United States v. Yates, No. 16-3997 (6th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseAkron officers searched Yates’s residence and seized firearms and crack cocaine. Yates was convicted as a felon in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C 922(g)(1), and for possessing crack cocaine with the intent to distribute, 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1); (b)(1)(C). The court imposed a mandatory minimum sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e), concurrent prison terms of 327 months. The Sixth Circuit affirmed but subsequently vacated Yates's sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255, in light of the Supreme Court’s 2015 "Johnson" decision. Yates’s status as an armed career criminal was based on the classification of his 1999 Ohio robbery conviction as a “violent felony” under ACCA’s residual clause, which was found to be unconstitutional in Johnson. The district court again found him to be a career offender. Because of Yates’s medical conditions and lack of disciplinary history, while incarcerated the court varied downward from the guidelines range of 262-327 months and sentenced Yates to 240 months’ imprisonment. The Sixth Circuit vacated. The conviction under Ohio Rev. Code 2911.02(A)(3) is not a crime of violence under the guidelines’ “force” clause because it does not require “violent force . . . capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person.” Nor does the conviction constitute a crime of violence under the enumerated clause. Generic robbery constitutes the “misappropriation of property under circumstances involving immediate danger to the person.” The Ohio statute reaches conduct outside the generic definition.
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