Dawkins v. United States, No. 15-3667 (7th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseDawkins pleaded guilty to armed robbery of a bank and was sentenced, as a career offender, to serve 262 months in prison. He challenged the sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2244(b) and 2255(h), citing the 2015 Supreme Court holding, Johnson v. United States, that the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act is unconstitutionally vague. The Seventh Circuit upheld his sentence, reasoning that the sentencing court did not need to resort to the residual clause of the Armed Criminal Act in order to determine that Dawkins’ prior conviction for burglary was a conviction for a crime of violence. Residential burglary, which is committed when a defendant “knowingly and without authority enters or knowingly and without authority remains within the dwelling place of another … with the intent to commit therein a felony or theft,” under Illinois law (720 ILCS 5/19‐3), satisfies the 1990 Supreme Court ruling in Taylor v. United States, that “a person has been convicted of burglary for purposes of a 924(e) enhancement if he is convicted of any crime … having the basic elements of unlawful or unprivileged entry into, or remaining in, a building or structure, with intent to commit a crime.”
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.