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Felony Assault: Not Always a Crime of Violence

By Melody Evans and Kirk Redmond

Which state felonies constitute crimes of violence is a complicated area, and we should never make assumptions based on the label of conviction. That point was proved again this week by the Tenth Circuit in an immigration case, US v. Rodriguez-Enriquez. There, the defendant challenged a Colorado assault conviction, arguing it was not a crime of violence.All right, now some of us would see 'felony assault' and assume it was a COV. But that would have been a serious mistake. This guy got a 16 level increase under the guidelines for an assault II conviction. The actual conviction was for drugging a victim. (Colorado. See Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 18-3-203(1)(e)). The Court held it was not a COV for guideline 16-level (§ 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii)) purposes:The application note to § 2L1...continue to full post

Full post as published by Kansas Federal Defender on March 15, 2008 (boomark / email).