United States v. Reyes-Rivas

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The First Circuit vacated Defendant’s sentence of seventy-seven months’ imprisonment and remanded this case for further proceedings, holding that, under the Jones Act, 48 U.S.C. 864, the district court impermissibly considered an untranslated Spanish-language document at Defendant’s sentencing.Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of assault with a dangerous weapon. The presentence report determined that Defendant qualified as a “career offender” because he had two prior convictions for “crimes of violence.” To support the assertion that Defendant’s prior conviction for aggravated battery was a crime of violence the government attached a Spanish-language copy of a Puerto Rico judgment of conviction for the offense at issue. The district court ultimately ruled that Defendant’s aggravated battery conviction qualified as a crime of violence and that Defendant was thus a career offender. The First Circuit vacated and remanded the sentence, holding that the Jones Act required that the Court set aside the untranslated document concerning Defendant’s judgment of conviction, thus leaving the Court no basis for concluding that the district court permissibly found that Defendant’s conviction was for aggravated battery in the fourth degree. View "United States v. Reyes-Rivas" on Justia Law