UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, versus MARLON EASON, Defendant - Appellant.
No. 16-15413
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
March 24, 2020
D.C. Docket No. 0:15-cr-60330-WPD-2; [PUBLISH]
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, versus CARLTON STYLES, Defendant - Appellant.
No. 16-17796
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
March 24, 2020
D.C. Docket No. 0:16-cr-60139-BB-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, versus JEFFREY LAMOT LAWSON, Defendant - Appellant.
No. 18-12848
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
March 24, 2020
D.C. Docket No. 1:17-cr-20826-KMW-1; Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida
Before JORDAN, JILL PRYOR and WALKER,* Circuit Judges.
These consolidated direct criminal appeals each present the same issue: whether a conviction for Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as a “crime of violence” under the Sentencing Guidelines,
I. BACKGROUND
The advisory Sentencing Guidelines contain a sentencing enhancement for a defendant who qualifies as a “career offender.”
A person commits Hobbs Act robbery when he:
obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion or attempts or conspires so to do, or commits or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this section.
the unlawful taking or obtaining of personal property from the person or in the presence of another, against his will, by means of actual or threatened force, or violence, or fear of injury, immediate or future, to his person or property, or property in his custody or possession, or the person or property of a relative or member of his family or of anyone in his company at the time of the taking or obtaining.
Id.
Marlon Eason pled guilty to one count of Hobbs Act robbery. Eason had prior convictions, all in Florida, for strong arm robbery, attempted strong arm robbery, and resisting an officer with violence. A probation officer classified Eason as a career offender based in part on his Hobbs Act robbery conviction. Eason objected, arguing that his Hobbs Act robbery conviction was not a crime of violence; the district court overruled the objection and sentenced him as a career offender.
The other two defendants’ stories are similar. Carlton Styles also pled guilty to one count of Hobbs Act robbery. Based on his previous convictions in Florida for robbery, Styles was classified as a career offender. Although Styles objected to the use of his Hobbs Act robbery conviction as a basis for a career offender enhancement, the district court overruled his objection and sentenced him as a career offender.
A jury found Jeffrey Lawson guilty of, among other offenses, Hobbs Act robbery. Based in part on this conviction, a probation officer classified Lawson as a career offender. Lawson objected to the categorization of his Hobbs Act robbery conviction as a crime of violence under the career offender guideline, but the district court overruled his objection and sentenced him as a career offender.
Eason, Styles, and Lawson each appeal their sentences. This Court consolidated their cases for oral argument.
II. DISCUSSION
On appeal the defendants argue that Hobbs Act robbery does not qualify as a crime of violence under
By now our analytical framework for deciding whether an offense qualifies as a crime of violence is familiar. We apply a categorical approach to answer this question, looking to the statutory definition of the offense rather than at the particular facts underlying the defendant‘s conviction. See Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600 (1990); United States v. Davis, 875 F.3d 592, 597 (11th Cir. 2017). Applying the framework to this case, we compare the scope of the conduct covered by the elements of Hobbs Act robbery with the definitions of “crime of violence” in
The government defends the defendants’ career offender sentences on two grounds. First, the government argues that Hobbs Act robbery satisfies the elements clause definition of crime of violence. Second, the government contends that Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as the enumerated offenses of robbery and extortion. See United States v. O‘Connor, 874 F.3d 1147, 1150 (10th Cir. 2017) (“Although Mr. O‘Connor‘s underlying conviction was for Hobbs Act robbery, we nevertheless must determine whether the conviction could fall within any of the enumerated offenses.“). We address these arguments in turn.
1. The Elements Clause
The government first defends the defendants’ career offender enhancements on the ground that Hobbs Act robbery satisfies
To apply the categorical approach to the elements clause, we consider whether the
The government nonetheless argues that these circuits ruled incorrectly. The government makes three primary arguments, but none holds water.
First, the government argues that because Hobbs Act robbery requires that property be taken “from the person or in the presence of another, against his will,”
The entirety of the Hobbs Act robbery definition makes clear that statute does not require proximity between the person from whom the taking occurs and the threat to property:
[Robbery is] the unlawful taking or obtaining of personal property from the person or in the presence of another, against his will, by means of actual or threatened force, or violence, or fear of injury, immediate or future, to his person or property, or property in his custody or possession, or the person or property of a relative or member of his family or of anyone in his company at the time of the taking or obtaining.
Second, the government argues that the defendants must, but have failed to, cite a plausible, real-world example of a Hobbs Act robbery that could be committed without a threat to a person, with only a threat to property. See United States v. Vail-Bailon, 868 F.3d 1293, 1306 (11th Cir. 2017) (en banc) (“[T]he need to focus on the least culpable conduct criminalized by a statute is not an invitation to apply legal imagination to the statute.” (internal quotations omitted)). The government seizes on language from this Court‘s decision in United States v. St. Hubert, 909 F.3d 335, 350 (11th Cir. 2018), to support this argument. There, the Court held that Hobbs Act robbery satisfies the elements clause in
St. Hubert does not support the government‘s argument that the defendants must “point to a case.” Either the text of a statute plainly reaches conduct outside a generic definition, or it does not. In the latter circumstance we require a defendant to “point to his own case or other cases” in which a statute has been applied in the manner for which he argues, but there is no such requirement in the former circumstance. Bourtzakis v. U.S. Att‘y Gen., 940 F.3d 616, 620 (11th Cir. 2019) (describing instances “when ‘the statutory language itself . . . creates the realistic probability that a state would apply the statute‘” in the manner for which the defendant argues as “exception[s] to th[e] rule” that a defendant must point to a case in which
In St. Hubert we required the defendant to point to a case in which a court applied the statute in the way he advocated—to robbery with fear of injury without any threat of force—because the statutory language itself did not create the realistic probability that fear of injury could exist without a threat of force. St. Hubert, 909 F.3d at 350. Indeed, in St. Hubert we acknowledged that Hobbs Act robbery could be committed “by putting the victim in fear of injury . . . to his . . . property” by “threatening to use physical force capable of causing such injury,” id. (emphasis added), meaning injury to property. Given the plain text of the Hobbs Act robbery statute, the defendants here have met their burden to prove the statute‘s overbreadth without identifying real-world examples. “Hobbs Act robbery reaches conduct directed at ‘property’ because the statute specifically says so. We cannot ignore the statutory text and construct a narrower statute than the plain language supports.” O‘Connor, 874 F.3d at 1154.
Third, the government argues that the Supreme Court‘s recent decision in Stokeling v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 544 (2019), demonstrates that the defendants’ argument and the other circuits’ holdings are wrong. Specifically, the government argues that Stokeling‘s “central rationale” was that “common-law robbery offenses . . . justify enhancement” under the elements clause, and Hobbs Act robbery is a federal codification of common law robbery. Lawson Appellee‘s Br. at 27-28; Styles Appellee‘s Supp. Br. at 2. We disagree that Stokeling was this expansive.
In Stokeling, the Supreme Court considered whether robbery under Florida law qualified as a violent felony under ACCA. 139 S. Ct. at 550. ACCA contains an elements clause that is identical to the one in
Stokeling surely stands for the proposition that robbery offenses that require the same degree of force as common law robbery satisfy the “physical force” degree-of-force requirement of ACCA‘s (or the Guidelines‘) elements clause. But it does not stand for the broader proposition that any statute encompassing common law robbery necessarily satisfies the elements clause. Stokeling rested on the foundation that the Florida robbery statute, like most state robbery statutes, requires the use of force against a person. See id. at 552-53. But the Hobbs Act robbery statute, by its express terms, is broader. It includes not only the use of force against a person, but also the use of force against
By its terms, the Hobbs Act robbery statute may be violated by using, attempting to use, or threatening to use force against a person‘s property, even when that property is not physically proximate to the robbery victim. It therefore cannot satisfy
2. Enumerated Robbery and Extortion
Second, and alternatively, the government argues that the defendants’ Hobbs Act robbery convictions qualify as crimes of violence because the Hobbs Act robbery statute is coextensive with enumerated robbery and/or extortion. We disagree.
Applying the categorical approach to enumerated offenses, we compare the elements of Hobbs Act robbery with the elements of “robbery” and “extortion” in the Guidelines. “[W]e disregard the label” on the crime “and look to whether the conduct necessarily proven as a prerequisite” for the defendant‘s conviction under the statute is “a natural equivalent to the offense as envisioned by the Guidelines’ drafters.” United States v. Lockley, 632 F.3d 1238, 1242 (11th Cir. 2011). If the least of the acts the statute criminalizes satisfies the generic definition of the offense, then the statute qualifies as the enumerated offense; if not, then the statute does not qualify. Id.
The Guidelines define “extortion” as “obtaining something of value from another by the wrongful use of (A) force, (B) fear of physical injury, or (C) threat of physical injury.”
Both circuits that have addressed this issue—the Sixth and the Tenth—have held that Hobbs Act robbery does not satisfy either enumerated offense or some combination of both offenses. See Camp, 903 F.3d at 600-04; O‘Connor, 874 F.3d at 1153-58.6 We agree with them. Hobbs Act robbery is broader than the generic definition of robbery because, as we discussed above, it can be violated with threats of force to property. “Hobbs Act robbery reaches conduct directed at ‘property’ because the statute specifically says so. We cannot ignore the statutory text and construct a narrower statute than the plain language supports.” O‘Connor, 874 F.3d at 1154. And “threats to property alone . . . do not necessarily create a danger to the
For the same reasons, we reject the government‘s argument that despite the inclusion of property in the Hobbs Act robbery statute, the statute criminalizes “substantially” the same conduct as generic robbery. Lawson Appellee‘s Br. at 34. The government‘s reading of the statute would render the word “property” superfluous or insignificant. We cannot accept this reading.
Our conclusion that the least of the acts the Hobbs Act robbery statute criminalizes falls outside the scope of enumerated robbery “does not end our analysis; we must next determine whether Hobbs Act robbery is a categorical match with the enumerated offense of extortion.” Camp, 903 F.3d at 602. Indeed, the government argues that any portion of the Hobbs Act statute that enumerated robbery does not capture is covered by enumerated extortion. The Guidelines’ definition of extortion— “obtaining something of value from another by the wrongful use of (A) force, (B) fear of physical injury, or (C) threat of physical injury“,
Consistent with the [Sentencing] Commission‘s goal of focusing the career offender and related enhancements on the most dangerous offenders, the amendment narrows the generic definition of extortion by limiting the offense to those having an element of force or an element of fear or threats of “physical injury,” as opposed to non-violent threats such as injury to reputation.
See
We agree with the Sixth Circuit in Camp that “the most natural reading of the text of the definition, particularly its reference to ‘physical injury,’ is that it requires that the wrongful use of force, fear, or threats be directed against the person of another, not property.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted); see United States v. Edling, 895 F.3d 1153, 1157-58 (9th Cir. 2018). The ordinary meaning of the term “physical injury” “typically means ‘bodily injury,’ which in turn is defined as ‘[p]hysical damage to a person‘s body.‘” Camp, 903 F.3d at 603 (quoting Injury, Black‘s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014)). Moreover, the Guidelines use “physical injury” to indicate injury to person, and other terms, like “damage” or “destruction,” to refer to injury to property. See, e.g.,
We thus are convinced that the Guidelines’ definition of extortion excludes fear or threats of harm to property and that, because Hobbs Act robbery can be committed by a threat to property alone, it does not satisfy that definition. Having also concluded that Hobbs Act robbery is not generic robbery—and therefore not enumerated robbery—we hold that Hobbs
* * *
“As a concluding point,” the government notes that the Commission has proposed amending the “crime of violence” definition to include Hobbs Act robbery. Lawson Appellee‘s Br. at 47. The government argues that proposed amendment reflects that the career offender guideline was designed to punish harshly repeat violent offenders like those who commit robbery and that the United States Sentencing Commission has long viewed Hobbs Act robbery as a crime of violence. Thus, the government says, the proposed amendment should “lessen[] any potential hesitance in opening a ‘circuit split.‘” Id. Granting the government everything it says about the need for the amendment, we nevertheless must stick to the plain text of the Hobbs Act robbery statute and the Guidelines.
We readily acknowledge that the career offender guideline was designed to punish harshly repeat offenders and that Hobbs Act robbery historically has fallen within the “crime of violence” definition. But we must bear in mind that until the 2016 amendments to the Guidelines, “crime of violence” was defined in three ways—the elements clause, the enumerated offenses, and a so-called “residual clause,” capturing any offense that “otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.”
The Commission can change the Guidelines to recapture Hobbs Act robbery. In fact, it appears to be in the process of doing so. See id. (proposing amendment to career offender guideline to include Hobbs Act robbery by name or, alternatively, to precisely “mirror the robbery definition at
III. CONCLUSION
Hobbs Act robbery does not qualify as a crime of violence under the current version of
VACATED AND REMANDED.
Notes
In addition to their challenges based on their convictions for Hobbs Act robbery, Eason and Styles argue that their Florida robbery convictions do not qualify as crimes of violence. Eason further argues that his conviction for resisting an officer with violence does not qualify. We have previously rejected such challenges. See Stokeling v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 544, 554-55 (2019) (holding that Florida robbery satisfies ACCA‘s elements clause); United States v. Hill, 799 F.3d 1318, 1322-23 (11th Cir. 2015) (holding that resisting an officer with violence, in violation of Florida law, satisfies ACCA‘s elements clause).
The government argues that the Eighth Circuit ruled the opposite way on an indistinguishable statute,
Section 3559(c) provides for a mandatory term of life imprisonment when a defendant convicted of a serious violent felony has previously been convicted of at least two “serious violent felonies” or of at least one serious violent felony and one serious drug offense.
Even if Farmer and House could be construed as supporting the government‘s argument, we are persuaded by the better-reasoned analyses of the circuits to have addressed the precise question we address today.