U.S. v. Boaz

• Decision Date: 16 March 2009
• Docket Number: No. 07-3918.,07-3918.
• Citation: 558 F.3d 800
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas BOAZ, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

558 F.3d 800

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas BOAZ, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 07-3918.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: June 12, 2008.

Filed: March 16, 2009.

David R. Mercer, Asst. Fed. Public Defender, Springfield, MO, argued (Raymond C. Conrad, Jr., Fed. Public Defender, Kansas City, MO, on the brief), for appellant.

James J. Kelleher, Asst. U.S. Atty., Springfield, MO, argued (John F. Wood, U.S. Atty., Kansas City, MO, on the brief), for appellee.

Before MELLOY, ARNOLD, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

MELLOY, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted Thomas Monroe Boaz of two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). At sentencing, the district court determined Boaz had four prior convictions for violent felonies and was subject to the enhanced sentencing provisions of the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). We affirm the judgment of conviction. We vacate the sentence however, and remand for further proceedings regarding the application of § 924(e).

I. Background

Boaz initially pleaded guilty to the present § 922(g)(1) counts after being advised that his maximum statutory sentence would be ten years' imprisonment. The district court ordered a Presentence Investigation Report ("PSR"), and the PSR alleged that Boaz was subject to the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), and its range of imprisonment from 180 months to life. Boaz then filed a motion to withdraw his plea, and the district court granted the motion.

At trial, the parties stipulated that Boaz possessed firearms that had traveled in interstate commerce. Accordingly, the only triable issue was whether Boaz was a felon at the time he possessed the firearms. Boaz argued that this single issue involved two distinct underlying questions for submission to the jury, namely: (1) the "identification question" of whether he was the same Thomas Monroe Boaz who was the subject of prior, criminal, state-court proceedings; and (2) the "legal effect question" of whether prior, criminal, state-court proceedings (including one with a somewhat convoluted procedural history) actually had culminated in felony convictions. The government argued that only the first question, the identification question, was a question of fact appropriate for submission to the jury. The district court agreed and refused to submit the second question to the jury. The court denied Boaz's request to submit copies of state statutes to the jury to aid in interpreting state-court records for the purpose of determining the existence of a felony conviction. In effect, then, the district court determined as a matter of law that the prior, criminal, state-court proceedings had resulted in felony convictions, and the only issue tried to the jury was the identification question of whether Boaz was the same Thomas Monroe Boaz who was the subject of these prior convictions.

The government presented certified state-court records regarding three prior cases: a 1995 Arkansas case involving terroristic threatening,¹ a 1980 Arizona case involving burglary and theft,² and a 1975 Arizona case involving conspiracy to commit auto theft.³ The government also presented six witnesses. The six witnesses testified as follows.

The government's first witness was a Missouri highway patrol officer who had stopped Boaz, discovered Boaz's possession of firearms, and arrested and fingerprinted Boaz in relation to the present offense. The officer identified Boaz in court and relayed an admission Boaz had made at the time of arrest. The admission was inculpatory regarding the prior Arkansas offense of terroristic threatening. The government next presented a U.S. probation officer who had researched Boaz's criminal history. This witness served as a vehicle for entering into evidence the certified, state-court records from the prior criminal cases.

Over objection, the government next presented testimony from two fingerprint experts who testified that the fingerprints taken in relation to the present offense matched fingerprints in the records for the prior offenses. Boaz objected that he was not given adequate notice or reports from these experts detailing their methodology. The district court determined, however, that the experts' methods were standard fingerprint-analysis techniques. The district court stated that Boaz had more than adequate notice regarding the experts and the standard techniques and that there had been no failure to disclose any reports.

The government next presented the testimony of an ATF agent assigned to work with the Missouri Highway Patrol. The ATF agent explained the handling of records and offered an explanation for an apparent infirmity involving white-out and numbers on a fingerprint card. Finally, the government presented an Arkansas probation officer who identified Boaz in court and testified that she had supervised Boaz following his Arkansas conviction for terroristic threatening.

The certified court records contained ample identifying information, including social security numbers, FBI numbers, Boaz's date of birth, the names of family members, and detailed physical descriptions including a listing of tattoos. The arresting officer for the present offense and the Arkansas probation officer identified Boaz in court, and the fingerprint experts tied the prints from Boaz's present arrest to the prior convictions. In short, the identification evidence was overwhelming.

Boaz's primary argument at trial was that the judgments themselves from these prior cases needed to contain all of the identifying information. According to Boaz, it was impermissible to look behind the judgments to find additional identifying information elsewhere in prior court records. Boaz specifically objected to using documents that were not initially produced by a court. The district court rejected Boaz's theory and overruled Boaz's objections to the evidence, and the jury found him guilty.

At sentencing, the government alleged four prior violent felony convictions: terroristic threatening, conspiracy to commit auto theft, and burglary (all as asserted at trial), and a 1974 Arizona conviction for exhibiting a weapon other than in self-defense.⁴ Boaz challenged use of the 1974 Arizona conviction on the basis of inadequate identification. The government presented three documents regarding this prior offense: a charging document, a plea agreement, and a judgment and sentencing document. These documents listed Boaz's name, but they did not contain any additional identifying information. The court then found that Boaz was, in fact, the subject of the 1974 conviction. The court based its ruling largely on a mutual mistake by both parties' attorneys: the attorneys had stated that the trial record contained fingerprint-card evidence for the 1974 offense. In fact, the trial record contained fingerprint evidence for other offenses but not for the 1974 Arizona offense.

Without application of § 924(e), Boaz's advisory Guidelines sentencing range would have been 41 to 51 months' imprisonment. With the application of § 924(e), his advisory range became 188 to 235 months' imprisonment. The district court sentenced him to 190 months. Boaz appeals.

II. Discussion

A. Issues Surrounding the § 922(g)(1) Conviction

Boaz challenges his § 922(g)(1) conviction, arguing the district court abused its discretion in its evidentiary rulings. In addition, he challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, and he renews his claim that the jury should have reviewed the Arkansas court records, statutes, and case law to determine whether a conviction had been entered in the 1995 Arkansas case. We find no merit in his arguments. The court did not abuse its discretion as to any evidentiary rulings, United States v. Anderson, 446 F.3d 870, 874 (8th Cir.2006) (standard of review), and the evidence was more than sufficient to prove Boaz had been subject to at least one prior felony conviction. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).

Boaz characterizes the issue surrounding the Arkansas conviction as a constitutional deprivation of a jury trial on an element of his offense. Without belaboring the point, we note that the Arkansas proceedings that gave rise to this conviction were somewhat protracted and convoluted. Essentially, however, they amounted to a deferred acceptance of a guilty plea or a suspended imposition of sentence followed by probation, a subsequent probation violation, and the eventual entry of a judgment of conviction, all pursuant to Act 346 of 1975, codified at Ark.Code Ann. § 16-93-303.⁵

We have repeatedly held that whether a particular conviction qualifies as a predicate felony for the purpose of § 922(g) is a question of law for the district court. See, e.g., United States v. Howell, 531 F.3d 621, 623-24 (8th Cir. 2008) (stating that whether a predicate conviction qualifies as "a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence" under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) was a legal question for the court, not a factual question for the jury); United States v. Stanko, 491 F.3d 408, 412 (8th Cir.2007) (stating that whether the defendant's predicate convictions qualify under 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20)(A) as exclusions from the term "crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year" was a legal question for the court, not a factual question for the jury). Here, the process of interpreting the legal effect of the prior Arkansas proceeding was simply an extension of this principle, reserving legal determinations for the court and placing only factual determinations and the ultimate determination of guilt in the hands of the jury. The district court correctly determined that the Arkansas proceedings resulted in a felony conviction when the state court found a probation violation and entered a judgment of guilt regarding the original charge of terroristic threatening.

B. Issues Surrounding the Application of § 924(e)

i. Evidentiary Standard for § 924(...