Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 2013

Descamps v. United States

133 S. Ct. 2276 | 186 L. Ed. 2d 438 | 2013 U.S. LEXIS 4698 | 570 U.S. 254 | 81 U.S.L.W. 4490 | 24 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 343

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Takeaway

In short, this case confines the modified categorical approach to identifying alternative elements in a divisible statute; it cannot be used to turn factual evidence of a defendant’s conduct under an indivisible, overbroad statute into an ACCA predicate conviction.

Background

Matthew Descamps was convicted in federal court of being a felon in possession of a firearm, an offense ordinarily carrying a maximum prison term of 10 years. The Government sought the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) enhancement, which imposes a 15-year mandatory minimum on a defendant with three qualifying prior convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses.

One asserted predicate was Descamps’s 1978 California burglary conviction under California Penal Code §459. That statute makes it burglary to enter specified places with intent to commit larceny or any felony. Unlike generic burglary under ACCA, however, §459 does not require an unlawful or unprivileged entry; it can cover a person who lawfully enters an open store intending to shoplift.

The District Court used the modified categorical approach to review the plea colloquy. The prosecutor had stated that Descamps’s offense involved breaking and entering a grocery store, and Descamps did not object. Treating that as an admission of generic burglary, the court applied ACCA and sentenced Descamps to 262 months. The Ninth Circuit affirmed under its en banc decision in United States v. Aguila-Montes de Oca, which allowed courts to examine the factual basis of a conviction under a statute broader than the generic offense. The Supreme Court reversed.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether a sentencing court may use the modified categorical approach when the prior conviction rests on an indivisible statute that covers conduct broader than the generic ACCA offense.

Holding

No. The modified categorical approach applies only to a divisible statute that lists alternative elements, at least one of which matches the generic offense.

Reasoning

ACCA asks whether a defendant has prior convictions for specified offenses, including burglary. Under Taylor, courts therefore use the categorical approach: they compare the elements of the statute of conviction with the elements of generic burglary. A conviction qualifies only when the statute has the same elements as generic burglary or narrower elements, so that every conviction under the statute necessarily establishes the generic offense.

The modified categorical approach is not an exception that permits a court to investigate the defendant’s actual conduct. It is a limited tool for applying the categorical approach when a divisible statute sets out alternative elements—for example, entry into a building or entry into a vehicle. A court may consult a restricted set of records, such as an indictment, jury instructions, a plea agreement, or a plea colloquy, only to identify which alternative statutory element formed the basis of the conviction.

California Penal Code §459 is not divisible in the relevant sense. It contains a single set of burglary elements, and unlawful entry is neither an element nor an alternative element. Because a person may violate §459 by entering a store open to the public with intent to steal, the statute reaches conduct outside generic burglary. Descamps therefore was not necessarily convicted of generic burglary, regardless of whether the plea record suggested that he actually broke and entered.

The Ninth Circuit’s contrary approach converted an elements-based inquiry into a factual one. It would allow courts to search old records for evidence of what the defendant actually did, rather than determine what the prior conviction necessarily established. That approach conflicts with ACCA’s focus on convictions, raises serious Sixth Amendment concerns by allowing judicial findings of non-elemental facts that increase the maximum penalty, and creates practical unfairness because defendants often have little reason to contest facts irrelevant to the offense of conviction or to a negotiated plea.

Issue #2

Whether the modified categorical approach is available because California burglary contains an overbroad version of generic burglary’s unlawful-entry requirement, rather than simply omitting that requirement.

Holding

No. The distinction between an overbroad element and a missing element does not justify looking beyond the elements of an indivisible statute.

Reasoning

The Government argued that California law implicitly requires an entry that invades a possessory right, making §459 an overbroad version of generic burglary rather than a statute wholly missing an unlawful-entry element. The Court assumed without deciding that judicial interpretations of a statute may be considered in identifying its elements and further assumed that California law contains such a possessory-right requirement.

Even on those assumptions, §459 remains broader than generic burglary. An entry into an open store with intent to steal may invade a possessory right under California law, but generic burglary requires unlawful or unprivileged entry, such as breaking and entering, and excludes entry into premises open to the public.

The proposed distinction is both unstable and irrelevant. A statute that is overbroad can often be described as missing a narrower generic element, and vice versa. More fundamentally, either formulation produces the same result: where the statute’s elements do not match the generic offense, a conviction under that statute does not establish that the defendant was convicted of the generic crime. The modified categorical approach cannot be used to cure that mismatch by examining the underlying facts.

Concurrences

Justice Kennedy

Reasoning

Justice Kennedy joined the Court’s opinion but emphasized a practical concern on the other side. The distinction between divisible and indivisible statutes is not always clear, and the decision means that many broadly drafted state statutes may no longer produce ACCA predicates even when they frequently cover serious conduct that ACCA was designed to reach.

He nevertheless agreed that the majority’s concerns about plea proceedings were decisive. Defendants and counsel often do not consider later ACCA consequences when resolving a state case, so factual assertions in plea records may go uncontested even though they later trigger a severe federal enhancement. He suggested that Congress, rather than the Court, should revise ACCA if it wants to address the resulting gap while respecting state choices about how to draft criminal laws.

Justice Thomas

Reasoning

Justice Thomas agreed only in the judgment. In his view, the central constitutional problem is broader than the majority recognized: ACCA permits a judge to find facts about prior convictions that increase a defendant’s statutory maximum sentence, contrary to Apprendi’s rule that such facts ordinarily must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

Under that view, the divisible-versus-indivisible distinction and the modified categorical approach are unnecessary complications. Justice Thomas would reconsider the prior-conviction exception recognized in Almendarez-Torres. Still, because the Court’s rule restricts judicial factfinding about prior convictions, he agreed that Descamps’s enhancement could not stand.

Dissents

Justice Alito

Reasoning

Justice Alito would have affirmed because he read ACCA more practically. In his view, a prior conviction should count when the approved state-court records clearly show that the jury necessarily found, or the defendant necessarily admitted, every element of generic burglary. ACCA refers to convictions for burglary, not only to offenses whose statutory elements precisely track generic burglary.

He disputed the majority’s premise that the Court’s earlier cases confined the modified categorical approach to statutes containing alternative elements. Taylor, Shepard, and Johnson, he argued, involved statutes that may have listed alternative means of committing an offense rather than separate elements requiring jury unanimity. Those cases therefore supported consulting limited records to determine what the prior adjudication necessarily established.

Justice Alito also rejected the majority’s constitutional concern. A sentencing judge applying the modified categorical approach, as he understood it, does not find what the defendant actually did; the judge determines what the earlier jury necessarily found or what the defendant necessarily admitted. That determination does not deny the defendant a jury finding on the relevant generic-offense elements.

The majority’s rule, he maintained, would create difficult and counterproductive line-drawing problems. Federal courts must now determine whether state-law alternatives are elements or merely means, often by conducting an intricate inquiry into state jury-unanimity law. The rule also treats defendants who committed identical generic burglaries differently merely because one State drafted its burglary statute broadly and another drafted it with separate alternatives.

Applying his approach, Justice Alito concluded that Descamps necessarily admitted generic burglary. The charging documents alleged that he unlawfully entered a grocery store with intent to steal, and the prosecutor described the factual basis as breaking and entering the store. Descamps and his attorney did not object, and the California judge accepted the plea only after finding a factual basis. Those records, in Justice Alito’s view, established unlawful entry into a building with intent to commit a crime.