Filed: Apr. 06, 2006
Latest Update: Feb. 12, 2020
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 05-4830 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, versus EDISON PILGRIM CRAWFORD, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at Charlottesville. Norman K. Moon, District Judge. (CR-02-42) Submitted: January 5, 2006 Decided: April 6, 2006 Before WIDENER and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 05-4830 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, versus EDISON PILGRIM CRAWFORD, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at Charlottesville. Norman K. Moon, District Judge. (CR-02-42) Submitted: January 5, 2006 Decided: April 6, 2006 Before WIDENER and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. ..
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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 05-4830
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
EDISON PILGRIM CRAWFORD,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of Virginia, at Charlottesville. Norman K. Moon, District
Judge. (CR-02-42)
Submitted: January 5, 2006 Decided: April 6, 2006
Before WIDENER and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
John Kenneth Zwerling, ZWERLING, LEIBIG & MOSELEY, P.C.,
Alexandria, Virginia; Dana M. Slater, SILBER & SLATER,
Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. John L. Brownlee, United
States Attorney, Jean B. Hudson, Assistant United States Attorney,
OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlottesville, Virginia,
for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
See Local Rule 36(c).
PER CURIAM:
Edison Crawford (Crawford) pled guilty to one count of being
a felon-in-possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 922(g)(1) and one count of possession of marijuana in violation
of 21 U.S.C. § 844. With respect to his § 922(g)(1) conviction,
the district court sentenced Crawford to fifteen years’
imprisonment under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(e)(1), which act mandates a minimum fifteen-year sentence
when a defendant has at least three prior convictions for “violent
felon[ies]” that were “committed on occasions different from one
another.”
Id. The district court sentenced Crawford to one year
imprisonment with respect to his conviction for possession of
marijuana to run concurrent with his fifteen-year sentence. On
appeal, Crawford makes three arguments in challenge to his sentence
under the ACCA. We affirm.
Crawford first argues that in order to conclude that he had
three burglary convictions which qualified as violent felonies
under the ACCA, the district court necessarily looked beyond the
face of the charging documents for those convictions in violation
of the Sixth Amendment’s jury-trial guarantee. Crawford’s argument
is without merit. A district court may enhance a sentence based on
the “fact of a prior conviction,” United States v. Thompson,
421
F.3d 278, 282 (4th Cir. 2005), cert. denied,
126 S. Ct. 1463
(2006), regardless of whether or not it was admitted to by the
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defendant or found by a jury so long as the facts necessary to
support the enhancement “inhere in the fact of conviction” rather
than being “extraneous to it,”
id. at 283. Facts necessary to
support a sentencing enhancement inhere in the fact of conviction
rather than being extraneous to it so long as they come from “the
charging document, the terms of a plea agreement, the plea
colloquy, the statutory definition, or any explicit finding of the
trial judge to which the defendant assented to determine a disputed
fact about a prior conviction.” United States v. Collins,
412 F.3d
515, 521 (4th Cir. 2005).
The ACCA defines the term “violent felony” in relevant part as
“any crime . . . that . . . is burglary . . . .” 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). In Taylor v. United States,
495 U.S. 575
(1990), the Supreme Court “conclude[d] that a person has been
convicted of burglary for purposes of a § 924(e) enhancement if he
is convicted of any crime, regardless of its exact definition or
label, having the basic elements of unlawful or unprivileged entry
into, or remaining in, a building or structure, with intent to
commit a crime.”
Id. at 599.
Our review of the record discloses that the district court did
not look and did not need to look beyond the respective charging
documents with respect to Crawford’s prior convictions in order to
determine that he had three prior violent felony convictions. On
their face, the charging documents for those convictions reveal
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that they involved crimes having the basic elements of unlawful or
unprivileged entry into, or remaining in, a building or structure,
with intent to commit a crime. Additionally, the charging
documents reveal on their face that the burglaries occurred on
occasions different from one another. Accordingly, the district
court did not violate the Sixth Amendment’s jury-trial guarantee in
determining that he had three burglary convictions which qualified
as violent felonies under the ACCA.
Crawford argues second that his fifteen-year sentence under
the ACCA is grossly disproportionate to his felon-in-possession
conviction in violation of the Eighth Amendment. His argument is
without merit. “As we have held before, a fifteen-year sentence
under ACCA is neither disproportionate to the offense nor cruel and
unusual punishment, and thus does not violate the Eighth
Amendment.” United States v. Presley,
52 F.3d 64, 68 (4th Cir.
1995).
Finally, Crawford argues that the ACCA creates a separate
crime such that the Sixth Amendment’s jury-trial guarantee does not
permit application of the ACCA unless the fact of a prior
conviction is either charged by a grand jury and found by the trier
of fact beyond a reasonable doubt or admitted by the defendant.
Crawford’s argument is without merit. In United States v. Cheek,
415 F.3d 349 (4th Cir. 2005), cert. denied,
74 U.S.L.W. 3288 (U.S.
Nov. 7, 2005) (No. 05-6904), we recently rejected this identical
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argument in an ACCA case: “It is . . . abundantly clear that the
Sixth Amendment (as well as due process) does not demand that the
mere fact of a prior conviction used as a basis for a sentencing
enhancement be pleaded in an indictment and submitted to a jury for
proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Id. at 354.
For the reasons stated herein, we affirm Crawford’s sentence.
We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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