Lassend v. United States
Opinion
Kirk Lassend appeals from the district court's denial of his § 2255 petition.
United States
v.
Lassend
, No. CR 10-40019,
We affirm the district court and find that the three prior convictions are ACCA predicates. We again hold that a Massachusetts conviction for assault with a deadly weapon is a predicate offense under the ACCA's force clause. As to Lassend's New York conviction for attempted second-degree assault, we conclude that a conviction under New York Penal Law § 120.05(7) qualifies as a violent felony under the ACCA's force clause. We reach the same conclusion as to Lassend's conviction for New York first-degree robbery under New York Penal Law § 160.15(4). Our analysis is consistent with that of many other circuits, and as to the New York first-degree robbery conviction, consistent with the views of the Second Circuit in
Stuckey
v.
United States
,
*119 I. Background
A. Lassend's Arrest and Conviction
In July 2010, two individuals in Fitchburg, Massachusetts called 911 to report that Lassend had been walking up and down the street with a gun and firing shots into the air. Police officers placed Lassend under arrest at the scene. The officers recovered ammunition from Lassend's pocket and found a gun in an unlocked closet in the common hallway of a nearby apartment building. A search of Lassend's residence uncovered a holster that appeared to fit that gun, and additional ammunition.
In September 2010, Lassend was indicted on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of
B. Original District Court Sentencing Proceedings
The Probation Office's 2012 presentence report ("PSR") determined that Lassend was subject to a sentencing enhancement under the ACCA because he had at least three prior convictions for a violent felony or a serious drug offense. The PSR identified four of his prior convictions as qualifying ACCA predicates: (1) a 1992 New York conviction for "Robbery in First Degree: Forcible Theft Armed with Deadly Weapon"; (2) a 1997 New York conviction for "Robbery in First Degree: Display What Appears to [Be a] Firearm"; (3) a 1998 New York conviction for "Assault in Second Degree"; and (4) a 2010 Massachusetts conviction for "Assault and Battery by Dangerous Weapon" ("ABDW") and "Assault by Dangerous Weapon" ("ADW").
The PSR determined that Lassend's Guidelines sentencing range ("GSR") was 235 to 293 months, with a mandatory minimum of 15 years under the ACCA. Lassend objected, inter alia, in the district court to the PSR's conclusion that he was subject to an ACCA enhancement, arguing that the residual clause of the ACCA was "unconstitutionally void for vagueness."
At sentencing, in March 2012, the district court overruled Lassend's objections to the PSR, including his objection to the PSR's determination that he was subject to an ACCA enhancement. Lassend stated that he had no other objections to the PSR "just as long as [his] objection to the [ACCA] on grounds that it's constitutionally void for vagueness [wa]s preserved." The district court then adopted the PSR's calculations and determined that Lassend's GSR was 235 to 293 months. After hearing from both parties, the district court sentenced Lassend to a term of imprisonment of 235 months on each count, to be served concurrently, followed by a five-year term of supervised release.
C. Direct Appeal
Lassend filed a direct appeal challenging his conviction.
See
United States
v.
Lassend
,
D. Habeas Corpus Proceedings Before the District Court
The Supreme Court later decided
Johnson
v.
United States
("
Johnson II
"), --- U.S. ----,
After the district court appointed counsel to represent Lassend in the § 2255 proceedings, Lassend filed another supplemental petition in which he argued that his sentence was unconstitutional because the government could not show that his criminal record contained violent felonies under the ACCA's force clause,
The government opposed these arguments for the same reasons it now gives in support of the district court's decision. 2 It also argued those issues should not be reached because Lassend had procedurally defaulted his Johnson II claims. We deal with the procedural default and merits arguments below.
We also note that the government obtained the indictment and plea-colloquy transcript for Lassend's New York attempted second-degree assault conviction and placed them in the record before the district court. 3 The government argued that although the indictment did not cite the statutory provision for the counts charged, it contained language mirroring the statutory language of New York Penal Law § 120.05(2) as to the first count and New York Penal Law § 120.05(7) (prisoner assault) as to the second count. The government argued that the plea-colloquy transcript showed that Lassend pled guilty to the second count of the indictment, and, consequently, the applicable statutory provision for his conviction was § 120.05(7).
At the hearing on Lassend's § 2255 petition in May 2017, Lassend argued for the first time that his New York first-degree robbery conviction under New York Penal Law § 160.15(4) is not a violent felony because the statute does not require the actual use of a dangerous weapon to threaten the victim, nor, he says, does it require that the perpetrator himself intentionally use violent force.
On July 11, 2017, the district court denied Lassend's § 2255 petition in a careful decision.
See
*121
Lassend
,
As to the merits of Lassend's claims, the district court first found that, under clear First Circuit precedent, Lassend's Massachusetts ADW conviction qualifies as a violent felony under the ACCA's force clause.
Id.
at *10. The district court also found that Lassend's New York attempted second-degree assault conviction qualifies as an ACCA predicate under the force clause.
Id.
at *10-12. Applying the modified categorical approach, the district court determined that Lassend had been convicted under New York Penal Law § 120.05(7) because the relevant
Shepard
documents-the state court indictment and the plea-colloquy transcript-showed that Lassend had pled guilty to the second count of the indictment, the language of which mirrored that of § 120.05(7).
Lassend
,
The district court next found that Lassend's 1997 New York first-degree robbery conviction qualifies as a violent felony.
Id.
at *12-16. It applied the modified categorical approach to determine that Lassend had been convicted under § 160.15(4).
Id.
at *13. It then determined that the "[d]isplays what appears to be a ... firearm" element of that subsection involves the threatened use of physical force, thereby qualifying the 1997 conviction as a violent felony.
Id.
at *14-15 (alteration in original) (quoting
The district court accordingly held that Lassend was properly sentenced as an armed career criminal.
The district court granted Lassend a certificate of appealability on Lassend's claim that his ACCA sentence violates the Constitution.
*122 II. Discussion
An individual in federal custody may petition for post-conviction relief under
A. Procedural Default
"[C]laims not raised on direct appeal may not be raised on collateral review unless the petitioner shows cause and prejudice."
Massaro
v.
United States
,
1. Cause
A petitioner has cause for procedurally defaulting a constitutional claim where that claim was "so novel that its legal basis [wa]s not reasonably available to counsel" at the time of the default.
Reed
v.
Ross
,
At the time of Lassend's direct appeal in 2013, the Supreme Court's decisions in
James
and
Sykes
were still good law. Both of those decisions had rejected challenges to the ACCA's residual clause on constitutional vagueness grounds.
Sykes
,
The government argues that
Bousley
requires that we find that Lassend had no cause. In that case, the petitioner argued that he had cause for his procedural default because it would have been futile to raise the argument in question.
Bousley
,
2. Prejudice
To overcome procedural default, Lassend must also show " 'actual prejudice' resulting from the errors of which he complains."
Frady
,
B. Merits of Constitutional Challenge to the ACCA
An individual who violates
On appeal, Lassend challenges the district court's determination that his convictions for Massachusetts ADW, New York attempted second-degree assault, and New York first-degree robbery qualify as predicates under the ACCA's force requirement, as defined in
Johnson I
, making
*124
different arguments as to each. The parties agree that each of the statutes giving rise to these three convictions are divisible. Hence, we apply the modified categorical approach.
See
id.
at 144,
1. Massachusetts ADW
The Massachusetts ADW statute provides that
[w]hoever, by means of a dangerous weapon, commits an assault upon another shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or imprisonment in jail for not more than two and one-half years.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265, § 15B(b). Lassend does not dispute that he was convicted under this statute.
In
United States
v.
Whindleton
,
Of course, "newly constituted panels in a multi-panel circuit court are bound by prior panel decisions that are closely on point."
United States
v.
Wurie
,
2. New York Attempted Second-Degree Assault under Subsection (7)
Under New York Penal Law § 120.05(7),
[a] person is guilty of assault in the second degree when ... [h]aving been charged with or convicted of a crime and while confined in a correctional facility, as defined in subdivision three of section forty of the correction law, pursuant to such charge or conviction, with intent to cause physical injury to another person, he causes such injury to such person or to a third person....
Both the indictment and the plea-colloquy transcript are
Shepard
-approved documents.
See
Mathis
v.
United States
, --- U.S. ----,
We reject
8
Lassend's assertion that the indictment must expressly cite § 120.05(7) for the documents to establish that he was convicted under that statutory provision.
See
United States
v.
Sanchez-Espinal
,
Lassend next argues that a conviction under § 120.05(7) does not qualify as a violent felony because the statute does not actually require that physical force be used to cause the injury. To support this argument, Lassend relies primarily on two district court decisions from other circuits, which concern a different subsection of § 120.05 and purport to rely on a suggestion from Second Circuit reasoning in
Chrzanoski
v.
Ashcroft
,
The Court in
Castleman
also held that "the knowing or intentional causation of bodily injury
necessarily
involves the use of physical force" under
We need not decide whether some methods *127 of indirectly causing physical harm 11 -for example, deliberately withholding vital medicine-do not involve the use of violent force, because Lassend's challenge to the use of § 120.05(7) as an ACCA predicate suffers from an antecedent flaw.
In evaluating whether a crime satisfies the force clause, we examine "the least serious conduct for which there is a '
realistic probability
' of a charge and conviction."
Starks
,
3. New York First-Degree Robbery
Lassend was convicted under New York Penal Law § 160.15(4), which provides, in relevant part, that:
A person is guilty of robbery in the first degree when he forcibly steals property and when, in the course of the commission of the crime or of immediate flight therefrom, he or another participant in the crime ... [d]isplays what appears to be a pistol, revolver, rifle, shotgun, machine gun or other firearm ....
As the New York Court of Appeals stated in
People
v.
Miller
,
The court went on to discuss the "attendant circumstances" (such as displaying a weapon), noting that these aggravating circumstances embody a "legislative determination" that the " 'aggravating factors' exacerbate[ ] the core criminal act and increase[ ] the danger of serious physical injury ..., thus warranting harsher punishment for the robber."
Lassend does not contest the fact that he was convicted under § 160.15(4). Nor does he contest that his conviction shows that he intended to forcibly steal property. That alone, he says, is not enough. 13 He challenges the use of his conviction as an ACCA predicate on two aspects of the aggravating circumstances.
i. Display of What Appears To Be a Firearm
Lassend first argues that the display element of § 160.15(4) does not satisfy
Johnson I
's violent-force requirement because a defendant can display an item that is not actually dangerous. He focuses his argument on the language "displays what
appears to be
a pistol, revolver, rifle, shotgun, machine gun or other firearm."
Lassend is correct that, under New York law, an individual can violate § 160.15(4) by displaying an item that is not actually a firearm, but only appears to the victim to be such.
14
There is a New York case suggesting that "[a] towel wrapped around a black object ..., a
*129
toothbrush held in a pocket ...[,] or even a hand consciously concealed in clothing" can satisfy the display element of § 160.15(4)"if under all the circumstances the defendant's conduct could reasonably lead the victim to believe that a gun is being used during the robbery."
Lopez
,
Case law has long made it clear that display of what appears to be a weapon increases fear of bodily harm. Lassend's reliance on our decision in
Starks
does not work because that case involved the crime of Massachusetts armed robbery, which we found not to be a violent felony.
See
Our own case law requires rejection of Lassend's argument, as does the law of other circuits. In
Ellison
, we held that federal bank robbery is categorically a crime of violence under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a), even though it can be committed "by intimidation,"
Case law from other circuits follows the same approach. The Fifth Circuit in
United States
v.
Ovalle-Chun
,
The Sixth Circuit reached a similar conclusion in
United States
v.
Gloss
,
"the intentional or knowing theft of property from the person of another by violence or by putting the person in fear," where that theft is "[a]ccomplished with a deadly weapon or by display of any article used or fashioned to lead the victim to reasonably believe it to be a deadly weapon; or ... [w]here the victim suffers serious bodily injury."
ii. Accomplice
Lassend next urges us to hold that a conviction under § 160.15(4) is not a violent felony under
Leocal
and
Johnson I
because the statute does not require a defendant to intend the use of violent force as to the display of a firearm. In
Leocal
, the Supreme Court held that the phrase "use ... of physical force against the person or property of another" in
We reject Lassend's argument that the fact that a defendant can be convicted when an accomplice displays a firearm or what appears to be a firearm means that § 160.15(4) does not satisfy the ACCA's intent requirement under Leocal .
The ACCA defines a violent felony as "any
crime
punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year ... that has as an
element
the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another."
The Supreme Court addressed similar language in
Dean
v.
United States
,
Our interpretation of the ACCA's force cause is consistent with that of the Second Circuit, which recently rejected an identical § 160.15(4) argument in
Stuckey
. It noted that "the intent and force requirements outlined in
Leocal
and [
Johnson I
] are examined separately."
Stuckey
,
The Second Circuit began by acknowledging that the parties agreed that first-degree robbery under New York law required the display of a weapon "in the course of a robbery," which "well exceeds the degree of violent physical force the ACCA requires."
Indeed, our holding also comports with traditional accomplice-liability principles. As the Second Circuit noted, § 160.15(4)"reflects the principle of criminal law that a defendant may be held responsible for actions taken by an accomplice to certain crimes."
Stuckey
,
The Supreme Court dealt with the culpability of principals and accomplices in
Gonzales
v.
Duenas-Alvarez
,
The Court, in reversing the Ninth Circuit, recognized that "every jurisdiction-all States and the Federal Government-has 'expressly abrogated the distinction' " between principals, aiders and abettors present at the scene of a crime, and accessories before the fact.
Id.
at 189-90,
The government draws a similar analogy to the felony murder rule. In Dean , the Court observed that:
It is unusual to impose criminal punishment for the consequences of purely accidental conduct. But it is not unusual to punish individuals for the unintended consequences of their unlawful acts . See 2 W. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 14.4, pp. 436-437 (2d ed. 2003). The felony-murder rule is a familiar example: If a defendant commits an unintended homicide while committing another felony, the defendant can be convicted of murder. See18 U.S.C. § 1111 .
Dean
,
accounts for the risk of harm resulting from the manner in which the crime is carried out, for which the defendant is responsible. An individual who brings a loaded weapon to commit a crime runs the risk that the gun will discharge accidentally. A gunshot in such circumstances-whether accidental or intended-increases the risk that others will be injured, that people will panic, or that violence (with its own danger to those nearby) will be used in response. Those criminals wishing to avoid the penalty for an inadvertent discharge can lock or unload the firearm, handle it with care during the underlying violent or drug trafficking crime, leave the gun at home, or-best yet-avoid committing the felony in the first place.
Dean
,
*133
The intent requirement for conviction as an accomplice or accessary can vary by crime and jurisdiction.
Compare
Rosemond
v.
United States
,
If Congress had desired to preclude convictions from qualifying as ACCA predicates where the defendant acted as an accomplice and did not intend the principal's use of force, it would have done so clearly. Congress could have included an express intent requirement in the ACCA's force clause, as it did in other subsections of
For these reasons, we hold, consistent with the Second Circuit, that § 160.15(4) meets the requirements of
Leocal
and
Johnson I
. First, § 160.15(4)'s display element independently meets
Johnson I
's violent-force requirement. Second, § 160.15(4) does not criminalize the type of "negligent or merely accidental conduct" that
Leocal
discussed,
III. Conclusion
Because three of Lassend's convictions qualify as violent felonies under the ACCA's force clause, 17 we affirm the district *134 court's dismissal of his § 2255 petition.
On October 14, 2014, Lassend had filed a timely pro se petition under
The government also explained that the district court need not reach the issue of whether Lassend's Massachusetts ABDW conviction should also be considered a violent felony given that Lassend's criminal record contained three other predicate violent felonies.
The government also obtained certified copies of convictions showing that Lassend's 1992 first-degree robbery conviction was for violating § 160.15(2) and that his 1997 first-degree robbery conviction was for violating § 160.15(4). Lassend does not dispute that he was convicted under these statutes.
The finding that Lassend was an armed career criminal under the ACCA subjected him to a statutory minimum sentence of 15 years for violating
For the purposes of our analysis, we assume that decisions construing the term "crime of violence" in the Sentencing Guidelines and decisions construing the term "crime of violence" in
There are narrow exceptions to the law of the circuit rule, including (1) "when the holding of the prior panel is 'contradicted by controlling authority, subsequently announced' "; or (2) when "authority that postdates the original decision, although not directly controlling, nevertheless offers a sound reason for believing that the former panel, in light of fresh developments, would change its collective mind."
Wurie
,
The second count of the indictment stated the following:
The grand jury of the County of the Bronx by this indictment, accuses the defendant Kirk Lassend of the crime of assault in the second degree committed as follows:
The defendant, Kirk Lassend, ... with intent to cause physical injury to another person, Willie Wells, did cause such injury to Willie Wells, where at the time of the commission of the act, the defendant was confined in a correctional facility pursuant to having been charged with or convicted of a crime.
And defense counsel stated that "Mr. Lassend has authorized me ... to enter a plea of guilty to attempted assault in the second degree, under count two of [the] indictment...." (emphasis added). The trial court also confirmed with Lassend that he was pleading guilty to "attempted assault in the second degree under the second count of the indictment...." (emphasis added).
We also reject Lassend's claim that the documents do not establish that he was convicted under § 120.05(7) because the plea-colloquy transcript shows that he pled guilty to "attempted assault" whereas the indictment charged assault. Lassend fails to explain how this alleged discrepancy is material, given that Lassend acknowledged during the plea colloquy that he was pleading guilty to count two of the indictment. Moreover, the ACCA's force clause expressly encompasses crimes involving the "
attempted
... use of physical force."
Lassend relies on
United States
v.
Poindexter
, No. 3:97-CR-00079,
it seems an individual could be convicted of intentional assault in the third degree for injury caused not by physical force, but by guile, deception, or even deliberate omission.... [H]uman experience suggests numerous examples of intentionally causing physical injury without the use of force, such as a doctor who deliberately withholds vital medicine from a sick patient....
Justice Scalia concurred in
Castleman
.
Following
Castleman
, the Fourth Circuit has consistently drawn a distinction between the causation of bodily injury and the use of violent force.
See
United States
v.
Middleton
,
It is possible that the hypothetical conduct described in
Chrzanoski
-withholding vital medicine-can be the basis of an assault charge under § 120.05(1), at least where there is a legal duty to provide such medicine,
see
People
v.
Miranda
,
Neither party disputes that the "forcibly steals property" element of § 160.15(4) does not satisfy
Johnson I
's violent-force requirement in light of our decision in
United States
v.
Steed
,
A defendant charged under § 160.15(4) can present an affirmative defense that the firearm displayed "was not a loaded weapon from which a shot, readily capable of producing death or other serious physical injury, could be discharged." This affirmative defense does not "constitute a defense to a prosecution for, or preclude a conviction of, robbery in the second degree, robbery in the third degree or any other crime."
To the extent Lassend may be arguing that a defendant can be convicted where he unintentionally displays a weapon, he has waived that argument by failing to develop it.
United States
v.
Zannino
,
In line with
Dean
, many circuits have explained that it is typical to hold defendants accountable for the unintended consequences of intentional criminal acts.
See, e.g.
,
United States
v.
McDuffy
,
Because we have determined that three of Lassend's convictions qualify as ACCA predicates, we need not decide whether his conviction for forcible theft while armed with a deadly weapon under New York Penal Law § 160.15(2) is an ACCA predicate.
See
United States
v.
Mastera
,
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Kirk LASSEND, Petitioner, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Respondent, Appellee.
- Cited By
- 32 cases
- Status
- Published