United States v. Jones, No. 18-35457 (9th Cir. 2020)
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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion to vacate his criminal sentence, which had been enhanced pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). Defendant was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1).
The panel held that defendant's prior conviction of second degree burglary of a dwelling under Colo. Rev. Stat. 18-4-203(2)(a) was a violent felony, because it covered only conduct within the generic offense of burglary as defined by the Supreme Court in United States v. Stitt, 139 S. Ct. 399 (2018). Therefore, defendant was properly sentenced under 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1).
Court Description: 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The panel affirmed on different grounds the district court’s denial of Terrance Lee Jones’s 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion to vacate his criminal sentence, which had been enhanced pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), in a case in which Jones was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court held that the § 2255 motion was untimely, but agreed with Jones that his prior conviction for Colorado burglary was not a conviction for a violent felony under the modified categorical approach, and that Jones therefore was not eligible for the ACCA enhancement. The district court certified for appeal the question whether a claim of actual innocence of a noncapital sentence can be asserted to overcome a procedural default when the petitioner has received a sentence for which he was statutorily ineligible. The panel did not need to reach the certified question because it held that Jones’s prior conviction for Colorado second-degree burglary of a dwelling was a conviction for a violent felony, and that he was therefore properly subject to the ACCA enhancement. The panel explained that the prior conviction qualified as a violent felony because Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-4-203(2)(a) covers only conduct within the generic UNITED STATES V. JONES 3 offense of burglary as defined by the Supreme Court in United States v. Stitt, 139 S. Ct. 399 (2018).
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