United States v. Meeks, No. 10-5336 (6th Cir. Jan. 5, 2012) (to be published).
Panel of Judges Rogers, Cook, and McKeague.
Defendant sentenced as career offender based, in part, on prior conviction for Kentucky first-degree wanton endangerment.
Defendant went to trial. Convicted of being a felon in possession and of possessing, with the intent to distribute, oxycodone. Two prior convictions for first-degree wanton endangerment; one prior for first-degree complicity to traffic in a controlled substance. Sentenced as a career offender.
Is first-degree wanton endangerment a crime of violence?
Under Kentucky law, a person is guilty of this offense when he or she, under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to human life, wantonly engages in conduct creating a substantial danger of death/serious physical injury to another. One acts wantonly when one is aware of and yet consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur or that the circumstances exist. The risk must be such that disregarding it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in that situation. A person creating such a risk who is unaware of it solely b/c of voluntary intoxication also acts wantonly. (The statute at issue was Kentucky Revised Statute 501.020(3).)
* Court notes the offense does not include force as an element.
* It is not an enumerated offense.
* Wanton endangerment involves conduct that creates a serious substantial risk of violence akin to the risk associated with the enumerated offenses.
* Not based on strict liability, negligence, or recklessness. Wantonness involves criminal intent. So Sykes suggests that the Court need not "engage in Begay's 'purposeful, violent, and aggressive conduct' inquiry."
Discussion of Sykes that does not break new ground, but cites the case and its treatment of Begay. Begay's "purposeful, violent, and aggressive" test may be limited to strict-liability, negligent, and reckless offenses b/c this inquiry is not based on statutory language and may be redundant. Level of risk may divide the offenses that qualify as crimes of violence and those that do not.
Wanton endangerment is categorically a crime of violence.
The offense was so classified pre-Begay and the Court stands by that conclusion.
Even if the Court were to use the Begay purposeful/violent/aggressive inquiry, the offense would still qualify. Such an inquiry would require use of the modified-categorical approach (Shepard documents). Charging docs revealed defendant was charged with operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol, causing a collision.
The conviction necessarily involved an admission that the defendant was aware of and consciously disregarded the substantial risk that his conduct created a substantial danger of death.
Sentence affirmed.
