In U.S. v. Beckles, No. 07-15062 (April 17, 2009), the Court affirmed a conviction and sentence for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g).
The Court rejected Beckles’ argument that his confession was obtained in violation of Miranda. The Court noted that the district court chose to credit the account of the FBI agent, rather than that of Beckles, regarding the voluntariness of Beckles’ waiver of his Miranda rights, and made "detailed credibility determinations" in support of its finding.
The Court also rejected Beckles’ challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence: a shotgun was found under a mattress, concealed in a location Beckles knew, in an apartment at which he resided, and the shotgun did not belong to anyone else.
The Court rejected the argument that, for purposes of determining whether Beckles’ firearm possession offense was a "crime of violence," the district court was not permitted to look outside the statute of conviction to see whether the firearm in question was a sawed-off shotgun, and therefore so qualified the firearm possession offense under career offender guidelines. The Court noted that if ambiguities in a judgment make the crime of violence determination impossible from the fact of the judgment, the district court is authorized to find additional facts, based on charging documents, written plea agreements, transcripts of plea colloquies, and any explicit factual finding made by the sentencing court. Here, the PSI’s stated that the firearm Beckles possessed was a sawed-off shotgun, and this statement was undisputed. The district court did not err in relying on this undisputed fact. Further, even if error occurred, it would not have affected the defendant’s substantial rights because the defendant failed to proffer evidence that the firearm was anything else than a qualifying sawed-off shotgun.
