U.S. v. Butler, No. 09-4095 (10th Cir. 4/30/2010)

• Decision Date: 30 April 2010
• Docket Number: No. 09-4095.,09-4095.
• Parties: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHAD JAY BUTLER, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
CHAD JAY BUTLER, Defendant-Appellant. No. 09-4095. United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit. April 30, 2010.

(D. of Utah), (D.C. No. 2:08-CR-00237-DAK-1).

Before TYMKOVICH and HOLMES, Circuit Judges, and POLLAK,^** District Judge.

ORDER AND JUDGMENT^*

LOUIS H. POLLAK, District Judge.

Chad Jay Butler appeals from the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss the charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).¹ Butler's motion was premised on the argument that the guilty plea he entered to a state aggravated assault charge was not a "conviction"

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under Utah law and hence that he was not a person "convicted" within the meaning of § 922(g)(1). The district court denied this motion on the ground that Utah law would equate a guilty plea or verdict to a conviction in this context. For the reasons that follow, we agree with the district court that the Utah Supreme Court would define "conviction" in this way for purposes of the federal felon-in-possession statute.

I. Background

In February 2007, Butler pled guilty in a Utah state court to one count of aggravated assault. He received leave to move to withdraw that plea in April 2007, but his motion was denied in December 2007. He was subsequently sentenced for the assault in February 2008.

On August 9, 2007, before Butler's motion to withdraw the plea was denied, he was arrested and charged with two federal crimes, including possessing a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Butler then moved to dismiss the § 922(g)(1) charge, arguing that he had not yet been convicted of the state offense in August 2007 because no judgment of sentence had issued. After the district court denied Butler's motion, he entered a conditional guilty plea pursuant to Rule 11(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure² and reserved the right

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to appeal the denial of the motion to dismiss. On May 13, 2009, the district court sentenced Butler to 18 months in prison. We have jurisdiction over Butler's appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

II. Analysis

We exercise plenary review over the district court's legal conclusion that Butler's guilty plea constitutes a conviction. United States v. Flower, 29 F.3d 530, 534 (10th Cir. 1994). Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20), "[w]hat constitutes a conviction" for purposes of the felon-in-possession statute is "determined in accordance with the law of the jurisdiction in which the proceedings were held." We accordingly turn to the meaning of "conviction" under Utah law.

Two competing definitions of conviction have been recognized in Utah — "one which denotes the establishment of guilty `by verdict or plea,' and one which refers to `the final judgment entered on the plea or verdict.'" State v. Hunt, 916 P.2d 311, 313 (Utah 1995) (quoting State v. Duncan, 812 P.2d 60, 62 (Utah Ct. App. 1991)). Although Butler urges us to determine what "conviction" means in the abstract, the Utah Supreme Court has clearly held that which of the two definitions governs in a particular case "turn[s] on `the context and the

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purpose within which the term "conviction" is used.'" Id. (quoting Duncan, 812 P.2d...