Summary
This Third Circuit Court of Appeals opinion addresses whether the district court properly applied a career-offender sentencing enhancement based on prior Pennsylvania robbery convictions. The court vacated the sentence because the district court improperly excused the government's forfeiture of an argument regarding the enumerated-offenses clause and relied on an unreliable state-court docket sheet instead of permissible Shepard documents to determine which subsection of the robbery statute supported the conviction. The case remands for further proceedings consistent with the court's analysis of the modified categorical approach and party-presentation principles.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the District Court abused its discretion by giving the Government an additional opportunity before sentencing to produce Shepard documents supporting the career-offender enhancement.
- Whether the District Court could consider a state-court docket sheet that was not a Shepard document when applying the modified categorical approach.
- Whether the District Court improperly advanced and adopted a forfeited argument that Payo's 2010 Pennsylvania robbery conviction qualified under the enumerated-offenses clause.
- What remedy was appropriate after the District Court relied on the docket sheet and forfeited argument.
Holdings
- A sentencing court does not abuse its discretion merely by affording a party an additional opportunity before sentencing to develop the record in support of an argument already made.
- When applying the modified categorical approach to determine which subsection of a divisible statute supported a prior conviction, the court is limited to reliable Shepard documents; the docket sheet at issue was not a Shepard document.
- The Government forfeited the argument that Pennsylvania robbery under 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3701(a)(1)(iv) qualified as a crime of violence under the enumerated-offenses clause, and the District Court violated party-presentation and separation-of-powers principles by independently advancing and adopting that argument.
- The Government could not introduce the 2008 plea colloquy for the first time on appeal absent a persuasive reason, and the sentence had to be vacated and remanded for the District Court to determine, using only the Shepard documents previously produced, whether the 2008 conviction was under subsection (i) or (ii).
Key quotations
“The parties, not the courts, are “responsible for advancing the facts and arguments entitling them to relief” in our criminal legal system.” (at 30-31)
“If it can prove that Payo’s 2008 conviction was under subsection (ii), the sentence enhancement stands; otherwise, it does not.” (at 31)
Factual background
Payo pleaded guilty to two bank robberies committed in 2017. The District Court classified him as a career offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 based on a 2001 federal robbery conviction and Pennsylvania robbery convictions from 2008 and 2010. To determine the subsection supporting the 2008 conviction, the District Court relied on an online state-court docket sheet that was not produced by the Government and contained a disclaimer regarding possible inaccuracies. The District Court also concluded that the 2010 conviction qualified under the enumerated-offenses clause even though the Government had not presented that argument before sentencing.
Procedural history
Payo pleaded guilty in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania to two bank-robbery counts. The District Court applied a career-offender enhancement based on prior federal and Pennsylvania robbery convictions and sentenced him to concurrent terms of 127 months' imprisonment. The Third Circuit vacated the sentence because the District Court relied on a non-Shepard docket sheet and adopted an enumerated-offenses argument concerning the 2010 conviction that the Government had forfeited, then remanded for further proceedings.
Remand instructions
Vacate the sentence and remand for the District Court to determine expeditiously, using only the Shepard documents the Government produced the first time around, whether Payo's 2008 conviction was under 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3701(a)(1)(i) or (ii). If the conviction was under subsection (ii), the enhancement stands; if the remaining materials are inconclusive, the court must assume subsection (i).