United States v. Verwiebe

• Decision Date: 27 September 2017
• Docket Number: No. 16-2591,16-2591
• Citation: 872 F.3d 408
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Eric Michael VERWIEBE, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

872 F.3d 408

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee,

v.Eric Michael VERWIEBE, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 16-2591

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Decided and Filed: September 27, 2017

SUTTON, Circuit Judge.

Law enforcement arrested Eric Verwiebe for brandishing a knife, threatening to kill tribal police officers, and resisting arrest. He pleaded guilty to assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon. The district court sentenced him as a career offender due to his prior federal convictions for assault with a dangerous weapon and assault resulting in serious bodily injury. Because each crime combines common law assault with an additional element that, together, indicate "the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force," both of them amount to "crimes of violence" under § 4B1.2(a) of the Sentencing Guidelines. We affirm his sentence.

On August 22, 2015, the Bay Mills Tribal Police Department broadcast a lookout notice for Verwiebe after it received a report that he had assaulted his girlfriend. When two officers located Verwiebe, he pulled a knife from his waistband, raised it over his head, and threatened to kill the officers. The officers tried to subdue him, but Verwiebe fought back. The officers eventually got control of him with the help of a bystander. In the police car, Verwiebe continued to threaten the officers and even spat on them.

Verwiebe pleaded guilty to assaulting, resisting, or impeding a federal officer with a dangerous weapon. He was scored as a career offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 based on his prior federal convictions for (1) assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to do bodily harm, 18 U.S.C. § 113(a)(3), and (2) assault resulting in serious bodily injury, 18 U.S.C. § 113(a)(6). At sentencing, the district court found that each conviction qualified as a crime of violence under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(1). Verwiebe appealed.

We give fresh review to a district court's construction of the Guidelines, and we apply the version in effect on the date the defendant was sentenced, in this instance the November 2016 Manual. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4)(A)(ii).

The Guidelines raise the base offense level for career offenders. U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1. A defendant is treated as a career offender if he has at least two prior felony convictions for a crime of violence. Id. § 4B1.1(a). A crime of violence includes "any offense under federal or state law, punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, that ... has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another." Id. § 4B1.2(a). Known as the "elements clause," this provision mirrors an analogous clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act, and we typically read them in the same way. See United States v. Rede-Mendez, 680 F.3d 552, 555 n.2 (6th Cir. 2012). Both clauses apply only to offenses that require "violent force — that is, force capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person." Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133, 140, 130 S.Ct. 1265, 176 L.Ed.2d 1 (2010) (emphasis omitted).

When an offense sets out a single set of elements to define a single crime, as all parties agree is the case here, it is indivisible. Mathis v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 136 S.Ct. 2243, 2248, 195 L.Ed.2d 604 (2016). In evaluating an indivisible offense, we apply the categorical approach. That means we look only to the statutory definition of the offense rather than to the facts underlying the conviction to determine whether it counts as a crime of violence. See Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990). We focus on the least culpable conduct criminalized by the statute but resist imagining unlikely crimes that theoretically could be covered by it. There must be a realistic probability the statute would be used to criminalize the conduct. Moncrieffe v. Holder, 569 U.S. 184, 133 S.Ct. 1678, 1684-85, 185 L.Ed.2d 727 (2013).

Let's now consider each prior conviction in turn.

18 U.S.C. § 113(a)(3). Within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, it is a federal crime to commit "[a]ssault with a dangerous weapon, with intent to do bodily harm." 18 U.S.C. § 113(a)(3). Section 113(a)(3) entails the "use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force" under § 4B1.2(a). Because § 113 does not define "assault," courts give the term its established common law meaning. See United States v. Turley, 352 U.S. 407, 411, 77 S.Ct. 397, 1 L.Ed.2d 430 (1957). That means an individual may violate § 113 by (1) willfully attempting to inflict injury on another person or (2) threatening to inflict injury on another person, causing a reasonable apprehension of immediate bodily harm. United States v. Hathaway, 318 F.3d 1001, 1008 (10th Cir. 2003). If a crime already includes some use or threat of physical force, as is true here, the use of a dangerous weapon transforms that force into the type of violent force necessary to constitute a crime of violence. See United States v. Rafidi, 829 F.3d 437, 446 (6th Cir. 2016). Section 113(a)(3) thus involves violent force because it proscribes common law assault with a dangerous weapon, not simple common law assault. United States v. Harris, 853 F.3d 318, 322 (6th Cir. 2017).

18 U.S.C. § 113(a)(6). Section 113(a)(6) is similar. It proscribes "[a]ssault resulting in serious bodily injury" within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Under Johnson, we limit crimes of violence to those involving force capable of causing physical pain or injury. Whether § 113(a)(6) qualifies is a question that answers itself: How would it be possible to suffer serious bodily injury without force capable of producing such injury? Our precedent says as much, holding that crimes requiring proof of serious physical injury necessarily require proof of violent physical force. United States v. Anderson, 695 F.3d 390, 401 (6th Cir. 2012). That begins and ends our inquiry.

Hoping for a different conclusion, Verwiebe invokes United States v. Scott, No. EP-14-CR-42-PRM, 2014 WL 4403162 (W.D. Tex. July 28, 2014), claiming it shows that assault under § 113(a)(6) is not a crime of violence because it may involve indirect force that causes serious bodily injury. In that case, the district court used the example of poisoning a victim's drink as evidence that § 113(a)(6) swept too broadly. Id. at *4. But we have refused to draw a line between direct and indirect force in this context. United States v. Evans, 699 F.3d 858, 864 (6th Cir. 2012). And for ample reason. A defendant uses physical force whenever his volitional act sets into motion a series of events that results in the application of a "force capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person." See id. We see no problem with the poison scenario. The "use of physical force" is not the drop of liquid in the victim's drink; it is employing poison to cause serious bodily harm. See United States v. Castleman, ___ U.S. ___, 134 S.Ct. 1405, 1415, 188 L.Ed.2d 426 (2014). Under Verwiebe's theory, tripping somebody into oncoming traffic, or for that matter perpetrating a sarin gas attack, would not be a crime of violence. Creative minds, once unhinged from common sense, might even suggest that pulling the trigger of a gun is not a sufficiently direct use of physical force. Sentencing law does not turn on such fine, reality-defying distinctions.

Verwiebe also suggests that § 113(a)(6) does not qualify as a crime of violence because a mental state of recklessness suffices for conviction. True, we have held that a crime requiring only recklessness does not qualify as a crime of violence under § 4B1.2(a). United States v. McFalls, 592 F.3d 707, 716 (6th Cir. 2010). True also, only the en banc process, a material intervening Supreme Court decision, or a relevant change to the Guidelines permits us to override binding circuit precedent. See Sykes v. Anderson, 625 F.3d 294, 319 (6th Cir. 2010); 6th Cir. R. 32.1(b). But since McFalls, the Supreme Court has found recklessness sufficient to constitute a crime that "has, as an element, the use or attempted use of physical force" under a statute preventing those convicted of a "misdemeanor crime of domestic violence" from possessing a firearm. See Voisine v. United...