United States v. Sid Willis, Jr.

Sid Willis, Jr. challenges his 60-month sentence for violating the conditions of his supervised release. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583 (e)(3). Specifically, he argues that the district court plainly erred in calculating the Sentencing Guidelines range by determining that Willis committed a Grade A violation of his supervised release because his conduct did not constitute a felony offense that is a “crime of violence.” See U.S.S.G. § 7B1.1(a)(l). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3742 (a) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We hold that before a district court concludes that a defendant committed a Grade A violation of supervised release by engaging in conduct constituting a felony offense that is a crime of violence, it must take the following steps. First, it must determine by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant’s conduct constituted a federal, state, or local offense. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583 (d), (e)(3). It must then use the categorical approach set forth in Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600-02 , 110 S.Ct. 2143 , 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990), to determine whether that offense is a categorical match to the federal generic offense of a “crime of violence.” If the…