U.S. v. Benson

• Decision Date: 19 July 1979
• Docket Number: No. 78-3215,78-3215
• Citation: 605 F.2d 1093
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Horace BENSON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1093

605 F.2d 1093

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Horace BENSON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 78-3215.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

July 19, 1979.

Daniel Markoff, Las Vegas, Nev. (argued) for defendant-appellant; Kenneth C. Cory, Las Vegas, Nev., on brief.

Rimantas Rukstele, Asst. U. S. Atty., Las Vegas, Nev., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada.

Before TUTTLE, ^* ELY and WRIGHT, Circuit Judges.

EUGENE A. WRIGHT, Circuit Judge:

Benson appeals from his conviction of violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(h)(1), receipt of a firearm shipped in interstate commerce by one convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than one year. We affirm.

This case comes before us for the second time. Appellant pleaded guilty pursuant to a negotiated plea bargain in June 1977. We vacated, holding that Benson could not enter a conditional plea of guilty. Because we had not previously ruled on the validity of the conditional guilty plea, Benson was given the opportunity to withdraw his plea and to plead anew. United States v. Benson, 579 F.2d 508 (9th Cir. 1978).

On remand, he was tried and convicted by a jury and sentenced to five years probation.

It is undisputed that Benson received a firearm which had been shipped in interstate commerce. His sole contention on the merits is that the trial court erred in ruling that his earlier state conviction satisfied the prior conviction element of § 922(h)(1). ¹

Benson pleaded guilty in 1974 to a charge of possession of a controlled substance in violation of Illinois' Controlled Substance Act, Ill.Rev.Stat. ch. 561/2, § 1402. Violation of § 1402 is a felony and carries a ten year maximum prison term. The state court sentenced Benson to 30 months of probation.

It is not clear on the record whether he was "convicted" under Illinois law. ² Whether he was convicted for purposes of § 922(h)(1), however, is ultimately a question of federal law. United States v. Bergeman, 592 F.2d 533 (9th Cir. 1979); United States v. Pricepaul, 540 F.2d 417, 424 (9th Cir. 1976). See also Reconstruction Finance Corp. v. Beaver County, 328 U.S. 204, 66 S.Ct. 992, 90 L.Ed. 1172 (1946); United States v. Herrell, 588 F.2d 711 (9th Cir. 1978); Hyland v. Fukuda, 580 F.2d 977, 980-81 (9th Cir. 1978); United States v. Locke, 542 F.2d 800, 801 (9th Cir. 1976); United States v. Potts, 528 F.2d 883, 887 (9th Cir. 1975) (en banc) (Sneed, J., concurring in result).

The Supreme Court has declared that

A plea of guilty is more than a confession which admits that the accused did various acts; it is itself a conviction; nothing remains but to give judgment and determine punishment.

Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 242, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969). See also Kercheval v. United States, 274 U.S. 220, 223, 47 S.Ct. 582, 71 L.Ed. 1009 (1927). After explaining to Benson the consequences of pleading guilty to the charge of possession of a controlled substance, the Illinois court ordered that his plea "be received and accepted." We believe the court's acceptance and subsequent sentencing constitute a "conviction" under § 922(h)(1).

In Locke, we were faced with a claim similar to that made here. Locke pleaded guilty to a charge of burglary in the nighttime. The state court ordered under an Idaho statute that judgment be withheld for a period of three years and that Locke be placed on probation. We held that under "controlling federal law," Locke had been convicted of a felony. 542 F.2d at 801. ³

We find that Locke controls Benson's claim and thus reject the asserted claim of error.

AFFIRMED.

ELY, Circuit Judge (concurring):

I reluctantly concur, and I concur only because of the compulsion of the precedent within our own Circuit. See United States v. Bergeman, 592 F.2d 533 (9th Cir. 1979); United States v. Locke, 542 F.2d 800 (9th Cir. 1976). I feel compelled, however, to reiterate my belief that we should respect a state's right to define and determine when an individual has been convicted under the state's law. See Kelly v. Immigration & Naturalization Service, 349 F.2d 473, 474-80 (9th Cir. 1965) (Ely, J., dissenting). Under the "principle" of national uniformity in the application of federal law, we have unnecessarily and unjustifiably intruded upon a sovereign right that, as I see it, appropriately belongs to the states.

Benson was convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(h)(1). ¹ That statute's interpretation is governed by 18 U.S.C. § 927, a statute reflecting the clear intent of Congress Not to intrude into areas traditionally reserved to the states:

No provision of this chapter shall be construed as indicating an intent on the part of the Congress to occupy the field in which such provision operates to the exclusion of the law of any State on the same subject matter, unless there is a direct and positive conflict between such provision and the law of the State so that the two cannot be reconciled or consistently stand together.

Both the federal and state laws concern the subject of an individual "convicted" of a crime. There is, however, no "direct and positive conflict" between the federal and state statutes such that the statutes "cannot be reconciled or consistently stand together." The Illinois statutes define when a person stands "convicted" of a state crime for purposes of future disabilities and treatment. Although the concept of "conviction" is a key element of 18 U.S.C § 922(h)(1), that statute does not define the term. It is well settled that "unless Congress conveys its purposes clearly, it will not be deemed to have significantly changed the federal-state balance." United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 349, 92 S.Ct. 515, 523, 30 L.Ed.2d 488, 497 (1971). Thus, in the absence of a clear Congressional intent to the contrary, we ought to look to the state definition of conviction in applying § 922(h)(1) when the prior "conviction" was one of state law. See United States v. Bergeman, 592 F.2d 533, 538-42 (9th Cir. 1979) (Takasugi, J., dissenting). See also Holland, Conviction Defined, 40 J.State Bar of Calif. 36 (1965).

In the circumstances of this case, the District Court found that Benson was prosecuted under § 410 of the Illinois Food and Drug law a deferred prosecution statute. See Majority Opinion, note 2. Assuming this to be correct, the Illinois court never did enter a judgment of conviction against Benson. During the oral argument of this case, the Assistant United States Attorney, representing the Government, conceded that this was true. Thus, this situation should be distinguished from one arising under an expunction statute wherein a judgment of conviction is entered and later "erased". As I long ago wrote, however, I still hold that when a state conviction is expunged by the state, there is no "conviction". Judge Holland's comments, Supra, reflect the deep resentment that all state court judges hold because of our decisions upon which the majority rely. I entertain the same resentment, believing that we have officiously and wrongly usurped a state power.

It has been argued that adoption of state definitions, including expunction or deferred prosecution provisions, would lead to an uneven application of federal law, dependent upon the "vagaries" of state law. See, e. g., Garcia-Gonzales v. Immigration & Naturalization Service, 344 F.2d 804 (9th Cir. 1965). Yet, there can be no uniformity since, according to the very language of § 922(h) (1), a person is within the scope of the statute only when convicted "in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year." Because the states are generally free to define the elements of a crime and to determine the penalty, the length of the statutory sentence for a specific crime may and often does vary among the several states. Thus, an individual in one state who has committed a crime may find that he is within the ambit of § 922(h)(1) while a person who committed the identical crime in another state may not be within the scope of the federal statute. It is more than troubling, therefore, to hold that these state systems of sentencing comport with a theory of national uniformity while state expunction or deferred prosecution statutes must be ignored because "the application of federal criminal sanctions would depend solely upon where the defendant's previous conviction had occurred." United States v. Bergeman, supra, 592 F.2d at 537. See id. at 542 (Takasugi, J., dissenting); Kelly v. Immigration & Naturalization Service, supra, 349 F.2d at 475.

Deferred prosecution statutes, like expunction statutes, are based upon important policy concerns. The states enact these laws to deter recidivism and to promote the full rehabilitation of their citizens. In each case, the state has chosen to allow an individual familiar with the specific circumstances the trial judge to determine what criminal and civil...