United States v. Pedro Martinez-Martinez

Pedro Martinez-Martinez pled guilty to illegal reentry into the United States after being deported following a conviction for a felony and was sentenced to forty-six months in federal prison. This case presents the question of whether, in computing Martinez-Martinez’s prison sentence, the district court erred in treating Martinez-Martinez’s prior state-court conviction in Arizona for discharging a firearm at a residential structure as a “crime of violence” under United States Sentencing Guidelines (“USSG”) section 2L1.2(b)(l)(A)(ii). For the reasons set forth below, we find that the district court did so err.

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On June 28, 2005, Martinez-Martinez pled guilty to one count of unlawfully reentering the United States after being deported following a conviction for a felony in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 . This was not the first time Martinez-Martinez had been found residing in this country illegally. Martinez-Martinez was deported in 2002 following a one-year state prison sentence in Arizona for discharging a firearm at a residential structure, a violation of Arizona Revised Statutes § 13-1211, and for endangerment, a violation of Arizona Revised…