United States v. Torrance James Lockett ( 2016 )


Menu:
  •              Case: 14-15084    Date Filed: 01/21/2016   Page: 1 of 18
    [PUBLISH]
    IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
    FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
    ________________________
    No. 14-15084
    ________________________
    D.C. Docket No. 4:14-cr-00027-MW-CAS-1
    UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
    Plaintiff - Appellee,
    versus
    TORRANCE JAMES LOCKETT,
    Defendant - Appellant.
    ________________________
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the Northern District of Florida
    ________________________
    (January 21, 2016)
    Before TJOFLAT, MARTIN, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
    MARTIN, Circuit Judge:
    Torrance Lockett was sentenced based on the Armed Career Criminal Act
    (ACCA), a federal three-strikes statute that requires a minimum of 15 years in
    Case: 14-15084    Date Filed: 01/21/2016   Page: 2 of 18
    prison for firearm offenders with three “violent felony” convictions. See 18 U.S.C.
    § 924(e)(1). ACCA defines “violent felony” in several ways. The District Court
    counted Mr. Lockett’s two earlier South Carolina burglary convictions using the
    definition in ACCA’s “enumerated clause,” which covers any “burglary” that is
    “punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.” 
    Id. § 924(e)(2)(B).
    This was error. The enumerated clause does not cover state burglary offenses
    whose elements are broader than the generic definition of burglary. South
    Carolina’s burglary offense is broader than generic burglary. The offense also
    does not divide into “multiple, alternative” offenses. Descamps v. United States,
    __ U.S. __, __, 
    133 S. Ct. 2276
    , 2285 (2013). This means federal sentencing
    courts can’t know if someone convicted of South Carolina burglary was convicted
    of generic burglary. We therefore reverse Mr. Lockett’s sentence.
    I.
    On February 3, 2014, Mr. Lockett was frisked by a Tallahassee police
    officer based on a tip that someone matching his description had been seen with a
    handgun. The officer found a handgun on Mr. Lockett and arrested him. Mr.
    Lockett had previously been convicted of felony offenses in both South Carolina
    and Florida. The federal government learned of Mr. Lockett’s case, and a grand
    jury charged him with violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), which makes it a federal
    2
    Case: 14-15084       Date Filed: 01/21/2016        Page: 3 of 18
    crime for convicted felons to possess firearms. Mr. Lockett pleaded guilty to this
    crime on August 4, 2014, and was sentenced on October 23, 2014.
    His presentence investigation report recommended a minimum sentence of
    fifteen years under ACCA because he had four prior burglary convictions. Two of
    these convictions were from South Carolina and two were from Florida. Mr.
    Lockett conceded that the Florida convictions counted for ACCA, 1 but he objected
    to his sentence being increased on account of the two South Carolina convictions.
    He argued that South Carolina’s burglary offense was broader than the generic
    definition of burglary and that it was also not divisible. The District Court
    disagreed on the second point. This disagreement led the court to look to facts
    from Mr. Lockett’s South Carolina cases, and make the finding that he had been
    convicted of conduct that matched generic burglary. Because three violent felony
    convictions trigger ACCA, the court sentenced Mr. Lockett to ACCA’s mandatory
    minimum 15 years in prison. This is his direct appeal.
    1
    This concession may have been due to James v. United States, 
    550 U.S. 192
    , 
    127 S. Ct. 1586
    (2007), which held that Florida burglary is covered by ACCA’s residual clause. Months
    after Mr. Lockett’s sentencing, the Supreme Court overruled James and held that ACCA’s
    residual clause is unconstitutional. See Johnson v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 
    135 S. Ct. 2551
    ,
    2563 (2015). This being the case, Mr. Lockett’s Florida convictions wouldn’t count under
    ACCA’s residual clause today. As for the enumerated clause, our Court has not decided whether
    Florida burglary is divisible. But Mr. Lockett did not preserve this issue (not surprising perhaps,
    given the difficulty of predicting decisions like Johnson) and this appeal does not raise it.
    3
    Case: 14-15084     Date Filed: 01/21/2016   Page: 4 of 18
    II.
    ACCA requires a minimum of 15 years in prison for anyone who “has three
    previous convictions . . . for a violent felony” and then violates certain federal gun
    laws. 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). The statute contains more than one definition of
    “violent felony.” The District Court counted Mr. Lockett’s South Carolina
    convictions using the “is burglary” definition in § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) in ACCA’s
    enumerated clause. Mr. Lockett argues that South Carolina burglary convictions
    aren’t covered by this definition. We review a claim like this de novo. See United
    States v. Howard, 
    742 F.3d 1334
    , 1341 (11th Cir. 2014).
    To decide whether a state’s burglary offense “is burglary” in the ACCA
    sense, we first “compare the elements of the statute forming the basis of the
    defendant’s conviction with the elements of the ‘generic’ crime—i.e, the offense as
    commonly understood.” 
    Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2281
    . If the elements of the state
    offense are either “the same as, or narrower than, those of the generic offense,”
    then any conviction under the statute counts. 
    Id. This is
    called the “categorical
    approach.” 
    Id. For the
    limited purpose of “help[ing] implement the categorical
    approach,” the Supreme Court has also recognized a “narrow range of cases” in
    which courts can use what is called the “modified categorical approach.” 
    Id. at 2284
    (quotation omitted). This approach lets courts review certain documents
    from the state proceedings (known as “Shepard documents”) to find out if the state
    4
    Case: 14-15084     Date Filed: 01/21/2016    Page: 5 of 18
    court convicted the defendant of the generic offense. 
    Id. at 2283–84
    (quotation
    omitted); see also Shepard v. United States, 
    544 U.S. 13
    , 
    125 S. Ct. 1254
    (2005).
    Even though the modified categorical approach lets courts peek into facts, it
    “retains the categorical approach’s central feature: a focus on the elements, rather
    than the facts, of a crime. And it preserves the categorical approach’s basic
    method: comparing those elements with the generic offense’s.” Descamps, 133 S.
    Ct. at 2285. Our inquiry, in this regard, is always about what elements the
    defendant was convicted of, not the facts that led to that conviction. 
    Id. Before Descamps,
    our Court “assumed that the modified categorical
    approach could be applied to all non-generic statutes.” 
    Howard, 742 F.3d at 1343
    .
    “The Descamps decision dictates discarding that assumption.” 
    Id. After Descamps,
    “the modified categorical approach can be applied only when dealing
    with a divisible statute: a statute that ‘sets out one or more elements of the offense
    in the alternative.’” Id. (quoting 
    Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2281
    ). Descamps thus
    requires us to determine whether a state statute “lists multiple, alternative elements,
    and so effectively creates several different crimes.” 
    Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2285
    (quotation and alteration omitted). If the statute does this, then Shepard documents
    will tell us which of these “several different crimes” a defendant was convicted of.
    If it does not, then no conviction under the statute can be assumed to be generic.
    5
    Case: 14-15084     Date Filed: 01/21/2016   Page: 6 of 18
    A.
    Descamps gave two reasons for why the modified categorical approach
    applies “only to explicitly divisible statutes.” 
    Id. at 2290.
    First, “ACCA’s text and
    history” show that “Congress made a deliberate decision to treat every conviction
    of a crime in the same manner.” 
    Id. at 2287.
    This can’t work if a “statute sweeps
    more broadly than the generic crime.” 
    Id. at 2283.
    But it can work if a statute
    divides into multiple distinct crimes, at least one of which has every element of the
    generic crime. Why is that? “Because only divisible statutes enable a sentencing
    court to conclude that a jury (or judge at a plea hearing) has convicted the
    defendant of every element of the generic crime.” 
    Id. at 2290.
    The second reason for the divisibility requirement is “the Sixth Amendment
    concerns that would arise from sentencing courts’ making findings of fact that
    properly belong to juries.” 
    Id. at 2287.
    The Supreme Court’s Sixth Amendment
    cases require that “any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the
    prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a
    reasonable doubt.” Apprendi v. United States, 
    530 U.S. 466
    , 490, 
    120 S. Ct. 2348
    (2000). There is exactly one “exception” to this rule: “the fact of a prior
    conviction.” 
    Id. The reason
    for this sole exception is that the defendant already
    had the protection of the Sixth Amendment for that prior conviction. See 
    id. at 488.
    But see 
    Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2294
    –95 (Thomas, J., concurring in the
    6
    Case: 14-15084     Date Filed: 01/21/2016    Page: 7 of 18
    judgment) (arguing that increasing a sentence based on a prior conviction violates
    the Sixth Amendment, so all of ACCA is unconstitutional).
    ACCA sentences can therefore be based on exactly two things: (1) “the fact
    of a prior conviction”; and (2) what state law required for the conviction, which is
    a question of law not fact. Once a sentencing judge starts examining what was
    alleged in an indictment to divine what the jury most likely found, she is no longer
    examining either “the fact of a prior conviction” or what state law says: she has
    undertaken a new factual inquiry, and this is forbidden by the Sixth Amendment.
    The Sixth Amendment contemplates only one way of finding facts: submitting
    elements to a jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt. See 
    id. at 2288
    (majority
    opinion) (“The Sixth Amendment contemplates that a jury—not a sentencing
    court—will find such facts, unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt. And the
    only facts the court can be sure the jury so found are those constituting elements of
    the offense—as distinct from amplifying but legally extraneous circumstances.”).
    So, if a state wants its burglary offenses to count for ACCA, it must ensure
    either that “its statutory definition substantially corresponds to ‘generic’ burglary,”
    or that “the charging paper and jury instructions actually required the jury to find
    all the elements of generic burglary in order to convict the defendant.” Taylor v.
    United States, 
    495 U.S. 575
    , 602, 
    110 S. Ct. 2143
    , 2160 (1990). If a state does
    either, the indictment and jury charges will always tell us whether the jury
    7
    Case: 14-15084      Date Filed: 01/21/2016     Page: 8 of 18
    convicted a defendant of the elements required for a generic burglary conviction.
    But if a statute “does not require the factfinder (whether jury or judge) to make that
    determination,” then a conviction under that statute does not count for ACCA.
    
    Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2293
    . This is true no matter what a defendant actually did,
    what an indictment charged, or what evidence a jury saw.
    B.
    Descamps also tells us how to figure out if a statute is divisible: by
    determining if the statute “lists multiple, alternative elements, and so effectively
    creates several different 
    crimes.” 133 S. Ct. at 2285
    (quotation and alteration
    omitted). This means a jury must be required to find one of the alternative
    elements beyond a reasonable doubt, rather than just convict under a statute that
    happens to list alternative definitions or alternative means for the same crime
    without requiring jurors to pick which one applies. See 
    id. To start
    with an easy example, suppose a statute provides an element that
    clearly sweeps beyond the generic crime. For instance, a statute might criminalize
    assault “with a weapon” but not specify what counts as a weapon. For this offense,
    “all the jury must find to convict” is use of “an indeterminate ‘weapon.’” 
    Id. at 2290.
    “The jurors need not all agree on whether the defendant used a gun or a
    knife or a tire iron . . . because the actual statute requires the jury to find only a
    ‘weapon.’” 
    Id. If a
    person could be convicted under the statute having used a
    8
    Case: 14-15084      Date Filed: 01/21/2016    Page: 9 of 18
    weapon that goes beyond generic assault, the statute is indivisible. This is true
    even if “a court blessed with sufficient time and imagination could devise a
    laundry list of potential ‘weapons.’” 
    Id. And it
    is also true “even if in many cases,
    the jury could have readily reached consensus on the weapon used.” 
    Id. The question
    is trickier where, like here, a statute actually lists alternative
    things, rather than leaving the list to imagination. The difficulty is that the list
    could serve a few different functions. For instance, the list could simply illustrate
    the sorts of things that are covered by the statute. These kinds of “illustrative
    examples are not alternative elements.” 
    Howard, 742 F.3d at 1348
    . Howard thus
    held that Alabama’s burglary statute is indivisible because it “provides one
    definition of building and then includes a non-exhaustive list of things that fall
    under that definition.” 
    Id. The list
    of alternatives could also just create alternative definitions of
    indeterminate language. For instance, we know that burglary of curtilage is not
    generic burglary. See James v. United States, 
    550 U.S. 192
    , 212, 
    127 S. Ct. 1586
    ,
    1599 (2007). Suppose a burglary statute requires entry of a “dwelling” and then
    defines dwelling as “either a house or its curtilage.” The fact that this list looks
    exhaustive and separates curtilage with an “or” doesn’t tell us whether jurors were
    required to decide whether the defendant actually entered the house or only the
    9
    Case: 14-15084        Date Filed: 01/21/2016        Page: 10 of 18
    curtilage. And if a statute “does not require the factfinder (whether jury or judge)
    to make that determination,” then it is indivisible. 
    Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2293
    .
    To take another example based on Descamps, suppose an assault statute
    requires the use of a “weapon” and defines “weapon” as a “gun or a knife.” Even
    if this list of weapons is finite and separated by the word “or,”
    [a]s long as the statute itself requires only an indeterminate ‘weapon,’
    that is all the indictment must (or is likely to) allege and all the jury
    instructions must (or are likely to) mention. And most important, that
    is all the jury must find to convict the defendant. . . . Whatever the
    underlying facts or the evidence presented, the defendant still would
    not have been convicted, in the deliberate and considered way the
    Constitution guarantees, of an offense with the same (or narrower)
    elements as the supposed generic crime (assault with a gun).
    
    Id. at 2290.
    Again, this is true “even if in many cases, the jury could have readily
    reached consensus on the weapon used.” 
    Id. That’s why
    our inquiry can’t end
    with simply looking at whether the statute is written disjunctively (with the word
    “or”). The text of a statute won’t always tell us if a statute is listing alternative
    means or definitions, rather than alternative elements.2
    2
    This distinction between alternative “elements” and alternative “means” rings
    throughout Supreme Court precedent. For example, Richardson v. United States, 
    526 U.S. 813
    ,
    
    119 S. Ct. 1707
    (1999), held that, while “a jury in a federal criminal case cannot convict unless it
    unanimously finds that the Government has proved each element,” a “jury need not always
    decide unanimously . . . which of several possible means the defendant used to commit an
    element of the crime.” 
    Id. at 817,
    119 S. Ct. at 1710. Descamps cited Richardson to support the
    proposition that “[t]he Sixth Amendment contemplates that a jury—not a sentencing court—will
    find such facts, unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt. And the only facts the court can be
    sure the jury so found are those constituting elements of the 
    offense.” 133 S. Ct. at 2288
    .
    10
    Case: 14-15084         Date Filed: 01/21/2016        Page: 11 of 18
    The key is the legal effect of the alternatives. If a “statute lists multiple,
    alternative elements, and so effectively creates several different crimes,” then the
    statute is divisible. 
    Id. at 2285
    (quotation and alteration omitted). So, for a
    burglary statute, the question is whether “the jury is actually required to find all the
    elements of generic burglary.” 
    Id. at 2284
    (quotation omitted). Again, if a statute
    “does not require the factfinder (whether jury or judge) to make that
    determination,” then it isn’t divisible. 
    Id. at 2293;
    see also 
    id. at 2290
    “[O]nly
    divisible statutes enable a sentencing court to conclude that a jury (or judge at a
    plea hearing) has convicted the defendant of every element of the generic crime. A
    prosecutor charging a violation of a divisible statute must generally select the
    relevant element from its list of alternatives. And the jury, as instructions in the
    case will make clear, must then find that element, unanimously and beyond a
    reasonable doubt.” (footnote and citation omitted)); 
    id. at 2296
    (Alito, J.,
    dissenting) (“By an element, I understand the Court to mean something on which a
    jury must agree by the vote required to convict under the law of the applicable
    jurisdiction.”). 3
    3
    Related to this point, the government referenced a footnote from this court’s Howard
    decision to argue that a statute’s divisibility turns only on how the statute is phrased, not on what
    jurors are required to find. This footnote offered that “it might be helpful, in case the Supreme
    Court revisits this area . . . to point out that one premise of [Descamps] may be 
    problematic.” 742 F.3d at 1343
    –45 n.3. This offering was directed to Justice Kagan’s statement that courts
    applying the modified categorical approach “need only check the charging documents and
    instructions (‘Do they refer to a gun or something else?’) to determine whether in convicting a
    11
    Case: 14-15084        Date Filed: 01/21/2016         Page: 12 of 18
    III.
    We turn now to Mr. Lockett’s case. Mr. Lockett’s two South Carolina
    convictions were for violations of South Carolina Code § 16-11-312(A), which
    says: “A person is guilty of burglary in the second degree if the person enters a
    dwelling without consent and with intent to commit a crime therein.” S.C. Code
    Ann. § 16-11-312(A). A separate definition section then tells us that “‘[d]welling’
    means its definition found in § 16-11-10 and also means the living quarters of a
    building which is used or normally used for sleeping, living, or lodging by a
    person.” 
    Id. § 16-11-310(2).
    This is the “definition found in § 16-11-10”:
    any house, outhouse, apartment, building, erection, shed or box in
    which there sleeps a proprietor, tenant, watchman, clerk, laborer or
    defendant under that divisible statute, the jury necessarily found that he committed the ACCA-
    qualifying 
    crime.” 133 S. Ct. at 2290
    .
    The Howard footnote said this statement is “problematic” because “prosecutors usually
    are not required to select from multiple statutory phrases or alternative means a single one to
    include in an indictment or to prove at trial,” and “juries are rarely asked to specify in their
    verdict which of the alternatively charged means they unanimously found beyond a reasonable
    
    doubt.” 742 F.3d at 1344
    –45 n.3.
    It is true that “prosecutors usually are not required to select from multiple statutory
    phrases or alternative means.” 
    Id. But they
    are certainly required to charge and prove elements.
    And they usually do this in a rote fashion that sentencing courts can easily identify. Likewise,
    it’s true that “juries are rarely asked to specify in their verdict which of the alternatively charged
    means they unanimously found beyond a reasonable doubt.” 
    Id. But they
    are asked to specify
    which elements they so found. That’s why the modified categorical approach lets courts look at
    “extra-statutory documents only to determine which alternative element was the basis for the
    conviction.” 
    Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2280
    . The key is elements, not means or phrases or
    definitions. If a statute doesn’t create alternative elements, it is indivisible. Howard recognizes
    as much: “[Descamps] holds that the modified categorical approach can be applied only when
    dealing with a divisible statute: a statute that ‘sets out one or more elements of the offense in the
    alternative.’” 
    Howard, 742 F.3d at 1343
    (quoting 
    Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2281
    –82).
    12
    Case: 14-15084      Date Filed: 01/21/2016    Page: 13 of 18
    person who lodges there with a view to the protection of property
    shall be deemed a dwelling house, and of such a dwelling house or of
    any other dwelling house all houses, outhouses, buildings, sheds and
    erections which are within two hundred yards of it and are
    appurtenant to it or to the same establishment of which it is an
    appurtenance shall be deemed parcels.
    
    Id. § 16-11-10.
    As for § 16-11-310(2)’s use of the word “building,” it
    means any structure, vehicle, watercraft, or aircraft: (a) Where any
    person lodges or lives; or (b) Where people assemble for purposes of
    business, government, education, religion, entertainment, public
    transportation, or public use or where goods are stored. Where a
    building consists of two or more units separately occupied or secured,
    each unit is deemed both a separate building in itself and a part of the
    main building.
    
    Id. § 16-11-310(1).
    Mr. Lockett first argues that this statute sweeps more broadly
    than generic burglary because it includes locations beyond those included in
    generic burglary. He next argues that the statute is indivisible because South
    Carolina jurors aren’t required to unanimously choose any one of the dozens of
    possible dwellings listed in the statute’s definition section.
    A.
    We first address whether South Carolina’s burglary offense is generic. It is
    not. Generic burglary is (1) “an unlawful or unprivileged entry into, or remaining
    in,” (2) “a building or structure,” (3) “with intent to commit a crime.” 
    Taylor, 495 U.S. at 598
    , 110 S. Ct. at 2158. That second element does not cover things like
    boats and vehicles. See id.; 
    Howard, 742 F.3d at 1348
    . South Carolina defines
    “building” as “any structure, vehicle, watercraft, or aircraft.” S.C. Code Ann.
    13
    Case: 14-15084     Date Filed: 01/21/2016    Page: 14 of 18
    § 16-11-310(1). So, as with Alabama’s burglary statute, a “number of those things
    included in the definition of ‘building’ (such as vehicles and watercraft) fall
    outside the ‘building or structure’ element of generic burglary, making the burglary
    statute non-generic.” 
    Howard, 742 F.3d at 1348
    .
    B.
    We next address whether the offense is divisible. It is not. Though South
    Carolina defines “dwelling” using a finite list, prosecutors are never required to
    select from this list when charging a crime. And they are never required to prove
    that a defendant entered anything more specific than a “dwelling,” which we know
    includes places that generic burglary doesn’t cover. “With no such burden placed
    on the government, we cannot say that the statute creates separate crimes defined
    by distinct elements so as to permit application of the modified categorical
    approach.” Donawa v. U.S. Attorney Gen., 
    735 F.3d 1275
    , 1283 (11th Cir. 2013).
    What elements South Carolina prosecutors are required to prove for a
    burglary conviction is a question of South Carolina law. And so we look to the
    state’s courts to answer this question. See 
    id. at 1282
    (deciding a Florida statute is
    indivisible because Florida courts treat an element needed for the generic offense
    as an affirmative defense); 
    Howard, 742 F.3d at 136
    (“Sentencing courts
    conducting divisibility analysis in this circuit are bound to follow any state court
    14
    Case: 14-15084     Date Filed: 01/21/2016    Page: 15 of 18
    decisions that define or interpret the statute’s substantive elements because state
    law is what the state supreme court says it is.”).
    South Carolina law does not require prosecutors to charge one of § 16-11-
    10’s various types of dwellings in the same way they must charge the three
    elements of burglary in § 16-11-312. In South Carolina—as in most places—“[i]t
    is a familiar principle that an indictment under a statute charging an offense made a
    crime thereby, must allege the essential elements prescribed by the statute.” State
    v. Everall, 
    123 S.E. 824
    , 825 (S.C. 1924). South Carolina law does not make the
    type of dwelling an essential element of burglary. For example, in State v. Smalls,
    
    519 S.E.2d 793
    (S.C. Ct. App. 1999), a defendant was convicted based on an
    indictment charging that he did “wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously enter the
    dwelling of [the victim].” 
    Id. at 305.
    The trial evidence ended up showing that
    “the building actually broken into was in fact [the victim’s] garage, located
    approximately fifty-three feet behind her ‘dwelling.’” 
    Id. This garage
    was
    covered by the definition statute’s reference to “all houses, outhouses, buildings,
    sheds and erections which are within two hundred yards of” a dwelling. 
    Id. (quoting S.C.
    Code Ann. § 16-11-10). But the defendant claimed the indictment
    was not valid because it “failed to allege the essential element that [the victim’s]
    garage was within 200 yards of the residence.” 
    Id. The South
    Carolina Court of
    Appeals disagreed, holding that this was not an essential element. 
    Id. 15 Case:
    14-15084     Date Filed: 01/21/2016    Page: 16 of 18
    South Carolina’s model jury instructions also confirm that juries are not
    called upon to agree on anything more specific than “entry into a dwelling.” These
    instructions say that “the State must prove the following three elements in order to
    establish burglary”: (1) “entry into a dwelling,” (2) “without consent,” and (3)
    “with intent to commit a crime therein.” Ralph King Anderson, Jr., South Carolina
    Requests to Charge - Criminal § 2-14 (2007). The instructions then define
    “dwelling” using the statute’s definition lists. But juries need only agree that the
    defendant entered “a dwelling” that fits these definitions, rather than unanimously
    picking one of the possibilities. This means that jurors never need to agree that the
    defendant entered a generic “dwelling.” Sure, reaching this agreement might be
    easy most of the time. But “even if in many cases, the jury could have readily
    reached consensus on [this question], a later sentencing court cannot supply that
    missing judgment.” 
    Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2290
    .
    The same principle applies to defendants like Mr. Lockett who plead guilty.
    This is because a defendant
    often has little incentive to contest facts that are not elements of the
    charged offense—and may have good reason not to. At trial,
    extraneous facts and arguments may confuse the jury. (Indeed, the
    court may prohibit them for that reason.) And during plea hearings,
    the defendant may not wish to irk the prosecutor or court by
    squabbling about superfluous factual allegations.
    
    Id. at 2289.
    For example, suppose a South Carolina prosecutor stated during a plea
    hearing that a burglary defendant entered the victim’s house, even if the evidence
    16
    Case: 14-15084        Date Filed: 01/21/2016        Page: 17 of 18
    would have proved otherwise. Because entry into a house is not an element, the
    defendant “may have let the prosecutor’s statement go by because it was irrelevant
    to the proceedings. He likely was not thinking about the possibility that his silence
    could come back to haunt him in an ACCA sentencing.” Id.4
    The constitutional question in ACCA sentencing isn’t what facts went
    unchallenged during a plea hearing. It’s whether the defendant knowingly and
    intelligently waived her Sixth Amendment right to a jury deciding each of the facts
    necessary to convict her. If a jury would not have been required to find a specific
    fact, a court can’t later use this fact as the basis for longer imprisonment. “The
    Sixth Amendment contemplates that a jury—not a sentencing court—will find
    such facts, unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt. And the only facts the
    court can be sure the jury so found are those constituting elements of the offense—
    as distinct from amplifying but legally extraneous circumstances.” 
    Id. The definitions
    of “dwelling” in South Carolina’s burglary statute are not
    alternative essential elements of the offense. That means Mr. Lockett never had
    4
    Justice Kennedy’s Descamps concurrence narrated this concern in more detail:
    Just one of the substantial concerns that the Court is correct to consider is that, in
    the regular course of the criminal process, convictions may be entered, often by
    guilty pleas, when either the attorney or the client, or both, have given no
    consideration to possible later consequences under ACCA. As a result, certain
    facts in the documents approved for judicial examination in Shepard may go
    uncontested because they do not alter the sentencing consequences of the crime,
    even though their effect is to require a later enhancement under ACCA. This
    significant risk of failing to consider the full consequences of the plea and
    conviction is 
    troubling. 133 S. Ct. at 2293
    (Kennedy, J., concurring) (citations omitted).
    17
    Case: 14-15084         Date Filed: 01/21/2016         Page: 18 of 18
    the protection of the Sixth Amendment for the fact of what kind of dwelling (or
    what part of a dwelling) he entered. Without that protection, we can’t assume his
    South Carolina burglary convictions were generic.
    IV.
    South Carolina’s burglary offense is neither generic nor divisible. The
    District Court thus should not have counted Mr. Lockett’s two South Carolina
    convictions and sentenced him using ACCA. 5 We vacate the sentence.
    VACATED AND REMANDED
    5
    In fairness to the District Court, its conclusion was based in part on our decision in
    United States v. Ramirez-Flores, 
    743 F.3d 816
    (11th Cir. 2014). That case addressed the same
    question as this case, though on plain-error review. We said that “[w]e need not in this case
    definitively decide that the South Carolina statute at issue is divisible. We need decide only that
    it is not plain or obvious that the statute is indivisible.” 
    Id. at 825;
    see also 
    id. at 825
    (Martin, J.,
    concurring) (“[W]e apply the modified categorical analysis here even though we might not were
    we conducting de novo review.”). The District Court understandably adopted our tentative
    analysis in Ramirez-Flores when sentencing Mr. Lockett. It may not have been plain error to say
    South Carolina’s statute is divisible, but it was error nonetheless. On de novo review, we agree
    with Mr. Lockett.
    18