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Your English teacher was right: Grammar is important.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has cut through a "bramble of prepositional phrases" to determine how a statute that increases prison time when guns are used to commit violent crimes or drug offenses should be applied in a Utah case.
The court ruled Tuesday that federal prosecutors can seek only one sentencing enhancement under that statute in the case of Philbert Rentz, who is accused of firing a single gunshot that wounded one victim and killed another
According to investigators, Rentz was a passenger in a pickup truck driven by Llewellyn Dee Benally that stopped in front of a residence in Aneth on the Navajo reservation on July 23, 2011. Verveen Dawes, then 26, said he and Tedrick Francis approached the driver's window and started talking to the two men.
Dawes said an argument began and Benally pointed an assault rifle at him. He grabbed the barrel of the rifle, Dawes said, and Rentz leaned across the front seat and fired a round from a firearm through the driver's side window. Investigators say the bullet passed through Dawes and hit the 33-year-old Francis, piercing his heart and killing him.
Rentz was indicted in federal court on charges of second-degree murder while within Indian country, assault causing serious bodily injury while within Indian country and possession of a firearm by a felon. In addition, he was indicted on one count each of use of a firearm in furtherance of murder and use of a firearm in furtherance of assault.
Those last two charges were brought under a statute that says "any person who, during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime . . . uses or carries a firearm, or who, in furtherance of any such crime, possesses a firearm, shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such crime . . . be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 5 years."
In addition to the minimum five extra years for a first conviction, a defendant convicted of a second violation under this statute would face an enhancement of another 25 years in prison, according to the court. The enhanced time has to be served consecutively to the prison terms for the underlying crimes, which would be assault and murder in Rentz's case.
Within months of Rentz's indictment, his defense attorneys filed a motion to dismiss one of the enhancement charges. After U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups granted their motion, prosecutors appealed to the Denver-based 10th Circuit, where a three-judge panel overturned the dismissal. Defense attorneys then asked for an en banc, or full court, review and their request was granted.
The question before the 10th Circuit was whether the law — § 924(c)(1)(A) in the federal criminal code — authorizes multiple charges when everyone agrees there is a single use, carry or possession.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Utah argued that previous 10th Circuit rulings had held that a defendant could be convicted of multiple counts arising from the same criminal episode as long as each was connected to a separate violent crime.
But the full 10th Circuit court disagreed in a 10-1 decision.
The appeals court reached its decision after conducting a thorough analysis of the law, which included a diagram of one of its sentences and a look at "textual clues" in its language. Judge Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said the general meaning of the statute is known "but the details are full of devils."
"That bramble of prepositional phrases may excite the grammar teacher but it's certainly kept the federal courts busy," Gorsuch wrote.
He also said a court's job is "to discern a statute's meaning not grade its grammar, and sometimes a law's meaning can be clear when the grammar's downright awful."
The statute's verbs drew his attention, Gorsuch said, writing that "until a clue emerges suggesting otherwise, it's not unreasonable to think that Congress used the English language according to its conventions."
"And in § 924(c)(1)(A) we find three relevant verbs: uses, carries, and possesses," the judge continued. "This alone supplies some evidence that each § 924(c)(1)(A) charge must involve an independent act of using, carrying, or possessing."
Judge Paul Kelly Jr. dissented, saying the statute's plain terms permit the two enhancement charges.
"No one disputes that Mr. Rentz possessed, used, and carried a firearm vis-a-vis the two crimes of violence which involved distinct victims," Kelly wrote.
One of Rentz's lawyers, Jeremy Delicino , said Friday that the decision will benefit defendants in the 10th Circuit — which also covers Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming — and could be persuasive when the issue is raised in circuits that have not yet considered it.
Melodie Rydalch, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Salt Lake City, said the three-judge panel had acknowledged that the charging decisions in the case followed governing 10th Circuit law.
"We recognize, however, that it is the province of the en banc court to change the law of this Circuit and will conform our future charging decisions to this ruling," Rydalch said.
The ruling is expected to restart pretrial proceedings in the case.
Benally pleaded guilty to firearms charges and was sentenced to two years in prison.
Twitter: @PamelaMansonSLC