Background
Jesse Shane Owens was serving supervised release for a federal firearms conviction when his probation officer alleged that he had committed several new South Carolina offenses. At the revocation hearing, a victim testified that Owens locked her inside his home, bit and choked her, and repeatedly punched her over approximately eight hours, causing extensive injuries.
The district court found by a preponderance of the evidence that Owens’s conduct violated South Carolina’s first-degree assault-and-battery statute, S.C. Code § 16-3-600(C)(1)(b)(i), and classified the offense as a Grade A supervised-release violation because it was a crime of violence. Owens did not object to that classification. The court revoked supervised release and imposed 24 months’ imprisonment—the statutory maximum—followed by 12 months of supervised release, varying upward from the advisory range of 12 to 18 months.
The Court’s Holding
The Fourth Circuit affirmed. Its prior decision in United States v. Mack held that first-degree assault and battery under § 16-3-600(C)(1)(b)(i)—which covers an offer or attempt to injure accomplished by means likely to cause death or great bodily injury—is categorically a crime of violence under the Sentencing Guidelines. That precedent established both that the offense requires violent force and that the relevant statutory provision does not encompass merely reckless conduct.
The court rejected Owens’s argument that the South Carolina Supreme Court’s later decision in United States v. Clemons undermined Mack. Clemons addressed different offenses and held only that those offenses could be committed recklessly in some circumstances; it did not address first-degree assault and battery or disturb Mack’s divisibility analysis. Moreover, because Owens had not preserved his argument, review was for plain error, and the district court did not plainly err by following controlling circuit precedent directly resolving the issue.
Key Takeaways
- South Carolina first-degree assault and battery under § 16-3-600(C)(1)(b)(i) remains a crime of violence under binding Fourth Circuit precedent.
- Clemons did not establish that the relevant first-degree assault-and-battery offense may be committed recklessly and therefore did not render Mack untenable.
- A district court does not plainly err by applying controlling circuit precedent, particularly when the defendant did not preserve the contrary argument below.
Why It Matters
The decision preserves the Grade A classification of supervised-release violations based on this form of South Carolina first-degree assault and battery. It also illustrates the demanding burden facing an appellant who raises an unpreserved sentencing objection that conflicts with directly controlling circuit authority.