United States v. BowersUnited States v. Bowers
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. John A. Woodcock, Jr., U.S. District Judge]
Before Lynch, Kayatta, and Gelpí, Circuit Judges.
Elizabeth A. Billowitz on brief for appellant.
Julia M. Lipez, Assistant United States Attorney, and Darcie N. McElwee, United States Attorney, on brief
GELPÍ, Circuit Judge. Defendant-Appellant Jonathan Bowers (“Bowers“) pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of
This sentencing and subsequent appeal arise from events that took place on April 9, 2016. On that day, Bowers went to an auto mechanic garage belonging to his friend J.T.3 in Chelsea, Maine to do some work on his pickup truck. An altercation ensued after J.T. accused Bowers of being rude to some of his customers and asked him to leave. During the course of the argument, Bowers reached for a pistol in the waistband of his pants.4 J.T. then struck Bowers on the head with a wrench, rendering him unconscious. Police were called to the scene to respond to the incident. Bowers was taken to the hospital where he was given medical attention and was found to have developed a concussion. Neither Bowers nor J.T. was charged with any state law offense as a result of this incident.
On November 10, 2016, a grand jury indicted Bowers for violating
On November 16, 2020, Bowers‘s sentencing hearing was held. The district court reiterated its prior written order that Bowers, due to his four prior Maine burglary convictions, qualified for the ACCA‘s enhanced mandatory minimum penalty. The district court sentenced Bowers to a term of imprisonment of 180 months, equivalent to fifteen years.5
II. Discussion
Bowers makes two arguments on appeal, which we discuss in turn.
A. Standard of Review
In general, our review of whether a prior conviction qualifies as a predicate offense under the ACCA is de novo. United States v. Pakala, 568 F.3d 47, 54 (1st Cir. 2009). When a prior panel decision holds that a type of offense categorically qualifies as a predicate, however, the law of the circuit doctrine applies. See United States v. Mouscardy, 722 F.3d 68, 77 (1st Cir. 2013).
B. Maine‘s Burglary Statute
Bowers first argues that the district court erred in applying the ACCA to him based on his prior burglary convictions in the State of Maine. Bowers argues that the Supreme Court‘s decision in Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243 (2016), effectively overruled our earlier, directly on-point decision in United States v. Duquette, 778 F.3d 314 (1st Cir. 2015).
In Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 (1990), the Supreme Court held that “a person has been convicted of burglary for purposes of [ACCA] enhancement if he is convicted of any crime, regardless of its exact definition or label, having the basic elements of unlawful or unprivileged entry into, or remaining
In Mathis, decided the year after Duquette, the Supreme Court held that Iowa‘s burglary statute was broader than the definition of generic burglary under the ACCA and therefore convictions under it could not qualify as predicate offenses. Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2257. The Court did not redefine “generic burglary.” See id. at 2250 (citing Taylor, 495 U.S. at 598 for definition of the generic offense). Generic burglary still consists of “an unlawful or unprivileged entry into, or remaining in, a building or other structure, with intent to commit a crime.” Taylor, 495 U.S. at 598. “Iowa‘s statute, by contrast, reaches a broader range of places: ‘any building, structure, [or] land, water, or air vehicle.‘” Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2250 (alterations in original) (quoting
Bowers argues that the Maine statute is similarly structured to Iowa‘s statute and therefore, under Mathis, Bowers‘s convictions for burglary under Maine law should similarly preclude the application of the ACCA to him. Specifically, Bowers argues that the Maine burglary statute defines “structure,” as does the Iowa statute, to include certain vehicles. Bowers posits that the definition encompasses vehicles used to store property rather than transport persons, and therefore, as in Mathis, is broader than “generic burglary” as defined in Taylor. The relevant statutory language that Bowers relies on,
Bowers argues that the Supreme Court‘s subsequent decision in Mathis requires us to reconsider our decision in Duquette that the Maine burglary statute qualifies as generic burglary under the ACCA. Under the “law of the circuit” doctrine, our panel is “bound by a prior panel decision, absent any intervening authority.” Mouscardy, 722 F.3d at 77 (quoting United States v. Grupee, 682 F.3d 143, 149 (1st Cir. 2012)). An exception to this rule arises when “[a]n existing panel decision [is] undermined by controlling authority, subsequently announced, such as an opinion of the Supreme Court.” United States v. Holloway, 630 F.3d 252, 258 (1st Cir. 2011) (alterations in original) (quoting Igartua v. United States, 626 F.3d 592, 603 (1st Cir. 2010)). We must also be mindful that a case‘s “holding . . . can extend through its logic beyond the specific facts of its case.” Id. at 258 (alteration in original) (quoting Los Angeles County v. Humphries, 562 U.S. 29, 38 (2010)).
Our conclusion is supported by United States v. Stitt, 139 S. Ct. 399 (2018). There, the Court decided whether two state burglary statutes fell within the ACCA‘s definition of generic burglary. Id. at 403-04. The statutes at issue included vehicles used for overnight accommodation as structures for the purposes of burglary. See id. at 404 (discussing
The Supreme Court in Stitt also addressed the argument that “in Taylor, Mathis, and other cases, [the Court] said that burglary of certain nontypical structures and vehicles fell outside the scope of the [ACCA‘s] statutory word ‘burglary.‘” Id. at 407. Using that language, the respondents in Stitt argued that the vehicles used for overnight accommodation at issue in their case were “analogous to the nontypical structures and vehicles to which the Court referred in those cases.” Id.. The Court disagreed and clarified that it “did not decide in either [Taylor or Mathis] the question [then] before [it].” Id.. For example, Mathis was concerned with whether Iowa‘s burglary statute qualified as generic burglary under the ACCA although some means of satisfying the structure element fall “within Taylor‘s generic definition and some . . . fall outside it.” Id.
The reasoning in Mathis and the Supreme Court‘s later explication of the same in Stitt confirms that Mathis does not provide a basis for questioning Duquette‘s precedential effect. Therefore, we affirm the district court‘s decision and uphold Bowers‘s fifteen-year sentence.
C. Application of the Categorical Approach
Bowers advances a second argument before this court which is also unpersuasive. He posits that the categorical approach did not require the district court to ignore the facts of his prior convictions, which he insists fall outside the definition of generic burglary. Specifically, Bowers underscores the fact that, in two of his predicate burglary convictions, the structure at issue was a mobile trailer. In making this argument, Bowers relies on statements that the district court made in its supplemental order which he characterizes as “implicitly agree[ing]” that mobile trailers do not qualify as structures under the ACCA‘s definition of generic burglary. See United States v. Bowers, No. 16-CR-00151, 2020 WL 4925684, at *7-8 (D. Me. Aug. 21, 2020). Nevertheless, the district court recognized it was bound to use the categorical approach in Bowers‘s case because Maine‘s burglary statute did not contain divisible elements. Id. Bowers argues that there is no consistent reasoning that prevents sentencing judges from applying the modified categorical approach to ACCA predicate crimes, and indeed that Mathis encourages this result.
In this case, we have a straightforward application of the categorical approach, and thus, we decline Bowers‘s invitation to apply the modified categorical approach to his case by considering the specific facts underlying his prior burglary convictions. In Duquette, we utilized the categorical approach to analyze Maine‘s burglary statute and held that “[b]y its clear and unambiguous terms, the statute contains all of the elements of ‘generic burglary’ that the Supreme Court set forth in Taylor.” 778 F.3d at 318. For the reasons described supra, we decline to overturn our prior decision in Duquette and its application of the categorical approach to the same statute at issue here. Moreover, the Supreme Court has instructed that both the “language” and “legislative history” of the ACCA favor the categorical approach. Taylor, 495 U.S. at 600-01.
III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the district court‘s application of the ACCA and imposition of a mandatory fifteen-year sentence is
AFFIRMED.
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