Filed: Feb. 27, 2013
Latest Update: Feb. 12, 2020
Summary: FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit February 27, 2013 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Elisabeth A. Shumaker Clerk of Court TENTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, No. 12-6244 v. (W.D. of Okla.) ALFRED LYNN HAWKINS, (D.C. No. CR-12-00032-D) Defendant-Appellant. ORDER AND JUDGMENT * Before BRISCOE, Chief Judge, EBEL, and TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judges. ** Alfred Hawkins pleaded guilty without a plea agreement to one count of possessing a firearm as a felon, in violatio
Summary: FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit February 27, 2013 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Elisabeth A. Shumaker Clerk of Court TENTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, No. 12-6244 v. (W.D. of Okla.) ALFRED LYNN HAWKINS, (D.C. No. CR-12-00032-D) Defendant-Appellant. ORDER AND JUDGMENT * Before BRISCOE, Chief Judge, EBEL, and TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judges. ** Alfred Hawkins pleaded guilty without a plea agreement to one count of possessing a firearm as a felon, in violation..
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FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
February 27, 2013
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
TENTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee, No. 12-6244
v. (W.D. of Okla.)
ALFRED LYNN HAWKINS, (D.C. No. CR-12-00032-D)
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before BRISCOE, Chief Judge, EBEL, and TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judges. **
Alfred Hawkins pleaded guilty without a plea agreement to one count of
possessing a firearm as a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The
government sought and received a sentence enhancement under the Armed Career
Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). The Act provides that a felon-in-possession
“shall be . . . imprisoned not less than fifteen years” if that person “has three
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata and collateral estoppel. It may be cited,
however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th
Cir. R. 32.1.
**
The parties have waived oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th
Cir. R. 34.1(G). This case is therefore submitted for decision on the briefs.
previous convictions . . . for a violent felony or a serious drug offense, or both.”
Id.
The government pointed to two previous drug convictions—whose
classification as “serious drug crimes” Hawkins does not challenge—and a
conviction for fleeing from police in a motor vehicle. The government
characterized this last conviction as a “violent felony,” which the Act defines as
any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term
exceeding one year . . . that—
(i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or
threatened use of physical force against the person of
another; or
(ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use
of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that
presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to
another . . . .
Id. § 924(e)(2)(B) (emphasis added). The government specifically argued that the
italicized clause, the Act’s residual clause, encompassed Hawkins’s fleeing
conviction.
Hawkins objected to the government’s characterization of his fleeing
conviction and also argued that the Act’s residual clause is unconstitutionally
vague. The district court rejected both arguments and sentenced Hawkins to
fifteen years in prison.
Hawkins timely appealed, renewing only his constitutional vagueness
challenge to the Act’s residual clause. Hawkins relies primarily on a dissent from
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a recent Supreme Court decision, which argued the Act’s residual clause “does
not give a person of ordinar[y] intelligence fair notice of its reach, and that
permits, indeed invites, arbitrary enforcement. The Court’s ever-evolving
interpretation of the residual clause will keep defendants and judges guessing for
years to come.” Sykes v. United States,
131 S. Ct. 2267, 2287 (2011) (Scalia, J.,
dissenting) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
Justice Scalia’s Sykes dissent was the culmination of previous dissents and
concurrences in judgment in which he had concluded that the residual clause was
unconstitutionally vague and in need of a saving construction. See Begay v.
United States,
553 U.S. 137, 148–53 (2008) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment);
James v. United States,
550 U.S. 192, 214–31 (2007) (Scalia, J., dissenting). The
difference in Sykes was that Justice Scalia had abandoned the possibility of a
rational saving construction. See
Sykes, 131 S. Ct. at 2287.
While it is true that the Supreme Court has yet to squarely confront a
vagueness challenge to the Act,
James, 550 U.S. at 210 n.6 (suggesting in dicta
that the Act “is not so indefinite as to prevent an ordinary person from
understanding what conduct it prohibits”), we need not do so either. Instead, we
can resolve this appeal on much narrower grounds. Specifically, “one to whose
conduct a statute clearly applies may not successfully challenge it for vagueness.”
United States v. Franklin-El,
554 F.3d 903, 910 (10th Cir. 2009) (internal
quotation marks omitted). We find this rule bars Hawkins’s argument.
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Hawkins’s fleeing-by-automobile conviction came by way of the following
Oklahoma statute:
A. Any operator of a motor vehicle who has received a
visual and audible signal, a red light and a siren from [a
police officer] directing the operator to bring the vehicle
to a stop and who . . . willfully attempts in any . . .
manner to elude the peace officer . . . is guilty of a
misdemeanor.
B. Any person who violates the provisions of subsection
A of this section in such manner as to endanger any
other person shall be deemed guilty of a felony . . . .
Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 21, § 540A. Hawkins’s conviction fell under subsection B,
meaning that his offense necessarily encompassed a form of fleeing that
endangered others.
We have no trouble concluding that fleeing in an automobile in “such
manner as to endanger any other person” falls squarely within the residual
clause’s reference to “conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical
injury to another.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). Hawkins therefore lacks
standing to challenge the residual clause as constitutionally void for vagueness.
We AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Timothy M. Tymkovich
Circuit Judge
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