Quarles v. United States

THE SCOPE OF THE INTENT ELEMENT OF BURGLARY

Petitioner Jamar Alonzo Quarles argues that, at common law, burglary required contemporaneous intent, such that a defendant must have intended to commit another crime at the same time he or she unlawfully entered a structure. Quarles notes that, under Taylor, the ACCA encompasses a generic meaning of burglary that includes “entry into or remaining in” a structure with the intent to commit a crime. According to Quarles, a defendant’s “remaining in” a structure refers to a discrete moment in time—the initiation of the trespass, i.e., the moment a defendant’s stay goes from lawful to unlawful—rather than to a continuous condition. To broadly construe “remaining in” as a continuous condition, Quarles argues, would make the “entry” language in the statute superfluous, because any instance of “entry” would also be an instance of “remaining in.” Furthermore, Quarles contends, Taylor’s use of the word “with” in the phrase “with intent to commit a crime” means that the intent must exist alongside the “entry” or “remaining.” Thus, Quarles concludes, the ACCA’s definition of “burglary” includes this contemporaneous-intent requirement, whereby the intent to commit a crime must exist at the single moment in which the defendant either enters or remains inside a structure. As a result, Quarles claims, the Sixth Circuit was incorrect when it concluded that a defendant’s intent could develop at any point while he or she was unlawfully within a structure.

Quarles also asserts that a majority of states, in fashioning their burglary laws, adopted the common law contemporaneous-intent requirement. To support this claim, Quarles points to both English and American common law. Quarles also looks to the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code and criminal law treatises (both of which were used by the Taylor court in its interpretation of “burglary”), to argue that the contemporaneous-intent requirement was widely accepted at the time of the ACCA’s enactment. To emphasize this point, Quarles introduces a 1986 summary of the burglary laws of all states, which, he claims, reflects the states’ dominant tendency to adopt the contemporaneous-intent requirement. According to Quarles, because a majority of states retained the contemporaneous-intent requirement, erasing that requirement from the ACCA’s definition of “burglary” would make the ACCA’s use of the term “burglary” unconstitutionally vague, and invite arbitrary enforcement of the statute.

Respondent the United States does not argue against the contemporaneous-intent requirement; rather, the United States contends that the contemporaneous-intent requirement is satisfied when an intruder forms an intent to commit a crime at any point in which he or she is unlawfully inside a structure. To support its interpretation, the United States appeals to the plain language of Taylor and focuses on the word “remaining.” The United States argues that the plain meaning of “remaining” implies the continuous activity of staying inside a structure, and does not indicate, as Quarles contends, a discrete moment in time. To support its argument, the United States points to the dictionary definition of “remains,” the Court’s interpretive history of the word “remains,” and the law of trespass—where “remaining” on land refers to the entire time during which an intruder stays on the land—as illustrations of the continuous nature of the act of “remaining.”In response to Quarles’s claim that “entry” would be rendered superfluous if “remaining” were to be read as a continuous condition, the United States counters that “entry” would still cover instances of burglary in which intruders only briefly entered a building, or where they broke the threshold of the building’s exterior with a body part.

Additionally, the United States argues that when the ACCA was enacted in 1986, state burglary laws endorsed the continuous meaning of “remaining,” such that a criminal intent could be formed at any point while a defendant remained in a structure. The United States looks to dozens of 1986 state burglary statutes that criminalized “remaining in.” According to the United States, none of the state statutes fail to criminalize a situation where a defendant formed the criminal intent while remaining in a structure. Those statutes that do address such a situation, the United States contends, explicitly criminalized a broad understanding of “remaining,” such that the intent element of each statute is satisfied if a trespassing defendant formed the criminal intent at any point that he or she remained in a structure. The United States also posits that Quarles’s reliance on a summary of 1986 state burglary laws is misguided. Specifically, the United States suggests that Quarles relies on a number of states that did not prohibit “remaining” burglary at all, which means that these states’ burglary laws are irrelevant in this case. Finally, the United States asserts, Quarles’s summary overlooks a number of more recent developments, in which a number of states have adopted the continuous meaning of “remaining.”

CONGRESSIONAL INTENT AND THE ACCA

Quarles argues that interpreting the intent element as requiring contemporaneous intent aligns with Congress’s purpose in enacting the ACCA. Quarles contends that by enacting the ACCA, Congress meant to target career criminals who use dangerous weapons to commit crimes, as well as repeat offenders whose crimes form the basis of their livelihood. By contrast, Quarles explains, the ACCA was not meant to target individuals who simply commit “unplanned crimes of opportunity” during ordinary trespasses. On a related note, Quarles posits that his interpretation of the intent element would help ensure that the ACCA ensnares the most dangerous criminals—the likelihood of a violent confrontation increases if an intruder enters a building with an intent to commit a crime, because the intruder is likely “prepared to use violence if necessary to carry out his plans or to escape.” On the other hand, Quarles maintains, adopting the United States’ interpretation of the intent element could result in applying a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence to individuals whose criminal conduct falls far short of that of the weapon-wielding “career offenders” that Congress sought to reach with the ACCA.

The United States responds that Quarles’s interpretation of generic burglary under the ACCA draws an immaterial distinction among crimes of burglary based on the point of time that an intruder formed the intent to commit a crime. The United States contends that Quarles’s interpretation would inhibit the ACCA’s ability to reach intruders that are prone to create the risk of violent confrontation that Congress intended the ACCA to target. Moreover, the United States continues, the dangers that Congress sought to address with the ACCA do not turn upon when, exactly, a defendant forms the intent to commit a crime. Indeed, the United States argues, an intruder only needs to be “(1) unlawfully present inside a structure and (2) ha[ve] the requisite intent to commit a crime” to implicate the congressional purpose behind the ACCA. The United States asserts that distinguishing crimes based on the timing of intent formation, as Quarles attempts to do, would lead to arbitrary results that are ultimately unrelated to Congress’s intention in passing the ACCA. The United States also rejects Quarles’s contention that crimes of opportunity are less dangerous than premeditated crimes.