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Fun with Crimes of Violence

By Melody Evans and Kirk Redmond

A pair of Tenth Circuit opinions today serve to remind that there is much hay to be made about the categorization of prior crimes. In United States v. Hayes, the defendant was indicted as a possessor of a firearm after a domestic violence conviction. Mr. Hayes had been convicted of simple battery under Wyoming law, which prohibits "touching another in a rude, angry or insolent manner." This is a standard formulation for battery statutes. The question in Hayes is whether the "touching" proscribed by Wyoming law is sufficient to meet the physical force requirement of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g).The Court, coming down on the happier side of a circuit split, says that it does not. Instead, the Hayes Court requires that "physical force, in a crime of violence, must, from a legal perspective, entail more than mere contact...continue to full post

Full post as published by Kansas Federal Defender on May 21, 2008 (boomark / email).