United States v. Bentley
| Decision Date | 14 September 2022 |
| Docket Number | 20-1691 |
| Citation | 49 F.4th 275 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America v. Jeffrey A. BENTLEY, Appellant |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
Daniel J. Tyrrell [ARGUED], Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi, One Boland Drive, West Orange, NJ 07024, Counsel for Appellant
Alexander P. Ibrahim [ARGUED], Office of United States Attorney, 1313 North Market Street, Hercules Building, Suite 400, Wilmington, DE 19801, Counsel for Appellee
Before: JORDAN, PORTER, and PHIPPS, Circuit Judges.
Jeffrey Bentley appeals from the District Court's denial of his post-conviction motion. In a plea agreement, Bentley admitted he had three prior "violent felony" convictions, requiring a sentencing enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act ("ACCA"). He was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison. A decade later, in Johnson v. United States , the Supreme Court held that one part of ACCA's definition of "violent felony," known as the "residual clause," was unconstitutionally vague. 576 U.S. 591, 597, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 192 L.Ed.2d 569 (2015). Seeking to retroactively benefit from that legal development, Bentley asked the District Court to vacate his sentence and order resentencing. The District Court denied Bentley a do-over. The District Court concluded that even if the prior convictions mentioned in Bentley's plea could no longer be counted as strikes under ACCA, any error would be harmless because of Bentley's long rap sheet of ACCA-qualifying burglaries, documented in an undisputed presentence report. On appeal, Bentley argues that the District Court had to disregard his ACCA-qualifying burglaries because they were not mentioned in his plea agreement. He also quibbles with the District Court's factual findings. We disagree with Bentley's arguments, so we will affirm.
In 2005, Bentley robbed a liquor store at gunpoint. The police caught him after a car chase, and he confessed to the robbery. Bentley was indicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), Hobbs Act robbery, id. § 1951, and using and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence, id. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii).
Count one, the felon-in-possession-of-a-firearm charge, carried a sentence of not more than ten years. 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2) (2005).1 But under ACCA, a person convicted of that crime who has three or more prior convictions "for a violent felony or a serious drug offense, or both," is subject to a mandatory sentence of "not less than fifteen years." Id. § 924(e)(1).
Bentley agreed to plead guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and using and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence. As part of the plea agreement, Bentley also admitted he was subject to ACCA's sentencing enhancement. The first paragraph of the plea memorandum recited that Bentley "has three previous convictions for a violent felony committed on occasions different from one another," and so is subject to a sentencing enhancement under ACCA. J.A. 28. The fourth paragraph of the memorandum gave a factual basis for Bentley's guilty plea, and included an admission that Bentley "was convicted previously [of] three violent felonies," listing three prior convictions:
J.A. 29–30. The United States agreed to recommend the minimum prison sentence available to Bentley—fifteen years for count one (as required by ACCA) and seven years for count three, using and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence, for a total of twenty-two years' imprisonment. It also agreed to dismiss count two, Hobbs Act robbery. The plea memorandum specified that the District Court was not bound by the sentencing stipulations made by the parties.2
During the sentencing hearing, the District Court adopted "the facts as represented in the presentence investigation report," without objection. J.A. 37; see also Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(i)(3)(A) (). The presentence report ("PSR") referenced Bentley's extensive criminal history and said that Bentley "has previously been convicted of both robbery and burglary" and so was subject to Section 4B1.4 of the Sentencing Guidelines, the section implementing ACCA's sentencing enhancement. PSR ¶ 33. The PSR's criminal-history section listed eighteen prior convictions, including six breaking-and-entering convictions in North Carolina.
During the plea colloquy, the parties agreed that Bentley was subject to ACCA's enhancement without elaboration:
J.A. 39. When discussing ACCA's sentencing enhancement with Bentley, the District Court referenced Bentley's prior encounters with the criminal justice systems of "Virginia and North Carolina," but never mentioned Bentley's Delaware reckless endangering conviction. J.A. 54.
The District Court ultimately sentenced Bentley to fifteen years for count one, the minimum mandatory sentence under ACCA, and seven years for count three, to run consecutively, for a total sentence of twenty-two years. Bentley did not appeal his sentence.
ACCA's definition of violent felony provides, in full:
18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B) (emphasis added). Paragraph (i) of the definition of violent felony is known as the force or elements clause. The first part of paragraph (ii) is known as the enumerated-offenses clause. The italicized part of paragraph (ii) is known as the "residual clause."
"The Supreme Court long struggled with interpreting various ‘residual clauses’ in federal criminal statutes, such as the definition of ‘violent felony’ in the Armed Career Criminal Act ...." United States v. Vargas-Soto , 35 F.4th 979, 984 (5th Cir. 2022). The difficulties began when the Supreme Court held that ACCA requires a "categorical approach." Taylor v. United States , 495 U.S. 575, 602, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990). Under a categorical approach, courts deciding whether a prior conviction counts as a violent felony must ignore the specific conduct of the criminal and ask instead whether the elements of the crime are no broader than ACCA's general terms. Id. at 600, 110 S.Ct. 2143.
The categorical approach made it difficult to predictably apply ACCA's residual clause, as the clause itself references "conduct." Before Johnson , when determining whether prior convictions fell under ACCA's residual clause, courts had to decide "whether the conduct encompassed by the elements of the offense, in the ordinary case, presents a serious potential risk of injury to another." James v. United States , 550 U.S. 192, 208, 127 S.Ct. 1586, 167 L.Ed.2d 532 (2007), overruled by Johnson , 576 U.S. 591, 135 S.Ct. 2551. But this "ordinary case" analysis proved "nearly impossible to apply consistently." Chambers v. United States , 555 U.S. 122, 133–34, 129 S.Ct. 687, 172 L.Ed.2d 484 (2009) (Alito, J., concurring in the judgment), abrogated by Johnson , 576 U.S. 591, 135 S.Ct. 2551 ; see also Sessions v. Dimaya , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 1204, 1215, 200 L.Ed.2d 549 (2018) ("How does one go about divining the conduct entailed in a crime's ordinary case? Statistical analyses?
Surveys? Experts? Google? Gut instinct?"). Given the difficulty of this enterprise, some Justices began calling on the Court to hold the residual clause void for vagueness. James , 550 U.S. at 230, 127 S.Ct. 1586 (Scalia, J., dissenting).5
The Supreme Court at first resisted, but in Johnson , "the skeptics won." Vargas-Soto , 35 F.4th at 985. In Johnson , the Supreme Court overruled James and held "that imposing an increased sentence under the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act violates the Constitution's guarantee of due process." 576 U.S. at 606, 135 S.Ct. 2551. Johnson , however, did "not call into question ... the remainder of the Act's definition of a violent felony." Id.
After Johnson , in Welch v. United States , the Supreme Court held that Johnson 's holding applied in post-conviction cases brought under section 2255 of the Judicial Code. 578 U.S. 120, 135, 136 S.Ct. 1257, 194 L.Ed.2d 387 (2016). A flood of post-conviction motions seeking to vacate ACCA sentences followed.
Bentley filed one of those motions. He asked the District Court to vacate his original sentence and order resentencing, claiming that his sentence was unconstitutional after Johnson . Focusing on the three prior convictions mentioned in his plea memorandum, Bentley argued that his Delaware conviction for reckless endangering and his two Virginia robbery convictions could no longer be counted as ACCA predicates.
Proceedings on Bentley's motion were stayed pending the resolution of cases involving North Carolina's breaking-and-entering statute, as well as Supreme Court cases addressing the scope of "burglary" under ACCA's enumerated-offenses clause. These decisions...
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