Inflicting pain equal to torture is a crime of violence
In U.S. v. Carson, the Ninth Circuit held that the offense of second degree assault, as defined by the state of Washington, was a crime of violence. Defendant’s previous conviction for that offense had been used as a sentence enhanced for his federal conviction. An element of the prior offense is that the defendant “knowingly inflict bodily harm which by design causes such pain or agony as to be the equivalent of that produced by torture.” The Court held the prior conviction was properly considered to determine the defendant was eligible for career offender enhancement.
In my days as a staff attorney, we’d would have called this case a slam dunk.
