United States v. Patton, 114 F.3d 174, 11th Cir. (1997)

114 F.
3d 174
11 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 11
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.
Willie PATTON, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.
No. 94-6178.
United States Court of Appeals,

Eleventh Circuit.
June 10, 1997.
Alexander Bunin, Lyn Campbell, Southern Dist. of Alabama Federal

Defender Organization, Mobile, AL, for Defendant-Appellant.
Donna B. Dobbins, George Martin, Asst. U.S. Attys., Mobile, AL, for
Plaintiff-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of
Alabama.
Before HATCHETT, Chief Judge, ANDERSON, Circuit Judge, and
LAY* , Senior Circuit Judge.
PER CURIAM:
In 1992, Willie Patton, Jr. was convicted of possession of firearms after

conviction of a felony, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1), and possession of
an unregistered firearm in violation of 26 U.S.C. 5861(d). Patton's criminal
history relevant to his sentencing includes a 1976 conviction for bank robbery
and a 1982 conviction for conveying a weapon (an 11 1/2-inch homemade
knife) while confined in a federal prison. The district court1 sentenced Patton
under U.S.S.G. 2K2.1, which provides a base level of 26 for a firearms
possession offense if the defendant has at least two prior felony convictions of
either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense. The court also
applied U.S.S.G. 4B1.1, which governs the sentencing of "career offenders."
A defendant reaches career offender status if he or she (1) is at least eighteen
years of age at the time of the offense, (2) commits a felony that is a crime of
violence or a controlled substance offense, and (3) has at least two prior felony
convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense.
U.S.S.G. 4B1.1.
2
In deciding to apply both of these provisions, the district court first held that
this court's decision in United States v. Stinson, 957 F.2d 813 (11th Cir.1992)
(per curiam), mandated that the instant offenses for felonin-possession and
possession of an unregistered firearm are crimes of violence for purposes of
determining career offender status under 4B1.1. This court in Stinson held
that a conviction for felon-in-possession is a crime of violence under this
provision, notwithstanding Guidelines commentary to the contrary which was
added after Stinson was sentenced. 957 F.2d at 815. Second, the sentencing
court stated that Patton's 1976 bank robbery offense was indisputably a crime of
violence. Finally, relying in part on Stinson, the court determined that Patton's
1982 conviction for conveyance of a weapon while in prison was a crime of
violence. It noted, "[I]f just mere possession of a firearm after conviction of a
felony is a crime of violence, then having a homemade knife in a penitentiary
would be a crime of violence." Under this analysis, Patton met the requirements
for both 4B1.1 (the career offender provision) and 2K2.1 (mandating a base
offense level of 26). The court sentenced Patton accordingly to 162 months in
prison.
Patton appealed the convictions and his sentence to this court. While the appeal
was pending, the Supreme Court reversed Stinson. In Stinson v. United States,
the Supreme Court determined that the plain terms of the amended Guidelines
commentary controlled, and therefore that a felon-in-possession offense is not a
crime of violence under the Guidelines. 508 U.S. 36, 47, 113 S.Ct. 1913, 1920,
123 L.Ed.2d 598 (1993); see also U.S.S.G. 4B1.2, comment. (n.2) ("The term
'crime of violence' does not include the offense of unlawful possession of a
firearm by a felon."). When this court heard Patton's appeal, we affirmed the
convictions, but vacated his sentence in light of the Supreme Court's Stinson
decision. We directed the district court on remand to resentence Patton without
applying the 4B1.1 career criminal provision. The applicability of 2K2.1,
however, remained an open question, because the district court had in part
relied on the Eleventh Circuit Stinson case to determine that the 1982
conviction was a crime of violence.2 Thus, we remanded the 2K2.1 issue "in
order to give [the district court] an opportunity to decide whether Patton's prior
conviction for conveyance of a knife in a prison is a crime of violence for
reasons unrelated to our now-reversed Stinson decision." United States v.
Patton, No. 92-6392, slip op. at 5, 5 F.3d 1498, 1993 WL 389483 (11th
Cir.1993) (per curiam) (Patton I ).
On remand, the district court again applied 2K2.1(a)(1), reaffirming its

position that the conviction for conveyance of a weapon in prison is a crime of
violence. The court sentenced Patton to 120 months imprisonment, to be
followed by a three-year term of supervised release. Patton appeals, and we
now affirm.
The Conviction for Conveyance

5
Patton disputes the various characterizations of his crime, which is described in

at least four places. First, the statute under which he was convicted read in part
as follows:
6
Whoever
conveys into [a federal penal or correctional] institution, or from place to
place therein, any firearm, weapon, explosive, or any lethal or poisonous gas, or any
other substance or thing designed to kill, injure, or disable any officer, agent,
employee, or inmate thereof, or conspires so to do ... [s]hall be imprisoned not more
than ten years.
7
18 U.S.C. 1792 (1982) (amended 1984). Second, Patton's 1982 Judgment and
Commitment Order states that Patton was convicted for "knowingly conveying
a weapon, that is, a knife with an approximate length of 11 1/2 inches, from
place to place, within the Federal Correctional Institute at Talladega, Alabama,
in violation of [18 U.S.C. 1792]." Third, Patton's Presentence Report (PSR),
in describing his crime, alleges that while being escorted by a correctional
officer, Patton was searched and discovered to have the knife hidden up his
sleeve. Patton maintains, at he did at his original sentencing, that the knife was
found "under a stack of jackets in the shakedown room" while officers were
searching him. Finally, this court in its remand order stated that Patton
"concealed on his person, while being transferred from one part of a prison to
another, a homemade knife which was nearly a foot long." Patton I, slip op. at
4.
Patton asserts that the district court inappropriately relied on facts alleged in the
PSR but not proven at trial, and on our use of the word "concealed" in the
description of his crime. This reliance would violate United States v. Spell,
where this court made clear that only "the conduct of which the defendant was
convicted" is to be the focus of the district court's inquiry. 44 F.3d 936, 940
(11th Cir.1995) (per curiam) (quoting U.S.S.G. 4B1.2, comment. (n.2)). It is
true that in Patton I, we stated that Patton "concealed" a weapon, and the
district court repeated the statement when making its findings on resentencing.
It is also true that Patton was never convicted of "concealing" a weapon. It is
clear from the transcript of the resentencing, however, that the district court
was focusing on conveyance of a weapon in a federal prison--an action for

which Patton indisputably was convicted. After the judge read a description of
Patton's crime from the PSR, Patton objected to the "rendition of the facts"
contained in the PSR. This exchange followed:
9
The Court: [But] you were convicted; right?
10
The Defendant: Yes, I was.
11
The Court: Well, what difference would it make?
12
The Defendant: Make a lot of difference. [The Probation Officer is] saying I
had it on me. I'm saying that I didn't have it at all.
13
The Court: You were convicted of conveying it.
14
The Defendant: Sure, I was.
15
The Court: Well, I'll have to accept that. I'm not going to go back and retry your
case.
16
This portion of the transcript illustrates that the district court was relying only
on Patton's conviction for conveyance, and not facts in the PSR or our
erroneous characterization of Patton's crime as "concealment" of a weapon.3
Thus the court's sentencing conformed with our decision in Spell, leaving for
our determination whether it was correct in concluding that conveyance of a
weapon in federal prison is a crime of violence.
Crime of Violence Under 2K2.1

17
Section 2K2.1 refers courts to 4B1.2 for a definition of "crime of violence."

Included in the 4B1.2 definition is any felony offense involving "conduct that
presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another." U.S.S.G.
4B1.2(1)(ii). Patton would have this court hold, under the Supreme Court's
decision in Stinson, that conveyance of a weapon in a federal prison is
sufficiently similar to a felon-in-possession offense to render the former not a
crime of violence under the Guidelines. We have difficulty with this request.
First, Patton misreads Stinson as simply holding that a felon-in-possession
offense is not a crime of violence. The Court in Stinson did not weigh the
potential risks of possession of a weapon by a convicted felon and decide it was
not a crime of violence. Rather, it looked at the plain language of the

Guidelines commentary appended to 4B1.1, and found that the amended
commentary specifically exempted felon-in-possession offenses from the
definition of crime of violence, and that this amendment is a binding
interpretation of the definition. 508 U.S. at 47, 113 S.Ct. at 1920. The focus in
Stinson was not on the crime of felon-in-possession, but instead on whether the
Guideline commentary controlled the sentencing and reviewing courts. See id.
Stinson therefore cannot inform our analysis in the way Patton desires. We do
not have the luxury of specific Guidelines commentary speaking directly to the
crime at issue; we must rely instead on our cases and common sense.
18
Using these, we find, quite simply, that conveyance of a weapon in a federal

prison constitutes a crime of violence as that term is defined in 4B1.2. We
have previously held that a conviction for carrying a concealed weapon is a
"violent felony" under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C.
924(e), United States v. Hall, 77 F.3d 398, 401-02 (11th Cir.), cert. denied sub
nom., McKinney v. United States, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 139, 136 L.Ed.2d 86
(1996), while a conviction for felon-in-possession is not. United States v.
Oliver, 20 F.3d 415, 418 (11th Cir.1994) (per curiam). Though the ACCA and
the Guidelines are not interpreted identically, see id. at 417, the analysis under
the similar phrases "violent felony" and "crime of violence" is nonetheless
instructive. Conveying a weapon in federal prison is sufficiently analogous to
carrying a concealed weapon outside a prison, and sufficiently distinguishable
from mere possession of a weapon outside a prison, to render it a crime of
violence under the Guidelines. Conveyance differs from mere possession in that
the weapon, whether displayed or concealed, is accessible and available for
use. See Hall, 77 F.3d at 402 n. 2. It is not difficult to conclude that such an
action, when it occurs inside a federal prison where conditions require
heightened security, carries with it a serious risk of physical injury, making it a
crime of violence under the Guidelines. We therefore affirm the ruling of the
district court.
19
JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.
Honorable Donald P. Lay, Senior U.S. Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit,
sitting by designation
Honorable Charles R. Butler, Jr., United States District Judge for the Southern
District of Alabama
The parties do not dispute that Patton's 1976 bank robbery offense is a crime of
violence under the Guidelines

3
The court's written ruling also buttresses our conclusion. In its Report of
Statement and Reasons for Imposing Sentence, the court ruled that "defendant's
conviction of Conveying a Dangerous Instrument While Confined In A Federal
Institution is a crime of violence."

United States v. Patton, 114 F.3d 174, 11th Cir. (1997)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

United States v. Patton, 114 F.3d 174, 11th Cir. (1997)

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

United States v. Patton, 114 F.3d 174, 11th Cir. (1997)

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

114 F.

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

United States Court of Appeals,

Alexander Bunin, Lyn Campbell, Southern Dist. of Alabama Federal

In 1992, Willie Patton, Jr. was convicted of possession of firearms after

On remand, the district court again applied 2K2.1(a)(1), reaffirming its

The Conviction for Conveyance

Patton disputes the various characterizations of his crime, which is described in

was focusing on conveyance of a weapon in a federal prison--an action for

The Court: [But] you were convicted; right?

The Defendant: Yes, I was.

The Court: Well, what difference would it make?

The Court: You were convicted of conveying it.

The Defendant: Sure, I was.

Crime of Violence Under 2K2.1

Section 2K2.1 refers courts to 4B1.2 for a definition of "crime of violence."

not a crime of violence. Rather, it looked at the plain language of the

Using these, we find, quite simply, that conveyance of a weapon in a federal

violence under the Guidelines

You might also like