United States v. Gallegos-Galindo, No. 12-10000 (9th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseDefendant pled guilty to reentry as a removed alien without a plea agreement. The district court included a crime of violence sentencing enhancement based on its conclusion that defendant's prior Washington State third-degree rape conviction qualified as a forcible sex offense under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2. Defendant appealed his sentence. The court held that because the Guidelines were amended in 2008 to include as a forcible sex offense any sex offense involving the absence of the victim's consent, the district court did not err in entering the enhancement in this case. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel affirmed a sentence for illegal reentry in a case in which the district court concluded that the defendant’s 2008 conviction for third-degree rape under Revised Code of Washington § 9A.44.060(1)(a) qualified as a “forcible sex offense” supporting a 16-level crime-of-violence enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(a)(1)(A). Applying the modified categorical approach, the panel held that because the Guidelines were amended in 2008 to include as a forcible sex offense any sex offense involving the absence of the victim’s consent, and because the defendant stated in his signed 2008 guilty plea that the victim did not consent, the district court did not err – plainly or otherwise – in concluding that the prior conviction was a crime of violence.
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