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Date: 08-11-2021
Case Style:
United States of America v. LEON CARTER
Case Number: 17-15495
Judge: Stanley Marcus
Court: IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
Plaintiff's Attorney:
Defendant's Attorney:
Description:
Atlanta, GA - Criminal defense lawyer represented defendant with possessing a firearm after having previously been convicted of a felony charge.
We begin with the relevant background. On September 15, 1992, Kenneth
Gibbons was driving down Augusta Avenue in Savannah, Georgia, when Leon
Carter fired shots at him with a .22 caliber revolver. Carter fled to his home on a
bicycle and was arrested. He pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated assault
under O.C.G.A. § 16-5-21 in Chatham County Superior Court in Savannah and
received a three-year prison sentence. Carter was also caught participating in the
sale of cocaine to undercover Savannah police personnel in 1996 and again in
2008; he pleaded guilty to sale of a controlled substance and to conspiracy to
distribute a controlled substance, respectively. See O.C.G.A. § 16-13-30(b).
Years later, on December 11, 2013, Carter sold a Harrington & Richardson
(“H&R”) Model 732 .32 caliber revolver loaded with five rounds of ammunition to
a Savannah individual for $100. Carter later sold the same individual an unloaded
Springfield Armory, Model XD40, .40 caliber pistol for $300, and then an
unloaded Norinco Model SKS, 7.62x39 caliber rifle for $400.
It turned out that Carter’s gun buyer was working as a confidential informant
for the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department, which in turn was
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working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation on a joint investigation into the illegal possession
and distribution of firearms. Federal law makes it a crime for anyone who has
previously been convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison to
possess a firearm or ammunition. 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). So the United States
sought, and a grand jury sitting in the Southern District of Georgia returned, an
indictment charging Carter with two counts of violating § 922(g)(1) based on the
H&R and Springfield sales. He pleaded guilty to the count based on the H&R sale.
The United States Probation Office prepared a presentence investigation
report (“PSI”), which relied on Carter’s aggravated assault conviction as well as
his prior Georgia convictions for sale of a controlled substance and conspiracy to
distribute a controlled substance to conclude that Carter qualified as an armed
career criminal under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). That provision, known as the Armed
Career Criminal Act (the “ACCA”), imposes a fifteen-year mandatory minimum
sentence for § 922(g) violations committed by individuals whose criminal records
include at least three prior convictions for crimes that qualify as violent felonies or
serious drug offenses. Therefore, Carter’s Sentencing Guidelines range was the
ACCA minimum: 180 months. Absent the ACCA minimum, Carter’s Guidelines
range would have been 135 to 168 months.
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The district court agreed that Carter was an armed career criminal subject to
the ACCA. Nevertheless, the court sentenced Carter to only 96 months in prison --
well below the ACCA’s statutory mandatory minimum and well below the bottom
of the otherwise applicable Guidelines range. The court explained that the
downward variance was based on the factors found in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), which
include the seriousness of the offense. The government knew about Carter’s first
illegal gun sale in December 2013, and it was apparent then that he was acting
alone rather than participating in an illegal gun ring. In other words, by the end of
2013, the government had all the information it needed to arrest and prosecute
Carter. But the government had waited until 2015 to indict him, and Carter had
made two additional gun sales during the intervening period. These additional
sales increased Carter’s Guidelines range, but, the district court reasoned, there
was no reason the government could not have “stopped” Carter before he had made
the additional sales. To the district court, this sequence of events made Carter’s
offense less serious than the Guidelines range indicated.
Neither party objected to the sentence. But both appealed: Carter to argue
that he should not have been classified as an armed career criminal because his
previous convictions were not valid ACCA predicates and the government to argue
that the district court had erred by imposing a sentence below the ACCA’s fifteenyear mandatory minimum. United States v. Carter, 704 F. App’x 808, 809 (11th
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Cir. 2017). Reviewing both issues only for plain error, a panel of this Court held
that Carter could not establish plain error because he had not cited any Supreme
Court or Eleventh Circuit cases holding that Georgia aggravated assault, sale of a
controlled substance, or conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance did not
qualify as an ACCA predicate offense. Id. The panel further held that the district
court’s dramatic downward variance from the ACCA mandatory minimum
sentence posed “systemic problems to the fairness and integrity of . . . judicial
proceedings” because it allowed for the imposition of disparate sentences on
similarly situated defendants. Id. at 810. Thus, the panel vacated Carter’s sentence
and remanded to the district court for resentencing. Id.
On remand, Carter objected to the revised PSI’s classification of his Georgia
aggravated assault conviction as an ACCA predicate offense. But the district court
ruled against him, agreeing with the government that this conviction qualified as a
violent felony under the ACCA’s elements clause. Thus, the district court
sentenced Carter to fifteen years in prison, the ACCA mandatory minimum, with
credit for time served. Carter appealed the district court’s conclusion that his
Georgia aggravated assault conviction was for a violent felony.
We stayed Carter’s appeal pending our en banc Court’s consideration of
Moss, which was itself stayed pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Borden.
After the Supreme Court decided Borden, the en banc Court reinstated the panel
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opinion in Moss, which held that Georgia aggravated assault with a deadly
weapon, when premised on the version of simple assault outlined in O.C.G.A. §
16-5-20(a)(2), is not a violent felony under the ACCA’s elements clause. United
States v. Moss, No. 17-10473, 2021 WL 3087754, at *1 (11th Cir. July 22, 2021)
(en banc).
II.
This appeal presents a single issue: whether Carter’s conviction for
aggravated assault with a deadly weapon under O.C.G.A. §§ 16-5-21(a)(2) and 16-
5-20(a)(2) qualifies as a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminal Act.1
Borden and Moss yield the conclusion that it does not. Therefore, the district court
was incorrect to classify Carter as an armed career criminal and to conclude that
the ACCA’s fifteen-year mandatory minimum controlled his sentence.
We recently set forth a controlling analysis of Georgia aggravated assault in
Moss. Even so, now that Borden has confirmed the reasoning in Moss, we explain
in some detail the ACCA analysis as it pertains to Carter’s case. The ACCA
defines a “violent felony” as:
[A]ny crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year
. . . that --
1 We review the question of whether a prior conviction qualifies as a violent felony de novo.
United States v. Deshazior, 882 F.3d 1352, 1354 (11th Cir. 2018), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 1255
(2019).
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(i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of
physical force against the person of another; or
(ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or
otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk
of physical injury to another;
18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B). We often refer to subsection (i) as the “elements
clause”; to the portion of subsection (ii) that refers to burglary, arson, extortion,
and explosives as the “enumerated offenses clause”; and to the remainder of
subsection (ii) as the “residual clause.” The Supreme Court has held that the
residual clause is unconstitutionally vague, Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591,
597 (2015), and the enumerated offenses clause does not include aggravated
assault. So Carter’s aggravated assault conviction must qualify, if at all, under the
elements clause.
To determine whether a prior conviction was a “violent felony” under the
ACCA’s elements clause, we apply the “categorical approach.” United States v.
Oliver, 962 F.3d 1311, 1316 (11th Cir. 2020); see also Descamps v. United States,
570 U.S. 254, 257 (2013). Under the categorical approach, we generally examine
“only ‘the elements of the statute of conviction, not the specific conduct of a
particular offender.’” Oliver, 962 F.3d at 1316 (citation omitted). Thus, we
assume that the conviction rested on the “‘least of the acts criminalized’ by the
statute,” because to determine upon which criminalized acts the conviction rested
would violate the categorical approach’s command not to analyze the facts
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underlying the conviction. Id. (citing Moncrieffe v. Holder, 569 U.S. 184, 190–91
(2013)). Next, we determine whether the “least of the acts criminalized” has an
element requiring “the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force
against the person of another.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). If it does,
“the offense categorically qualifies as a violent felony under the ACCA’s elements
clause.” Id. “If not, that is the end of [the court’s] inquiry and the prior conviction
does not count as a violent felony under the elements clause.” Id. (internal
quotation marks omitted).
There is a twist, however, for statutes that are divisible -- that is, those that
list multiple, alternative elements, and so effectively create “several different
crimes.” Descamps, 570 U.S. at 263. In order to determine which specific crime a
defendant was convicted of committing, a court confronted with a divisible statute
may consult Shepard documents, a “limited class of documents, including the
indictment, jury instructions, or plea agreement and colloquy.” Oliver, 962 F.3d at
1317 (citing Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 26 (2005)).
When Carter was convicted in 1992, Georgia’s aggravated assault statute
read:
A person commits the offense of aggravated assault when he assaults:
(1) With intent to murder, to rape, or to rob; [or]
(2) With a deadly weapon or with any object, device, or
instrument which, when used offensively against a person, is
likely to or actually does result in serious bodily injury.
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O.C.G.A. § 16-5-21(a) (1992). Thus, two elements comprise a Georgia aggravated
assault: “(a) a simple assault as defined under O.C.G.A. §§ 16-5-20(a)(1) or (2),
and (b) that the assault was aggravated by either (1) an intention to murder, rape or
rob, or (2) the use of a deadly weapon.” Moss, 920 F.3d at 757. In turn, in 1992,
Georgia’s simple assault statute provided:
(a) A person commits the offense of simple assault when he or she
either:
(1) Attempts to commit a violent injury to the person of another;
or
(2) Commits an act which places another in reasonable
apprehension of immediately receiving a violent injury.
O.C.G.A. § 16-5-20(a) (1992).
We have held that Georgia’s aggravated assault statute is divisible as to both
the aggravator element, United States v. Morales-Alonso, 878 F.3d 1311, 1316
(11th Cir. 2018), and as to the type of simple assault committed, Moss, 920 F.3d at
757–58. Therefore, we look to Shepard documents to determine which version of
aggravated assault served as the basis for Carter’s guilty plea. These show that
Carter was convicted of committing the version of aggravated assault found in
O.C.G.A. § 16-5-21(a)(2), simple assault committed with a deadly weapon: the
indictment charged Carter with “unlawfully mak[ing] an assault upon the person of
Kenneth Gibbons, with a .22 Long caliber revolver, a deadly weapon, by shooting
at Kenneth Gibbons.” But they do not reveal which version of simple assault was
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the basis for Carter’s conviction -- attempting to commit a violent injury under
O.C.G.A. § 16-5-20(a)(1) or placing another in reasonable apprehension of
receiving a violent injury under § 16-5-20(a)(2). Therefore, “we assume that he
was convicted under the ‘least of the acts criminalized’ by the statute—here, § 16-
5-20(a)(2),” placing another in apprehension of receiving a violent injury. Id. at
758 (citation omitted).
Stated more precisely, then, the question before us is whether a Georgia
aggravated assault conviction for committing an act with a deadly weapon which
places another in reasonable apprehension of immediately receiving a violent
injury “has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical
force against the person of another.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B). In Borden, the
Supreme Court held that the phrase “use . . . against the person of another” in the
ACCA’s elements clause “sets out a mens rea requirement—of purposeful or
knowing conduct.” Borden, 141 S. Ct. at 1828, 1829 n.6 (plurality opinion). The
elements clause “demands that the perpetrator direct his action at, or target, another
individual.” Id. at 1825. A crime that can be committed with a mens rea of mere
recklessness therefore cannot qualify as a crime of violence under the elements
clause -- “[r]eckless conduct is not aimed in [the] prescribed manner.” Id.; see also
id. at 1833 (“‘[A]gainst the person of another,’ when modifying the ‘use of
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physical force,’ introduces that action’s conscious object. So it excludes conduct,
like recklessness, that is not directed or targeted at another.”) (citation omitted).
We held in Moss that when based on a simple assault under O.C.G.A. § 16-
5-20(a)(2), an aggravated assault under O.C.G.A. § 16-5-21(a)(2) can be
accomplished with a mens rea of recklessness. 920 F.3d at 758 (citing Patterson v.
State, 789 S.E.2d 175, 176–78 (Ga. 2016)). As the Georgia Supreme Court
explained in Patterson, “the crime of simple assault as set forth in O.C.G.A § 16-5-
20(a)(2), does not require proof of specific intent. The State need only prove that
the defendant intended to do the act that placed another in reasonable apprehension
of immediate violent injury.” 789 S.E.2d at 177 (citation omitted and cleaned up);
see also Moss, 920 F.3d at 757 (“Georgia law defines recklessness as nothing more
than the conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk . . . [reckless
conduct] cannot be said to require intent.”). Nor does the deadly weapon
aggravator element of a § 16-5-21(a)(2) aggravated assault conviction import a
mens rea requirement greater than recklessness. Moss, 920 F.3d at 759 (citing
Patterson, 789 S.E.2d at 176–78); see also Patterson v. State, 770 S.E.2d 62, 66 &
n.5 (Ga. Ct. App. 2015) (rejecting the proposition that the deadly weapon or device
likely to result or resulting in death aggravator in § 16-5-21(a)(2) requires an intent
to injure and holding that this aggravator “does not change the type of intent
necessary to prove . . . an O.C.G.A. § 16-5-20(a)(2) simple assault aggravated by
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O.C.G.A. § 16-5-21(b)(2); rather, the crime only requires placing the victim in
reasonable apprehension of harm by intentionally using the aggravating object”)
(citation omitted), aff’d, 789 S.E.2d 175 (Ga. 2016).
As we held in Moss, “[b]ecause Georgia’s aggravated assault statute,
O.C.G.A. § 16-5-21(a)(2) . . . can be satisfied by a [mens rea] of recklessness when
based on simple assault under § 16-5-20(a)(2), it cannot qualify as a crime of
violence under the elements clause of the ACCA.” See Moss, 920 F.3d at 759.
Borden affirmed this reasoning. See Moss, No. 17-10473, 2021 WL 3087754, at
*1 (noting that Borden resolved all the issues for which the Eleventh Circuit
granted rehearing en banc in Moss). Therefore, Carter did not have three ACCA
predicate offenses, and the district court erred when it classified him as an armed
career criminal subject to the ACCA’s fifteen-year mandatory minimum.2
Outcome: Accordingly, we VACATE the district court’s sentence and REMAND for
resentencing.
Plaintiff's Experts:
Defendant's Experts:
Comments: