United States v. Cline, CASE NO. CR19-0023-JCC

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. LEE JAMES CLINE, Defendant.

CASE NO. CR19-0023-JCC

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE

April 14, 2020

THE HONORABLE JOHN C. COUGHENOUR

ORDER

This matter comes before the Court on Defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment (Dkt. No. 40). Having thoroughly considered the parties' briefing and the relevant record, the Court finds oral argument unnecessary and hereby DENIES the motion for the reasons explained herein.

I. BACKGROUND

Defendant has been indicted on one count of domestic assault by a habitual offender in violation 18 U.S.C. § 117(a). (Dkt. No. 13 at 1.) The indictment against Defendant alleges that he has "been convicted of at least two assaults against a spouse or intimate partner" and that Defendant "did assault Jane Doe, a person with whom he shares a child in common and who is or was similarly situated to a spouse." (Id. at 1-2.) The indictment cites three of Defendant's prior convictions as qualifying predicate offenses under § 117(a). (See id.) Defendant now moves to dismiss the indictment against him, arguing that the Government has failed to state an offense because his prior convictions are categorically overbroad and thus do not satisfy the elements of his charged offense. (Dkt. No. 40.)¹

II. DISCUSSION

A. Legal Standard

"Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b) allows a defendant to file a pretrial motion to dismiss an indictment for failure to state an offense if the motion 'can be determined without a trial on the merits.'" United States v. Kelly, 874 F.3d 1037, 1046 (9th Cir. 2017) (quoting Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(b)(3)(B)(v)). "A motion to dismiss is generally capable of determination before trial if it involves questions of law rather than fact." United States v. Nukida, 8 F.3d 665, 669 (9th Cir. 1993) (quotations omitted). "In determining whether an indictment charges a cognizable offense, [the court is] bound by the four corners of the indictment, must accept the truth of the allegations in the indictment, and cannot consider evidence that does not appear on the face of the indictment." Kelly, 874 F.3d at 1046 (citing United States v. Lyle, 742 F.3d 434, 436 (9th Cir. 2014); United States v. Jensen, 93 F.3d 667, 669 (9th Cir. 1996)).

B. 18 U.S.C. § 117(a)(1)

Under 18 U.S.C. § 117(a)(1):

Any person who commits a domestic assault within . . . Indian country and who has a final conviction on at least two separate prior occasions in Federal, State, or Indian tribal court proceedings for offenses that would be, if subject to Federal jurisdiction . . . any assault, sexual abuse, or serious violent felony against a spouse or intimate partner . . . shall be fined . . . , imprisoned for a term of not more than 5 years, or both . . . .

The parties dispute which approach the Court should use to determine whether Defendant's prior convictions may serve as predicate offenses under § 117(a). Defendant argues that "[t]his Court must use the categorical approach . . . because 18 U.S.C. § 117 refers to generic crimes . . . ratherthan the particular facts or conduct of the alleged priors." (Dkt. No. 40 at 4-5.) The Government asserts a fact-specific approach is required "[b]ecause [Defendant's] prior convictions, and the fact that he committed them against his domestic partner, are actual elements of the offense, [and thus] the government should be permitted to prove them at trial." (Dkt. No. 46 at 4.) The issue of which approach to apply to § 117(a) has not been squarely decided. See United States v. Flett, 379 F. Supp. 3d 1152, 1154 (E.D. Wash. 2019) ("Assuming, without deciding, that the categorical approach applies" to § 117(a) predicate offenses); but see United States v. Morris, 2019 WL 1110211, slip op. at 2 (D. Neb. 2019) (citing United States v. Drapeau, 827 F.3d 773, 776 (8th Cir. 2016)) ("[T]he Eighth Circuit appears to have directed a fact-specific approach [to § 117(a)]. This approach also appears to be consistent with the language of § 117(a) and the statute's objective.").

The categorical approach looks to "the elements of the statute of conviction" and has generally been applied by courts to determine whether a defendant's prior convictions may serve as a basis to enhance his or her sentence. See Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243, 2248 (2016); Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 602 (1990). Recently, the Supreme Court emphasized that a statute's use of the term "convictions" supports the application of the categorical approach. See Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2252-53 (collecting cases). In contrast, the circumstance-specific approach looks to "the facts and circumstances underlying an offender's conviction" and has been applied to statutes that use words such as "committed" or "in which." See United States v. Hayes, 555 U.S. 415, 421 (2009); Nijhawan v. Holder, 557 U.S. 29, 34-36 (2009). And a statute may present a "hybrid situation" in which one section of a statute is governed by the categorical approach while another is subject to the circumstance-specific approach. See United States v. Doss, 630 F.3d 1181, 1197 (9th Cir. 2011) (analyzing 18 U.S.C. § 3559(e)(1) and concluding that phrase "a prior 'sex offense' conviction" required application of categorical approach and phrase "in which a minor was the victim" called for application of circumstance-specific approach and had to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt by theGovernment at trial).

Section 117(a) presents such a "hybrid" situation. An examination of the statute's relevant language yields two distinct elements. The first requires "a final conviction on at least two separate occasions in Federal, State, or Indian tribal court proceedings for offenses that would be, if subject to Federal jurisdiction . . . any assault, sexual abuse, or serious violent felony." 18 U.S.C. § 117(a)(1). The statute's use of the term "conviction" in this element indicates that the categorical approach must be applied to determine whether a defendant's prior convictions may serve as predicate offenses under § 117(a)(1). See Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2252-53. This interpretation is reinforced by § 117(a)(1)'s explicit call to compare the defendant's statutes of conviction for "offenses" with enumerated federal generic offenses.²

The second element requires that the defendant's alleged predicate offenses were "against a spouse or intimate partner." See 18 U.S.C. § 117(a)(1). Unlike the first element, which refers to federal generic offenses, § 117(a)(1)'s use of the word "against" requires a factual determination as to the nature of the victim or victims of the defendant's alleged predicate offenses. Therefore, a circumstance-specific approach is appropriate. See Doss, 630 F.3d at 1196-97 (finding that phrase "in which a minor was the victim" required courts to "look to the specific circumstances of that conviction to determine whether it involved a minor"). This construction of the statute, while based on its plain language, is further bolstered by Congress's intent to address the high incidence rate of domestic violence against Native American women, see United States v. Bryant, 136 S. Ct. 1954, 1958-61 (2016); as noted by the Government, construing § 117(a)(1) to require that a defendant's prior statutes of convictions be categorical matches with the fewfederal generic offenses containing a relationship element would leave § 117(a)(1) with little meaningful application. See Nijhawan, 557 U.S. at 39; (Dkt. No. 46 at 6).

In sum, the relevant language of § 117(a)(1) sets forth two distinct elements subject to two different analytical frameworks: (1) at least two final convictions in federal, state, or tribal court for offenses that are categorical matches to "any assault, sexual abuse, or serious violent felony" as defined by federal law; and (2) a factual determination as to whether the victim of each alleged predicate offense was "a spouse or intimate partner." See Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2252-53; Doss, 630 F.3d at 1197. The first requires the Court to use the categorical approach to determine whether Defendant's prior offenses qualify as predicates under § 117(a)(1). See Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2252-53. The second calls for a circumstances-specific approach and thus requires the Government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim of each alleged predicate offense was a "spouse or intimate partner." See Doss, 630 F.3d at 1197. Therefore, the Court now turns to the question of whether Defendant's prior convictions cited in the indictment against him qualify as predicate offenses under § 117(a)(1).

C. Predicate Offenses Under § 117(a)(1)

1. Categorical Approach Legal Standard

Under the categorical approach, courts "inquire first 'whether the elements of the crime of conviction sufficiently match the elements of [the federal generic offense].'" United States v. Arriaga-Pinon, 852 F.3d 1195, 1198-99 (9th Cir. 2017) (quoting Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2248). "In doing so, [courts] focus solely on whether the elements of the statute of conviction match the elements of the identified qualifying federal offense." Id. at 1199 (citing Taylor, 495 U.S. at 600-01). If the statute of conviction "criminalizes conduct that would not qualify as a federal predicate offense, then the offense does not categorically qualify as a proper predicate offense." Id.

If the statute is overbroad, courts next examine "whether the statute's elements are also an indivisible set." Id. at 1199 (citing Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2248-49). A statute is divisible whena "single statute . . . list[s] elements in the alternative, and thereby define[s] multiple crimes." Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2248. And "if the statute is divisible, then the modified categorical approach applies and 'a sentencing court looks to a limited class of documents . . . to determine what crime, with what elements, a defendant was convicted of.'" Arriaga-Pinon, 852 F.3d at 1199 (quoting Mathis, 136 S. Ct. at 2249). If the prior conviction resulted...