United States v. Castro-Gomez, No. 14-2052 (10th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseLuis Carlos Castro-Gomez appealed a district court’s finding that his prior Illinois conviction for attempted murder was a crime of violence triggering a 16-level enhancement under section 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) of the United States Sentencing Guidelines (“U.S.S.G.”). The district court overruled Castro-Gomez’s objection, finding that Illinois’ definition of murder corresponded with the uniform generic definition of the offense, triggering the enhancement. Castro-Gomez was sentenced to 35 months in prison. Castro-Gomez’s sole argument on appeal was that Illinois’ definition of murder required only the intent to do great bodily harm, while the generic definition of murder required more. Read together, 720 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 5/8-4(a) (West 2015) and 720 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 5/9-1(a)(1) (West 2015) made intent to kill (which encompasses killing an individual with merely intent to do great bodily harm) an element of Illinois’ definition of attempted murder. This tandem reading cured the only overbreadth of which Castro-Gomez complained. The Tenth Circuit rejected this challenge and affirmed his sentence.
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.