USA v. SAVAGE
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today released an opinion in USA v. SAVAGE, No. 06-30451, a criminal appeal. The panel consisted of Alex Kozinski and Raymond C. Fisher, Circuit Judges, and Andrew J. Guilford, District Judge..
FISHER, Circuit Judge:
Appellant Shane Russell Savage appeals the district court’s calculation of his recommended sentence under the United States Sentencing Guidelines (”Guidelines”), arguing that his prior state conviction for escape was not a crime of violence warranting a sentence enhancement under the Guidelines. We affirm the enhancement and hold that where the appropriate documents reveal that a defendant was previously convicted of escaping from a jail or prison, the previous conviction qualifies as a “crime of violence” under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a). I. Background Savage pled guilty to and was sentenced for possession of an unregistered firearm and possession of a firearm not identified by a serial number in violation of 26 U.S.C. §§ 5841, 5861(d), 5861(i) and 5871. In its original sentencing, the district court found that Savage had at least two prior felony convictions that qualified as crimes of violence — a 2004 state conviction for felony assault with a weapon and a 2004 state conviction for escape. See United States v. Savage, 178 F. App’x 726, 727-28 (9th Cir. 2006). Savage conceded that felony assault with a weapon is a crime of violence, but disputed that felony escape qualified as such. Id. The district court ruled that the felony escape was categorically a crime of violence, noting that (at that time) the issue was an open question in our circuit but that “every circuit in the country, except the Ninth Circuit, had held that escape categorically constituted a crime of violence under § 4B1.2(a).” Id. at 728. Accordingly, the district court sentenced Savage under U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(a)(1), which governs the base offense level for Savage’s crime of conviction when a defendant has two or more previous convictions for crimes of violence. . . .