United States v. Mathis

• Decision Date: 12 May 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–2396.,14–2396.
• Citation: 786 F.3d 1068
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee v. Richard MATHIS, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

786 F.3d 1068

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee

v.Richard MATHIS, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 14–2396.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: Dec. 9, 2014.

Filed: May 12, 2015.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied June 23, 2015.^*

John D. Keller, Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office, Davenport, IA, Marc Krickbaum, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Maureen McGuire, Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office, Des Moines, IA, for Plaintiff–Appellee.

Richard Mathis, Oxford, WI, pro se.

John P. Messina, Assistant, Federal Public Defender's Office, Des Moines, IA, for Defendant–Appellant.

Before LOKEN, BYE, and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

SMITH, Circuit Judge.

Richard Mathis was convicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm and received an enhanced sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), which applies to felons guilty of possession of a firearm who have three prior violent felony convictions. The district court¹ also imposed special conditions of supervised release usually reserved for convicted sex offenders. Mathis appeals his sentence and the special conditions of supervised release. We affirm.

I. Background

On February 15, 2013, a 15–year–old boy named K.G. went missing. While missing, the boy stayed at Mathis's house. K.G. alleged that, during this time, Mathis forcibly molested him. On February 25, 2013, police officers tracked K.G.'s cell phone to Mathis's house. Mathis's girlfriend, who also stayed at the house, answered the door and told officers that Mathis was not home and that she did not know K.G.'s whereabouts. She later admitted that she lied to the officers; in fact, Mathis, K.G., and two other young males were present in the house. Later that night, Mathis took K.G. to his grandmother's house. On March 3, 2013, K.G. disclosed Mathis's alleged sexual abuse to officers.

The officers obtained several warrants to search Mathis's residence. On March 8, 2013, they executed the warrants and found a loaded rifle and ammunition. The officers also found a cell phone with nearly 6,000 text messages on it. Many of the messages were between Mathis and young males whom he had met on Meetme.com, the same social networking site through which K.G. had met Mathis. Several of the text messages were sexually explicit. These text messages showed that Mathis had traveled far to bring some of the young males whom he met on Meetme.com back to his residence. Additionally, a memory card was recovered during the search, which contained a picture of a nude underage male. Investigators also questioned Mathis's girlfriend. She admitted that she lied to officers on their February 25th visit. Mathis's girlfriend also stated that she believed that Mathis was having sexual intercourse with the boys whom he routinely brought to his house. One of the other victims, an 18–year–old male, told the officers that Mathis asked him about masturbation, asked him about the size of his genitals, and made several sexually explicit comments.

Police arrested Mathis on March 8, 2013, at his place of employment. While in custody, Mathis admitted that he owned the rifle and ammunition. Mathis also freely admitted that the officers might find child pornography on his computer and that he had visited websites to view and visit with young-looking homosexual males.

Mathis was indicted for one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), to which he pleaded guilty on January 21, 2014, in accordance with a plea agreement.

At Mathis's sentencing hearing, the court first considered whether the ACCA (18 U.S.C. § 924(e) ) applied to Mathis. If Mathis possessed three prior convictions for “violent felonies,” the ACCA would impose a 15–year mandatory minimum sentence. Id. After extensive oral argument and consideration of the Supreme Court's and this court's precedent, the district court ultimately found that Mathis's five burglary convictions in Iowa were violent felonies and justified sentencing under the ACCA. The court found that the Iowa burglary statutes in question, Iowa Code §§ 713.1 and 713.5, were divisible under Descamps v. United States, ––– U.S. ––––, 133 S.Ct. 2276, 186 L.Ed.2d 438 (2013). Under Descamps, the court believed it could use the modified categorical approach to determine the particular elements of the specific burglary provision under which Mathis was convicted. Additionally, the court found that the burglaries were violent felonies under the ACCA's residual clause because they were substantially similar to generic burglary and posed the same risk of harm to others. Finally, the court found Mathis's prior conviction in Iowa for interference with official acts inflicting serious injury was also a violent felony for ACCA purposes. As a result of the ACCA enhancement, Mathis was sentenced to the mandatory minimum of 180 months' imprisonment with five years of supervised release.

As part of the supervised release, the court imposed special release conditions routinely applied to sex offenders. The court heard testimony from two law enforcement officers that detailed Mathis's interest in young males. In addition to the information pertaining to the instant offense, the officers also disclosed a similar investigation in 1990. Then, two missing young boys, after their recovery, told police that they had been staying in Mathis's trailer. Considering this testimony, even though Mathis had never been convicted of a sex crime, the court found that the conditions of supervised release were appropriate to protect the public from Mathis.

II. Discussion

Mathis argues on appeal that his prior convictions for second-degree burglary are not violent felonies under the ACCA. He also challenges the imposition of sex-offender-related special conditions of supervised release.

A. Application of the ACCA

Mathis first argues that the district court erred by finding that the Iowa burglary statute was divisible and by applying the modified categorical approach to determine the nature of his convictions. This error, Mathis argues, led the district court to erroneously conclude that his five previous burglary convictions were violent felonies for ACCA purposes.²

We review de novo whether a prior state-court conviction constitutes a violent felony for ACCA purposes. United States v. Pate, 754 F.3d 550, 553–54 (8th Cir.2014) (citation omitted). The ACCA enhances the sentences of those defendants found guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm that have three previous convictions for “violent felon[ies].” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). As defined by the statute, a violent felony is one that “(i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or (ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” Id. § 924(e)(2)(B) (emphasis added). Accordingly, Mathis contends that none of his convictions for burglary in Iowa qualify as a “burglary” as contemplated in the ACCA.

In the typical case, we use the “categorical approach” to determine whether prior convictions amount to violent felonies. See Descamps, 133 S.Ct. at 2283. This approach requires courts to “look only to the fact of conviction and the statutory definition of the prior offense.” Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 602, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990) (footnote omitted). Thus, in cases where prior convictions are for one of the named offenses in § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), we look only at the elements of the offense as defined by the state statute to discern whether the nature of the state crime fits within the generic definition of the crime considered by the federal statute. For burglary, the Court has defined the generic crime as “having the basic elements of unlawful or unprivileged entry into, or remaining in, a building or structure, with intent to commit a crime.” Id. at 599. Therefore, if the state statute is “narrower than the generic view,” a conviction under such statute would qualify as a violent felony for ACCA purposes “because the conviction necessarily implies that the defendant has been found guilty of all the elements of generic burglary.” Id.

There are a “narrow range of cases,” however, in which state statutes present the necessary elements for conviction in the alternative. See Descamps, 133 S.Ct. at 2283–84. These alternatives, as presented in the statute, lay out one set of elements that would fit within the generic crime and another set of elements that would not. See id., 133 S.Ct. at 2283–84 ; see also United States v. Howard, 742 F.3d 1334, 1343 (11th Cir.2014). These divisible statutes can thus be divided into alternative elements, which may in some cases constitute violent felonies, but other times may not. When approaching divisible statutes, courts are allowed to go one step further than the categorical approach to apply the “modified categorical approach.” Descamps, 133 S.Ct. at 2283–84. This tool allows courts to examine certain documents (such as charging papers and jury instructions) to determine under which set of alternative elements the defendant was convicted. Id. at 2284–86. Courts can then use their findings to properly determine whether prior convictions are violent felonies. Id. at 2284.

In Descamps, the Court attempted to clarify divisibility, but as Justice Kennedy observed, this “dichotomy between divisible and indivisible state criminal statutes is not all that clear.” Id. at 2293 (Kennedy, J., concurring). Applying Taylor, the Court proposed a hypothetical state burglary statute that otherwise conformed with generic burglary, but also swept more broadly by criminalizing the “ ‘entry of an automobile as well as a building.’ ” Id. at 2284 (quoting Taylor, 495 U.S. at 602, 110 S.Ct. 2143 ). The statute in Taylor was a divisible statute because it presented an alternative set of elements, one of which...