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United States v. Reyes, No. 10-1400-cr (2d Cir. August 29, 2012) (Katzmann, Wesley, CJJ, Underhill, DJ) (per curiam)

Closing the question left open by United States v. Rosa, 507 F.3d 142, 156 (2d Cir. 2007), this per curiam opinion concludes that it was plain error for the district court to rely solely on the presentence report’s uncontested description of a prior offense in determining whether the defendant was a career offender, where the statute of conviction described some offenses that met the definition of crime of violence and some that did not. Even where the defendant does not contest the PSR’s factual description of the prior offense, the “modified categorical approach” still requires more. The PSR, after all, described only what the defendant did, not what he was convicted of. The circuit accordingly vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing to give the government the “opportunity to introduce evidence demonstrating …

United States v. Beardsley, No. 11-2206-cr (2d Cir. August 27, 2012) (Newman, Straub, Lynch, CJJ)

For purposes of recidivism enhancements, the statutes underlying prior convictions can be categorized into two distinct groups. “Divisible” statutes are those that identify distinct offenses, some of which would trigger the enhancement and some would not.  “Indivisible” statutes, by contrast, identify a single offense but are worded so broadly as to encompass conduct that might or might not fall within the relevant definition.  This important decision holds that for “indivisible” statutes, the traditional “categorical approach” is the only available means of determining whether the enhancement applies. The more expansive “modified categorical approach” can only be used with divisible statutes, in an effort to ascertain which of the possible predicate offenses the defendant was convicted of.

Here, the particular enhancement was that in a child pornography statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2252A. For offenses involving the …