That is a one way to put it.
In United States v. Adkins, --- F.3d ---, No. 15-10566 (9th Cir. 2018), the Court affirmed the defendant's conviction and 210-month sentence as a career offender.
After an in-prison assault over a drug debt, the government charged the defendant with committing a
Violent Crime in Aid of Racketeering in violation of 18
U.S.C. §§ 1959(a)(3), (2). Specifically, the indictment alleged he knowingly committed an assault “in violation
of [s]ection 707-710 of the Penal Code of the State of
Hawaii.”
At trial, the defendant asked the district court to instruct on the state-law definition of knowingly, which included a self defense component. The district court instead instructed on the federal definition.
The Ninth Circuit found error, but concluded it was harmless: "Adkins was deprived
of a self-defense instruction found within the Hawaii state
definition, but not the federal definition. 'Confusion and
unfairness' most certainly arises when a jury lacks an
instruction that contains this specific defense, and 'an
appellate court would have no way of knowing what the jury
found the defendant’s state of mind to be.' Thus, the district court
erred when it instructed the jury on the federal definition that
lacked a self-defense instruction."
As to the sentencing issues, the Ninth concluded that, under the now-delated residual clause of the carer offender provision, the defendant’s prior Hawaii
convictions for unlawful imprisonment in the first degree and
burglary in the first degree qualified as crimes of violence.
The Court declined to apply the amendment deleting the residual clause, concluding it was a substantive change, not a clarification.
In short, due solely to the timing of his sentence, the defendant was punished as a career offender.
