PER CURIAM:
Defendant-appellant Flay Rood appeals from the judgment of conviction and sentence entered by the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (David N. Hurd, Judge) on May 26, 2011. We hold that the District Court erred when it imposed a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3559(e)
This appeal arises from Rood's conviction, after a guilty plea, on three separate counts of producing child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) (Counts One, Two, and Three); distributing and attempting to distribute child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(2)(A) (Count Four); receiving child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(2)(A) (Count Five); and attempting to possess, and attempting to access with intent to view, material that contained images of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B) (Count Six).
The indictment to which Rood pleaded guilty included an allegation that he had previously, in 1991, been convicted in Ohio state court of Gross Sexual Imposition, a felony. The indictment alleged that the basis of the 1991 conviction was his alleged sexual abuse of a two-year-old child. Rood moved to dismiss or strike the prior conviction allegation from the indictment. Finding the motion premature and denying it without prejudice, the District Court thereafter accepted a plea of guilty permitting the defendant to reserve the right to challenge on appeal the applicability of 18 U.S.C. § 3559(e), which imposes a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment on repeat sex offenders whose crimes were against children, to his prior conviction. Accordingly, while Rood pleaded guilty to the six substantive counts of the indictment and acknowledged the fact of the 1991 conviction, he did not admit any facts underlying the 1991 offense.
At sentencing, the District Court found that Rood had previously been convicted of a sexual offense involving a two-year-old child and imposed a statutory minimum term of life imprisonment, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3559(e), on each of the first three counts.
On appeal, Rood argues that the District Court erred in determining that his prior Ohio conviction triggered the application of the mandatory life sentence provision of Section 3559(e), for two reasons: (1) the Ohio statute does not have the same mens rea requirement as the federal statute; and (2) the Ohio statute proscribes a greater range of conduct than does the relevant federal statute.
Pursuant to a federal mandatory sentencing regime for repeat sexual offenders, any individual convicted of a federal sex offense who has previously been convicted of either a federal sexual offense or an equivalent state-law sexual offense is subject to a statutory minimum term of life
Rood argues that the District Court erroneously determined that the Ohio crime of Gross Sexual Imposition was a state sex offense within the meaning of the federal mandatory sentencing regime. We agree that the District Court erred in the circumstances of this case.
The District Court was required at sentencing to determine whether the Ohio state crime of Gross Sexual Imposition should be deemed a "[s]tate sex offense," equivalent to 18 U.S.C. § 2241(c), for the purpose of § 3559(e). The two statutes are substantially similar,
Because the congruency of the Ohio and federal statutes could not be determined from their text alone, the District Court was required to analyze whether the facts underlying the state conviction satisfied the elements of the federal statute. See United States v. Walker, 595 F.3d 441, 443-44 (2d Cir.2010). Such a determination is made using the so-called modified categorical approach laid out in Shepard v. United States, see Walker, 595 F.3d at 443-44, which permits courts to evaluate whether the factual elements of the analogous federal crime were "necessarily" proven at the time of the defendant's conviction on the state charges.
As a plurality of the Shepard Court acknowledged, permitting a federal court to find facts that would increase a statutory sentencing range poses an obvious problem under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147
Under the modified categorical approach, facts "necessarily admitted" may, of course, be drawn from the statutory language of the crime to which the defendant pleaded guilty. Id.; see Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 599, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990). Beyond the text of the statute itself, however, the Supreme Court in Shepard held that courts may find facts based only upon "adequate judicial record evidence": the "charging document, written plea agreement, transcript of plea colloquy, and any explicit factual finding by the trial judge to which the defendant assented." Shepard, 544 U.S. at 16, 20, 125 S.Ct. 1254.
In this case, of the documents purporting to be "judicial record evidence" of the 1991 conviction, the District Court had before it a "Municipal Court Statement" (the "Statement"), which specified the age of the victim,
The affidavit and the Statement together were insufficient to permit the District Court to find as a fact the age of the 1991 victim. The affidavit is ambiguous as to whether Rood pleaded guilty only to the Bill of Information, or whether he necessarily
Having reviewed the record before the District Court, we hold that the Court could not have found the necessary fact— the age of the 1991 victim—based on the judicial documents available to it at sentencing. Accordingly, Rood is entitled to a de novo sentencing proceeding, in which the District Court will reevaluate the applicability of Section 3559(e) to his sentence without reliance on the Municipal Court Statement.
We have considered the remainder of Rood's arguments on appeal and have determined that they are meritless.
For the reasons stated above, we REMAND the cause for resentencing. On remand, the District Court shall determine whether Rood necessarily admitted the age of the 1991 victim during the 1991 criminal proceeding. The Government shall have the opportunity to present to the District Court any appropriate evidence regarding the defendant's 1991 conviction that may have become available after the 2011 federal sentencing proceeding.
In the interest of judicial economy, any future proceedings on appeal will be assigned to this panel.