United States v. Baker, No. 10-1925-cr (2d Cir. January 12, 2012) (Pooler, Parker, Carney, CJJ) (per curiam)
This latest per curiam affirms an Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”) sentence, rejecting the defendant’s claims that his Vermont prison escape convictions were not ACCA predicates. The statute at issue contains two distinct offenses – failure to report to custody, which is not a predicate, and escape from custody. Baker agreed that his convictions were for escape from custody, but argued that the district court should have looked beyond the charging instruments to determine whether his actual conduct posed a sufficient degree of risk to qualify.
The circuit disagreed. While a sentencing court can, and sometimes must, look beyond the charging instrument, it cannot go beyond the judicial record evidence. Where the defendant pled guilty, the offense is a predicate if the record establishes that his plea necessarily admitted elements of a predicate …