One of the frustrating things about traditional law review articles in the modern era is that they're incredibly, incrediby long. They're comprehensive, to be sure. But unless you've got a couple of hours to spend learning every minute detail of a particular area of law, you're largely relegated to reading the abstract and moving on.
By contrast, Judge Watford displays an uncanny ability today to cut quickly to the chase. Here's his concurrence. In full. It's perfect for a bar review class or pretty much anything else. It tell you what you need to know and no more:
"I join the court’s opinion in full, although I confess I was
initially inclined to affirm the sentence. The notion that
robbery is not a 'violent felony,' as that term is defined in the
Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), strikes me as
counterintuitive to say the least. Holding that armed robbery
doesn’t qualify as a violent felony seems even more absurd.
But, as the court’s opinion persuasively explains, that
conclusion is compelled by two oddities of Massachusetts
law.
The first is that Massachusetts has abandoned the
traditional common-law definition of robbery. To distinguish
robbery from larceny, the common law required more than
just stealing property from the person of another. To commit
robbery, the defendant also had to use violence or
intimidation to coerce the victim into parting with his
property. [Cite] In Massachusetts,
however, a defendant may be convicted of robbery without
using violence or intimidation of any sort. [Cite] It’s enough, for example, if the defendant sneaks up
behind the victim and snatches a purse from her hand without
so much as touching the victim or doing anything to put her
in fear beforehand. [Cite]
The second oddity is this: In Massachusetts, armed
robbery consists of robbery (as defined above) while in
possession of a dangerous weapon. The weapon need not
play any role in the offense, as is often required in other
States, and the victim need not even be aware of the weapon’s existence. [Cites]. Thus, the
same purse-snatcher described above is guilty of armed
robbery under Massachusetts law so long as he has a gun
concealed on his person—even if the victim never learns of
the gun’s presence, and even if the gun plays no role in
facilitating the crime. So again, strange as it may seem, in
Massachusetts a defendant can be found guilty of armed
robbery without using or threatening to use any violence
whatsoever.
The conduct encompassed by Massachusetts’ armed
robbery statute surely falls within the scope of the ACCA’s
so-called residual clause, [Cite] But
that clause is no longer valid. [Cite] To qualify now as a violent felony,
armed robbery must have as an element the use, attempted
use, or threatened use of violent physical force. [Cite] That is not the case under Massachusetts
law, so Parnell’s prior armed robbery conviction cannot serve
as the basis for an enhanced sentence under the ACCA."
Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
