United States v. Leland Schneider, 905 F.3d 1088

In 2012 Schneider pleaded guilty in North Dakota to felony aggravated assault based on an incident in which he restrained and threatened his then-girlfriend and later used their child as a shield during a police encounter.
Years later federal prosecutors charged Schneider under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) for possession of a firearm and ammunition as a felon; he pleaded guilty in federal court.
The Sentencing Guidelines § 2K2.1(a)(4)(A) increases the base offense level for a felon-in-possession with a prior “crime of violence.”
The district court treated Schneider’s North Dakota aggravated-assault conviction as a Guidelines “crime of violence,” applied an increased range, and sentenced him to 30 months; Schneider appealed that classification.
The dispute: whether North Dakota’s aggravated-assault conviction qualifies under the Guidelines’ (1) force clause (element requires use/attempted/threatened physical force) or (2) enumerated-offenses clause (generic definition of “aggravated assault”). The court used categorical/modified-categorical analysis.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether North Dakota aggravated-assault conviction satisfies the Guidelines’ force clause (elemental physical force)	Schneider: statute criminalizes reckless conduct ("willfully" includes recklessness), so it does not require physical force	Government: conviction qualifies because underlying conduct involved violent physical force; statute divisible so conviction should fit force clause	Held: No. Subsection (a) encompasses ordinary recklessness (e.g., reckless driving), so it does not categorically require physical force; conviction fails the force clause
Whether the conviction fits the Guidelines’ enumerated-offenses clause as generic "aggravated assault"	Schneider: statute’s mens rea (includes ordinary recklessness) is broader than the generic offense’s mens rea, so it does not match generic aggravated assault	Government: aggravated assault is listed in the Guidelines and one can treat the state offense as the enumerated offense	Held: No. The generic offense requires a higher mental state (extreme-indifference recklessness or greater); North Dakota subsection (a) is broader by allowing ordinary recklessness, so it does not match the generic definition

Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243 (categorical/modified-categorical approach governs element comparison)
Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 (use of a generic, uniform definition for enumerated offenses)
Descamps v. United States, 570 U.S. 254 (state-law labels cannot substitute for generic-element comparison)
Moncrieffe v. Holder, 569 U.S. 184 (presume conviction rests on least of the acts criminalized when statute divisible)
Voisine v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2272 (addressed mens rea issues in related force-clause context)
Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions, 137 S. Ct. 1562 (use state-law consensus and Model Penal Code to identify generic offense elements)
Ossana v. United States, 638 F.3d 895 (Eighth Circuit precedent that reckless offenses do not satisfy the force clause)
Fields v. United States, 863 F.3d 1012 (Eighth Circuit: de novo review and rejection of Voisine-based overruling argument)