Summaries of Selected Opinions
| Publication year | 2013 |
| Pages | 121 |
| Citation | Vol. 42 No. 3 Pg. 121 |
From the Courts U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Summaries of selected Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals Opinions appear on a space-available basis. The summaries are prepared for the Colorado Bar Association (CBA) by Katherine Campbell and Frank Gibbard, licensed Colorado attorneys. They are provided as a service by the CBA and are not the official language of this Court. The CBA cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the summaries. Full copies of the Tenth Circuit decisions are accessible from the CBA website: www.cobar.org (click on "Opinions/Rules/Statutes").
No. 11-6339. United States v. Washington.12/28/2012. W.D.Okla. Judge McKay. Armed Career Criminal Act—Prior Juvenile Adjudication as Predicate Violent Felony.
Defendant pleaded guilty to two firearms charges. At sentencing, the district court concluded that his prior violent felonies qualified him for an enhanced sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA or Act). Accordingly, it sentenced him to a minimum fifteen-year sentence under the Act. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court’s conclusion that his Oklahoma juvenile adjudication for pointing a weapon qualified as a predicate violent felony within the ACCA.
Defendant argued that the government failed to establish that his act of juvenile delinquency involved a violent felony. Under Oklahoma law, pointing a weapon can be either a misdemeanor or a felony. The felony charge requires the element that the defendant pointed the weapon for the purpose of threatening or injuring a person through either physical injury or intimidation. The Tenth Circuit examined defendant’s charging document, and determined that its language tracked the language of the felony offense. It further rejected defendant’s arguments that his juvenile adjudication must have been based on the misdemeanor offense because (1) the charging document useded the term "pointing a weapon, " which was closer to the title of the misdemeanor offense; (2) defendant’s sentence of five months was within the misdemeanor range of punishment; (3) court costs were not assessed at the standard level for juvenile felony adjudications; and (4) the court should apply the "rule of lenity" to construe the juvenile adjudication to refer to the misdemeanor offense.
The Circuit further rejected defendant’s argument that Oklahoma law prevents the treatment of a juvenile adjudication as a criminal conviction under the ACCA. State law does not govern federal court consideration of a defendant’s state juvenile court records when determining a sentence prescribed by federal law.
Finally, defendant argued that his juvenile adjudication could not be used as a predicate conviction because it had been dismissed by the juvenile court, rendering it a nullity. After defendant served a term of probation, the juvenile court had ordered the action dismissed on application by the district attorney. Under Oklahoma law, which determined what constituted a "conviction, " a dismissed case would constitute a nullity only if...
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