United States v. Carter , 860 F.3d 39 ( 2017 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 14-1844
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellant,
v.
WAYNE CARTER,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. George Z. Singal, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Thompson, and Kayatta,
Circuit Judges.
Renée M. Bunker, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom
Thomas E. Delahanty II, United States Attorney, was on brief, for
appellant.
J. Hilary Billings, Assistant Federal Defender, for appellee.
June 22, 2017
KAYATTA, Circuit Judge. This appeal challenges us to
figure out how best to put a case back on track following a
conviction, a vacation of that conviction on appeal, a dismissal
of the indictment on remand, a government appeal of that dismissal,
and the subsequent issuance of controlling authority making it
clear that the original conviction was proper. For the following
reasons, we again remand the case, this time for reentry of the
judgment of conviction and the sentence, albeit with leave for the
defendant to proceed with a previously preserved challenge to his
sentence.
I.
On April 1, 1997, Carter pled guilty in state court to
violating Maine's assault statute, Me. Stat. tit. 17-A,
§ 207(1)(A). The victim was Carter's girlfriend and the mother of
one of his children.1 Thirteen years later, Carter was indicted
for violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) by possessing a firearm that
1 "[T]he domestic relationship, although it must be
established beyond a reasonable doubt in a § 922(g)(9) firearms
possession prosecution, need not be a defining element of the
predicate offense." United States v. Hayes, 555 U.S. 415, 418
(2009). Carter's relationship to the victim of the 1997 assault
is described in the prosecution's version of the facts, which was
filed the day before Carter's conditional plea. No transcript of
the change-of-plea colloquy exists, so we cannot verify that Carter
admitted this particular fact during his guilty plea.
Nevertheless, Carter has not challenged that this element of the
offense was satisfied, and he admitted in his sentencing memoranda
that the assault victim was his "live-in girl friend [sic]" and
"domestic partner."
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he had inherited, kept, pawned, and redeemed after the 1997 assault
conviction. Under § 922(g)(9), it is unlawful for a person "who
has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic
violence" to possess a firearm. A "misdemeanor crime of domestic
violence" includes any state-law misdemeanor that "has, as an
element, the use or attempted use of physical force . . .
committed . . . by a person with whom the victim shares a child in
common . . . or by a person similarly situated to a spouse . . .
of the victim." 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(33)(A)(i)–(ii).
Carter moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground
that the Maine assault statute could be violated with a mens rea
of recklessness and that a reckless assault does not have as an
element the "use" of physical force. Later, he filed a
supplemental motion to dismiss arguing that § 922(g)(9)
unconstitutionally infringes on his Second Amendment rights. The
district court denied these motions in July 2011 and March 2012,
respectively. Based on this court's then-recent opinion in United
States v. Booker, 644 F.3d 12, 21 (1st Cir. 2011), the district
court rejected the argument that a misdemeanor crime of domestic
violence does not include any crime for which recklessness is a
sufficient mens rea. Carter ultimately pled guilty but reserved
his right to appeal the denial of his motions to dismiss and his
sentence.
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While Carter's appeal was pending, the Supreme Court
decided United States v. Castleman, 134 S. Ct. 1405 (2014), which
held that "physical force" in 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(33)(A) means only
the amount of force required for common law battery and not the
"violent force" required for a violent felony by Johnson v. United
States, 559 U.S. 133, 140 (2010). Castleman, 134 S. Ct. at 1413.
The mens rea required for a "use" of physical force was not at
issue in Castleman, but the opinion volunteered that "the merely
reckless causation of bodily injury . . . may not be a 'use' of
force." Id. at 1414. Supporting that possibility, the Court added
a footnote stating that "[a]lthough [Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U.S.
1 (2004),] reserved the question whether a reckless application of
force could constitute a 'use' of force, the Courts of Appeals
have almost uniformly held that recklessness is not sufficient."
Castleman, 134 S. Ct. at 1414 n.8 (citation omitted). That
footnote contained a "[b]ut see" citation to Booker. Id. Piling
tangible action on top of dictum, the Court subsequently granted,
vacated, and remanded both United States v. Armstrong, 706 F.3d 1
(1st Cir. 2013), which had followed Booker on this point, see id.
at 4–5, and United States v. Voisine, 495 F. App'x 101 (1st Cir.
2013), which had followed Armstrong, see id. at 101–02. The
Supreme Court instructed this court to reconsider both cases in
light of Castleman. See Armstrong v. United States, 134 S. Ct.
1759 (2014) (Mem.).
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The panel that heard Carter's appeal paid attention to
these signals. It observed that although Booker and Armstrong
would normally require it to hold that reckless assault is a
misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, there was "sound reason
for thinking that the Booker panel might well change its collective
mind in light of Castleman." United States v. Carter, 752 F.3d 8,
18–19 n.11 (1st Cir. 2014) (citations omitted). Noting the
uncertainty generated by Castleman and the remand of Armstrong,
the panel opted to see if further development of the record might
moot the question. Id. at 21. Specifically, the panel observed
that the parties did not dispute that the Maine assault statute
was divisible into different forms of the offense with different
mens rea elements. Id. at 17. In such circumstances, gathering
and assessing "the underlying [Shepard2] documents may ultimately
[have] show[n] that Carter's conviction was under one of the other
two mens-rea prongs of the statute--'intentionally' or
'knowingly.'" Id. at 18–19 n.11. The panel therefore "vacate[d]
[Carter's] conviction and the district court's denial of his
2Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13 (2005), allows a court
determining which form of a divisible offense a prior conviction
fell under to "'consult[] the trial record--including charging
documents, plea agreements, transcripts of plea colloquies,
findings of fact and conclusions of law from a bench trial, and
jury instructions and verdict forms'--in order to 'determine which
statutory phrase was the basis for the conviction.'" Carter, 752
F.3d at 19 (alteration in original) (quoting Johnson, 559 U.S. at
144).
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original motion to dismiss the indictment on statutory grounds"
and "remand[ed] the case to the district court for further
proceedings consistent with th[e] opinion and in light of the
Supreme Court's opinion in Castleman and its vacation of [this
court's] judgment in Armstrong." Id. at 21 (citations omitted).
In so doing, the panel plainly left open the ultimate resolution
of Carter's challenge to his conviction. See id. at 18–19 n.11
("[W]e need not decide today whether, in light of Castleman, a
conviction under the 'recklessly' prong of the Maine statute
satisfies the 'use or attempted use of physical force' requirement
for purposes of § 922(g)(9) . . . ."); see also United States v.
Voisine, 778 F.3d 176, 186 (1st Cir. 2015) ("In United States v.
Carter, . . . [t]he opinion noted that Castleman 'casts doubt'
upon Booker, but it explicitly did 'not decide' the question before
this court." (citations omitted)).
On remand, it turned out that no Shepard documents
demonstrated that the state-court conviction was for the
intentional or knowing version of the assault offense. Thus, the
question whether an offense resting on reckless conduct
constituted a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence remained
front and center. Also viewing Castleman as a harbinger, the
district court reversed course and concluded that the reckless
form of the Maine assault statute did not qualify as a misdemeanor
crime of domestic violence. The district court understood the
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Supreme Court to have vacated Armstrong in order to pull this
circuit into line with the other circuits with respect to whether
one can "use . . . physical force" recklessly within the meaning
of § 921(a)(33)(A)(ii). It also understood the observation in
Carter that the Booker panel might "change its collective mind in
light of Castleman" to mean that Booker was no longer binding.
After finding that the Shepard documents did not establish the
form of assault of which Carter was convicted, the district court
dismissed the indictment. The government filed this appeal.
The appeal was stayed pending this court's decisions in
Armstrong and Voisine, which were consolidated for
reconsideration. As it turned out, Castleman's augury proved
false. This court concluded that, notwithstanding Castleman, the
reckless form of the Maine assault statute is a misdemeanor crime
of domestic violence within the meaning of § 921(a)(33)(A)(ii).
See Voisine, 778 F.3d at 177. The Supreme Court affirmed. See
Voisine v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2272, 2276 (2016). In so
doing, it plainly and finally resolved the uncertain issue of law
that has sent this case around the barn and back. As the district
court first held in 2012, Carter's conviction for assault was a
conviction for a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. We must,
therefore, reverse the decision below and order the indictment
reinstated in light of Voisine.
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That leaves two related loose ends: Carter's appeal
from the calculation of his sentence, and the related question of
how best to craft our mandate to facilitate the completion of this
case.3
II.
Carter's challenge to his sentence trains on a single
issue: whether the district court erred in finding that Carter's
unlawful possession of firearms did not qualify for a substantially
lower guidelines sentencing range based on what we have called the
"'sporting purposes or collection' exception." See Carter, 752
F.3d at 12; U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 2K2.1(b)(2).
Carter properly preserved his objections to the district court's
finding both in the district court and on his original appeal.
The panel hearing that appeal nevertheless did not reach the
sentencing challenge because it remanded for reconsideration of
the conviction. See Carter, 752 F.3d at 21. When the district
court on remand dismissed the indictment, any questions concerning
the sentence dropped out, only now to be revived by our conclusion
that the conviction was proper.
3 Carter also argues that § 922(g)(9) violates the Second
Amendment as applied to him. He recognizes, however, that this
court rejected this exact constitutional challenge in Carter. 752
F.3d at 12–13. The law of the case and the law of the circuit
thus both foreclose this argument.
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The fact that Carter has completed his prison sentence
does not moot his sentencing challenge. See United States v.
Molak, 276 F.3d 45, 48 (1st Cir. 2002). In simple terms, if the
sentencing guidelines treated his criminal conduct as warranting
much less prison time than the district court thought was the case,
the district court might well adjust the length of supervised
release deemed appropriate.4
The government complains that Carter has yet to serve
his supervised release only because, while out on bail for this
case, he committed a state crime that extended his incarceration.
That may be so, but the fact remains that he still has a real stake
in challenging his sentence, so the challenge is not moot. Cf.
United States v. DeLeon, 444 F.3d 41, 55 (1st Cir. 2006) (finding
sentencing challenge moot despite pending supervised release term
only because defendant was "in immigration custody and facing
imminent deportation from the United States").
Ideally, we would decide the sentencing issue now
ourselves. The parties agree, though, that (in the words of
4 The district court's decision not to apply the sporting
purposes or collection exception made a significant difference to
Carter's guidelines sentencing range. Without the exception,
Carter's guidelines sentencing range was eighteen to twenty-four
months. If the district court had applied the exception, Carter's
guidelines sentencing range may have been as low as zero to six
months. Carter's year-and-a-day sentence of imprisonment, which
was a downward variance from the guidelines sentencing range the
district court used, would have been an upward variance from the
guidelines sentencing range if the exception applied.
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Carter's brief) "the 'Sporting Purposes or Collection' exception
issue is not appropriately presented for consideration in the
context of this appeal." The government has not briefed the
merits. And this docket does not contain the full record germane
to the issue. So prudence requires a remand to get it teed up.
III.
That leaves the question of what we should order the
district court to do on remand. The relevant statutes and case
law grant this court broad power to craft remand orders.
[A]ny . . . court of appellate jurisdiction
may affirm, modify, vacate, set aside or
reverse any judgment, decree, or order of a
court lawfully brought before it for review,
and may remand the cause and direct the entry
of such appropriate judgment, decree, or
order, or require such further proceedings to
be had as may be just under the circumstances.
28 U.S.C. § 2106. This court has interpreted this power to allow
it, for instance, to order the entry of a conviction for a lesser-
included offense when the evidence is insufficient to sustain a
conviction for a greater offense. See United States v. Sepúlveda-
Hernández, 752 F.3d 22, 28–31 (1st Cir. 2014).
Carter argues that it would not be appropriate to
reinstate the indictment, conviction, and sentence. Effectively,
Carter argues that the only appropriate order is one that would
place him in a position similar to where he would have been had
the district court, after the remand, correctly predicted how this
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court and the Supreme Court would rule in Voisine. Had the
district court done so, Carter argues, he may have been able to
resist reinstitution of the vacated conviction based on his
original guilty plea, and gone to trial. But there is another
possible retrospective reconstruction: We could craft an order
that places Carter in a situation similar to where he would have
been had the previous panel of this court correctly predicted how
this court and the Supreme Court would rule in Voisine. Had that
panel done so, it never would have vacated the conviction and
sentence. We see no reason why the former approach would be more
appropriate than the latter in these circumstances. As we have
explained, Carter did not decide the question resolved in Voisine,
so the latter approach is not inconsistent with Carter. Moreover,
at this point, Carter has not demonstrated any error in either his
conviction or his sentence, and he points to no remaining basis
upon which he might assert innocence.
Nor do Carter's unspecified "concerns" under the Speedy
Trial Act or the statute of limitations alter this conclusion.
Carter has not made any legal argument that the proceedings thus
far have violated these statutes. On appeal, intimations toward
potential arguments are insufficient. See United States v.
Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990) ("It is not enough merely
to mention a possible argument in the most skeletal way, leaving
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the court to do counsel's work, create the ossature for the
argument, and put flesh on its bones.").
While there are no perfect options, we think it best to
get the parties back to where they would have been but for the
Castleman-Voisine detour: before a panel of this court on a
complete record with the sole remaining sentencing issue fully
briefed. There is time to do this because Carter has finished his
prison sentence, yet not begun his two-year period of supervised
release.5 So on remand, the district court will promptly
reinstitute the original conviction and sentence, ensuring before
it does so that the record contains all materials germane to the
sporting purposes or collection exception. Carter may then appeal
that single issue, and it will be decided as it would have been
but for the detour we have described above. The appeal will likely
be expedited should Carter so request.
IV.
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the order of the
district court dismissing the indictment and remand the case to
the district court for reinstatement of the indictment. We order,
further, that (1) the district court shall reenter the April 23,
2012 judgment, modified to indicate that Carter has already served
5 At oral argument, the government represented that Carter
completed his state prison sentence in March 2016, so the
supervised release term will commence once the sentence is
reinstated.
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the term of imprisonment and that only the supervised release term
remains to be served; (2) the district court shall ensure that the
record contains all materials germane to its prior decision not to
apply the sporting purposes or collection exception; and (3) Carter
shall have fourteen days from the date the district court reenters
the conviction and sentence to file a notice of appeal challenging
the district court's ruling on the sporting purposes or collection
exception at his sentencing hearing. The proceeding shall
otherwise go forward in accordance with this opinion.
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