US v. Davis: In 1993, Davis twice paid someone to attempt to burn down someone’s home. That home was rented in part using funding from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. As a result, Davis was convicted of arson and, as relevant here, use of a destructive device (a Molotov cocktail in the second attempt) in furtherance of a crime of violence – arson under 18 USC 844(f). He was sentenced to a total of 480 months in prison. After Johnson, Davis filed a 2255 motion arguing that his destructive device conviction was no longer valid because the arson was not a “crime of violence.” The district court denied the motion.
On appeal, the Fourth Circuit reversed. Noting that the Government had waived any argument as to the timeliness of Davis’ motion, the court went on to conclude that, categorically, an arson conviction under 844(f) is not a crime of violence. That is because the applicable definition of “crime of violence” requires the use of physical force against the “property of another,” but 844(f) allows for conviction if someone burns down their own property. The court pointed to a Seventh Circuit decision affirming a conviction under 844(f) where the defendant burned down his own building where he had operated a business that had received federal funds. The court rejected the Government’s argument that 844(f) only applied to property of another because it was limited to property owned, possessed, used by, or leased to the United States.
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