US v. Richard Jackson, No. 20-9 (4th Cir. 2022)
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Defendant moved for relief under Sec. 2255 after he was convicted of causing the death of another through the use of a firearm during a “crime of violence” and sentenced to death. Defendant claims that the Government failed to prove that he committed a “crime of violence.”
The Fourth Circuit affirmed the denial of Defendant's petition. The court reasoned that to support a conviction for using or carrying a firearm during and in relation to a “crime of violence,” the Government need only prove one qualifying predicate offense. That crime must be a felony that “has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another.” Further, the court must ask whether the “most innocent conduct” criminalized by the statute meets the definition of a “crime of violence.” In certain situations, the court applies a “variant” of the categorical approach referred to as the modified categorical approach. The court uses the modified categorical approach when the statute at issue is divisible. Divisible statutes set forth “multiple, alternative versions of the crime” with distinct elements, while indivisible statutes merely set out different means of completing the crime.
The court applied the modified categorical approach. The court found that federal premeditated first-degree murder is a “crime of violence.” Moreover, federal premeditated murder requires an intentional mens rea and thus does not in any way violate Borden’s requirement. Thus, premeditated murder in violation of Sec. 1111(a) is categorically a “crime of violence.”
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