finding facts supported reasonable suspicion where “the ‘high-crime’ area [wa]s circumscribed to a specific intersection rather than an entire neighborhood” and “the crimes that frequently occur[ed] in the area [we]re specific and related to the reason for which [the defendant] was stopped”
How later courts described this case
- finding facts supported reasonable suspicion where “the ‘high-crime’ area [wa]s circumscribed to a specific intersection rather than an entire neighborhood” and “the crimes that frequently occur[ed] in the area [we]re specific and related to the reason for which [the defendant] was stopped”
- interpreting a different Tennessee statute and finding that, because “[t]he first paragraph of the statute contains a set of elements and a penalty scheme that are distinct from [the same] in the second paragraph,” “the statute is divisible.” (emphasis added)
- holding that courts must look to state case law to assess the full range of conduct encompassed by criminal statutory elements
- noting that when a defendant’s federal criminal judgment is affirmed and the defendant does not petition for a writ of certiorari, the judgment is final 90 days after the appellate court entered judgment
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judge, concurring.
I fully join Judge Keith's thoughtful opinion, which faithfully applies the so-called categorical approach to determining whether the Tennessee crime for which Cradler was convicted in 1978 was a violent felony for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act. Respectfully, though, that approach only gets in the way of applying the Act here. Nobody disputes that the indictment for Cradler's offense charged him only with conduct amounting to generic burglary (a violent felony for purposes of the Act). See Taylor v. United States , 495 U.S. 575 , 598, 110 S.Ct. 2143 , 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990). Thus, we can readily tell that Cradler was in fact convicted of a violent felony. Yet under the categorical approach we cannot consider that reality. See Descamps v. United States , 570 U.S. 254 , 257, 133 S.Ct. 2276 , 186 L.Ed.2d 438 (2013). Instead we must look to the elements of the relevant Tennessee offense, which by their terms likewise seem to describe only generic burglary. But we are also bound by the Tennessee caselaw for the offense, which includes one case-from over fifty years ago and rarely cited since-where the Tennessee Supreme Court seems to have read the relevant statutory provision (notwithstanding its plain terms) to cover certain acts that are not generic burglary. So construed, the Tennessee offense encompasses more than generic burglary, and thus we are bound to hold that Cradler's generic burglary was not generic burglary for purposes of the Act. Whatever the merits of this approach, accuracy and judicial efficiency are not among them, at least not here. See id . at 284-94, 133 S.Ct. 2276 (Alito, J., dissenting). Meanwhile, Cradler will not serve the sentence mandated by Congress (and served by many similarly situated defendants) for carrying a gun after being convicted of three violent felonies, including one "that ... is burglary[.]" 18 U.S.C. § 924 (e)(2)(B)(ii). Admittedly, the federal courts and the Supreme Court in particular have had a tough hand in trying to make sense of the Act's violent-felony provisions. But cases like this one make one wonder about the categorical approach's fairness too.