United States v. Angel Almendarez

MEMORANDUM

Angel Almendarez pled guilty to violating 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(1) as a felon in possession of a firearm. The district court sentenced him to 46 months in federal detention. He appeals that sentence, raising several distinct challenges to the sentence itself and to the supervised release conditions the district court imposed. As the facts are known to the parties, we will not repeat them here except to the extent necessary to explain our decision.

I

Almendarez first contends that the district court improperly concluded that his prior conviction under California Penal Code § 69 constitutes a crime of violence within the meaning of U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1. We disagree. U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(l) defines a “crime of violence” as, in pertinent part, “any offense under federal or state law, punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.” Under the modified categorical approach first announced in Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 , 110 S.Ct. 2143 , 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990), we may look to a transcript of Almendarez’s plea colloquy to determine “whether the…