United States v. Walton, No. 15-50358 (9th Cir. 2018)
Annotate this CaseThe Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's imposition of a sentencing enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1), after defendant pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. The panel held that neither of defendant's prior convictions for first-degree robbery under Alabama law nor second-degree robbery under California law was a violent felony under the ACCA. In this case, at least two of defendant's four prior non-drug convictions did not qualify as violent felonies and thus defendant should not have been subject to the ACCA's mandatory sentencing provision. Accordingly, the panel remanded for resentencing.
Court Description: Criminal Law The panel vacated a sentence and remanded for resentencing in a case in which the district court imposed an enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1) (ACCA), on the ground that the defendant had four prior convictions for violent felonies. The panel held that first-degree robbery under Alabama Criminal Code § 13A-8-41 is not a violent felony under ACCA because the force required to support a conviction for third-degree robbery under Alabama law is not sufficiently violent to render that crime a violent felony under ACCA, and the Government has waived any argument that the statute is divisible. The panel held that United States v. Dixon, 805 F.3d 1193 (9th Cir. 2015) (holding that California robbery is not a violent felony under ACCA’s force clause because it can be committed where force is only negligently used and because the statute is indivisible), is dispositive as far as defendant’s conviction for second-degree robbery under Calif. Penal Code § 211 is concerned. Because two of the defendant’s four prior convictions are not violent felonies under ACCA’s force clause, the panel concluded that the defendant should not have been subject to ACCA’s fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence, which
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