Sometimes a "burglary" isn't really a "burglary" and sometimes it doesn't matter whether it is or is not, the reason being in such instances the most lasting of all reasons: just because you're still screwed. Let's talk about how this maxim played out in the case, Potter v. United States, just decided by the Sixth Circuit.
Anthony Potter is not sympathetic; no one lament his bad fortune, and it could be said he brought it upon himself. But we don't stand law on its head for such: this is the United States of America.
In 2003, "Potter pleaded guilty to a slew of drug and gun crimes, including possession of a firearm by a convicted felon." It wasn't Potter's first rodeo, or his second, or his third: he wound up being sentenced to 225 months (18 years, 9 months for those counting) under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), which "prescribes a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence for defendants who have three prior convictions for a 'violent felony.'"
The ACCA offers three definitions of "violent felony," one being the "enumerated crimes clause" that identifies the following crimes as prior violent felonies qualifying under the ACCA: "burglary, arson, or extortion[.]" Ok, seems simple enough: if there is a prior conviction for a "burglary," there is a prior "violent felony" under the ACCA.
Not so fast, though; not all burglaries are equal or, put another way, sometimes a "burglary" is not a "burglary," at least so far as the ACCA contemplates a "burglary" to be a "violent felony." At least this is the takeaway from the Supreme Court's ruling in 2016 in Mathis v. United States. Potter wanted to use the rule in Mathis to argue that one of his three prior felony convictions used to justify his sentence under the ACCA, a burglary conviction under Georgia law, was not a "burglary" under the ACCA as Mathis had explained a burglary should be understood.
So Potter's argument was that his "burglary" wasn't a "burglary" at all and, therefore, it was wrong to sentence him under the ACCA.
Doesn't matter the Sixth Circuit ruled; Potter was not going to get any relief, for reasons not having anything to do with the law but how and when it was that Potter got into court. In a 2015 decision, Johnson v. United States, the Supreme Court invalidated a portion of the ACCA, the portion known as the "residual clause," which was held to be consitutionally vague. A later decision, Welch v. United States, made the Johnson ruling retroactive to cases on collateral review.
But Johnson dealt only with the ACCA's residual clause, it had "nothing to do with enhancements under the elements clause or the enumerated-crimes clause." Mathis, the case on which Potter relied, did have to do with the enumerated crimes clause, and it supported, at least according to Potter's argument, the conclusion that not every "burglary" under a state law would be a "burglary" under the ACCA. The Supreme Court, Potter argued, was on his side.
Too bad, the Sixth Circuit explained, Mathis decided merely a question of statutory law, not constitutional law as did Johnson, and, therefore, could not help Potter, because he was in court on his second 2255 petition.
Long ago, in 2003, Potter received a sentence that was legally flawed: what was thought to be a prior "burglary" conviction was no such thing. Both Potter and the court that sentenced him were wrong about that. But he's just screwed, and the Sixth Circuit is good with that.
