1.2(b)(1)(c) (the base offense level is increased by 8 if the
defendant had “a [prior] conviction for an aggravated felony”).
The district court agreed with the government that third degree assault was
a violent crime and enhanced the sentence 16-levels. Ultimately, Perez-Vargas
received a 77-month sentence, which was at the low end of the applicable
guideline range (77 to 96 months).
II. ANALYSIS
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We review de novo the district court’s interpretation of the Guidelines and
its determination that Perez-Vargas’s prior conviction for third degree assault in
Colorado is a “crime of violence.” See United States v. Venegas-Ornelas, 348
F.3d 1273, 1274 (10th Cir. 2003); United States v. Holbert, 285 F.3d 1257, 1259
(10th Cir. 2002).
A. Defining “Crime of Violence”
When determining whether a prior conviction is a crime of violence, the
Supreme Court has instructed sentencing courts to take “a formal categorical
approach, looking only to the statutory definitions of the prior offenses, and not to
the particular facts underlying those convictions.” Taylor v. United States, 495
U.S. 575, 600 (1990). In applying Taylor , we have held that if “the statute is
ambiguous, or broad enough to encompass both violent and nonviolent crimes, a
court can look beyond the statute ‘to certain records of the prior proceeding, such
as the charging documents, the judgment, any plea thereto, and findings by the
[sentencing] court.’” United States v. Dwyer , 245 F.3d 1168, 1171 (10th Cir.
2001) (quoting United States v. Zamora , 222 F.3d 756, 764 (10th Cir. 2000)).
Recently, in Shepard v. United States, 125 S. Ct. 1254 (2005), the Supreme
Court added new depth to Taylor’s analysis. Unlike the prior convictions in
Taylor, which followed jury trials, the prior convictions at issue in Shepard were
the result of guilty pleas. The Court found “Taylor’s reasoning controls the
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identification of . . . convictions following pleas, as well as convictions on
verdicts.” Shepard, 125 S. Ct. at 1259. As a consequence, when determining
whether a prior conviction resulting from a guilty plea is a violent felony, a court
is limited to an examination of the language of the statute of conviction, and, if it
is ambiguous, “the terms of the charging document, the terms of a plea agreement
or transcript of colloquy between judge and defendant . . . , or to some
comparable judicial record of this information.” Id. at 1262. 1
According to the Supreme Court, then, we must limit ourselves to (1) an
examination of the language of the statute under which Perez-Vargas was
convicted, (2) the charging document or court records of comparable reliability,
and (3) any admissions (including those within the plea agreement) Perez-Vargas
made regarding the facts of his prior convictions. See Taylor, 495 U.S. at 600;
Shepard 125 S. Ct. at 1262.
In this appeal, the record before us does not contain any charging
documents describing the underlying assault, nor any admission by Perez-Vargas.
1
The Supreme Court’s decision in Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523
U.S. 224 (1998), creates an explicit exception to Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530
U.S. 466 (2000), and its progeny by allowing a judge to determine a fact of prior
conviction without violating a defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights. The fact of
prior conviction is not at issue here; we are concerned with the facts underlying
the prior conviction.
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Consequently, the PSR is the only source of information about the crime. In it,
the government claims, according to “court documents,” that
the defendant was arrested by the Greeley Colorado Police Department
for shooting and injuring five victims in a drive-by shooting in the 900
block of 31st Avenue, Greeley, Colorado, on July 9, 1995. Following
a dispute with several individuals, the defendant discharged a shotgun
into a crowd of pedestrians causing [] injuries.
PSR, ¶ 26. Of course, this description, if accurate, describes a crime of violence
by any definition. And if supported by proof allowable under Taylor and
Shepard, the charged conduct would authorize the sentencing enhancement.
Unfortunately, we do not have in the record on appeal the “court documents”
relied on by the PSR. We thus cannot evaluate whether the records would be
acceptable under the strictures of Supreme Court precedent.
B. Third Degree Assault in Colorado
We must therefore turn to the plain language of the Colorado statute itself
to determine if, standing alone, it would support the crime of violence
enhancement. We start with the Guidelines’ definition of a “crime of violence.”
A crime of violence is:
any offense under federal, state, or local law that has as an element the
use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the
person of another.
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USSG § 2L1.2, Application Note 1(B)(iii) (emphasis added). The Guidelines,
however, provide no additional explanation of the critical phrase—“the use of
physical force.”
Moving from the Guidelines to the Colorado statutes, third degree assault
occurs when the defendant
knowingly or recklessly causes bodily injury to another person or with
criminal negligence he causes bodily injury to another person by
means of a deadly weapon.
C.R.S. §18-3-204 (emphasis added). The statute goes on to define bodily injury
as “physical pain, illness, or any impairment of physical or mental condition.”
C.R.S. § 18-1-901(3)(c).
Using the statutory definitions as a backdrop, Perez-Vargas argues that
third degree assault in Colorado is not necessarily a crime of violence as defined
by the Guidelines because the Guidelines focus on the means by which an injury
occurs (the use of physical force). Colorado’s third degree assault statute, on the
other hand, focuses on the result of a defendant’s conduct, i.e., bodily injury. In
other words, Colorado’s statute looks to the consequences of the conduct,
however applied, whereas the Guidelines look to the type of conduct that causes
the injury. The government counters that third degree assault necessarily requires
the use of force in order to cause bodily injury. Both Perez-Vargas and the
government thus focus their arguments on the question of whether one must use
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or threaten the use of physical force in order to commit third degree assault in
Colorado.
Turning first to the language of the Colorado statute that defines third
degree assault, we note that while it is likely most third degree assaults will
involve the use or threatened use of physical force, thus qualifying the crime as a
violent one under the Guidelines, the language of the statute allows for other
possibilities. Indeed, at oral argument, Perez-Vargas’s counsel provided several
examples of third degree assault that would not use or threaten the use of physical
force: recklessly shooting a gun in the air to celebrate, intentionally placing a
barrier in front of a car causing an accident, or intentionally exposing someone to
hazardous chemicals. One can imagine a number of other hypotheticals.
Since the language of the statute is broad, we turn to Colorado courts for
interpretive assistance. Unfortunately, we have found no Colorado case law
definitively holding that the third degree assault statute necessarily requires the
application of force. While several cases in this context describe the use of force,
they do not categorically imply one must always use force to violate the statute.
See, e.g., People v. Moore, No. 01-CA-1760, 2005 WL 1412181 (Colo. Ct. App.
Jun. 16, 2005); People v. Goldfuss, 98 P.3d 935 (Colo. Ct. App. 2004); People v.
Howard, 89 P.3d 441 (Colo. Ct. App. 2003).
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Turning to circuit precedent for help, one recent case is illustrative. 2 In
United States v. Lucio-Lucio, 347 F.3d 1202, 1206 (10th Cir. 2003), we had to
determine whether violating Texas’s drunk driving statute was a crime of
violence. We found there must be “a distinction between crimes that potentially
involve violent conduct and crimes that merely involve the possibility of resulting
harm.” Id. Thus, we found that not every “sufficiently dangerous activity . . .
qualif[ies] as a crime of violence.” Id. Similarly, in United States v. Torres-Ruiz,
387 F.3d 1179 (10th Cir. 2004), we concluded that a drunk driving conviction
does not necessarily include the intent element required by USSG § 2L1.2. Such
is the case here.
Other circuits have also addressed similar statutes. In Chrzanoski v.
Ashcroft, 327 F.3d 188 (2d Cir. 2003), for example, the Second Circuit considered
whether the defendant, an immigrant, was removable after he violated
Connecticut’s third degree assault statute. 3 The court found in Chrzanoski that
2
We held in an unpublished decision prior to Shepard that Colorado’s third
degree assault statute supported a crime of violence enhancement where the
summons and complaint and the defendant’s plea agreement disclosed that the
defendant had struck another person. United States v. Miller, 98 Fed. Appx. 801
(10th Cir. May 25, 2004). The record here, in contrast, does not have similar
evidence disclosing the underlying crime.
3
An immigrant is removable if he is convicted of a crime of violence as
defined by 18 U.S.C. § 16. Section 16, containing similar language to USSG
§ 2L1.2, defines “crime of violence” as “(a) an offense that has as an element the
use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or
(continued...)
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“[u]nder the plain language of [18 U.S.C.] § 16(a), use of force must be an
element of the offense for that offense to be a crime of violence under § 16(a).”
Chrzanoski, 327 F.3d at 191. The court concluded that nothing in the Connecticut
third degree assault statute “require[d] the government to prove that force was
used in causing the injury.” Id. at 193. Therefore, because “an individual could
be convicted of intentional assault in the third degree for injury caused not by
physical force, but by guile, deception, or even deliberate omission,” one who
violates Connecticut’s third degree assault statute does not necessarily commit a
crime of violence. Id. at 195.
The Fifth Circuit reached the same conclusion in United States v. Gracia-
Cantu, 302 F.3d 308 (5th Cir. 2002). The court had to determine if Gracia-
Cantu’s prior conviction in Texas for “injury to a child” constituted a crime of
violence. Id. at 311. Looking to operative language that prohibited causing
“bodily injury” to a child, the court applied a categorical approach and found that
“the statute criminalizing injury to a child, does not require that the perpetrator
actually use, attempt to use, or threaten to use physical force against a child.” Id.
3
(...continued)
property of another, or (b) any other offense that is a felony and that, by its
nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or
property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.” This
definition is identical to the one found in USSG § 2L1.2 except that the
Guidelines’ definition does not include (b).
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(emphasis added). The court cited to examples of when the statute could be
violated without the use of force: leaving a child unattended near a pool, failing
to aid children during a kidnapping, failing to remove a child from an abusive
caretaker, or failing to provide proper medical care to a child. Id. at 312-13. The
court ultimately concluded Gracia-Cantu’s prior conviction for injury to a child
was not a crime of violence. See id.
Colorado’s third degree assault statute suffers from the same infirmities.
Applying Taylor and Shepard, we conclude the statutory language of Colorado’s
third degree assault statute does not necessarily include the use or threatened use
of “physical force” as required by the Guidelines. A prior conviction for third
degree assault in Colorado, therefore, is not categorically a crime of violence
under USSG § 2L1.2. Since we have an inadequate record of the facts supporting
the prior conviction, our analysis is constrained by the language of the relevant
statutes and Guidelines. And, as described above, we cannot say Perez-Vargas’s
prior conviction for third degree assault was a crime of violence.
III. CONCLUSION
The district court erred in applying the crime of violence enhancement
without sufficient evidence of the underlying crime. In light of our disposition of
the enhancement issue, we need not address Perez-Vargas’s argument under
United States v. Booker . Accordingly, we REVERSE the district court’s
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application of the enhancement, and REMAND for further proceedings and re-
sentencing.
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United States v. Perez-Vargas
Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Date filed: 2005-07-15
Citations: 414 F.3d 1282
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