9TH CIRCUIT RULES THAT FLEEING FROM THE POLICE IN A CAR IS A VIOLENT FELONY

The Supreme Court had earlier ruled that fleeing from the police is a violent felony in “that vehicle flight from police inherently poses a serious potential risk to the safety of pedestrians and other drivers, as well as a risk of violent confrontation with police”

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, generally considered a liberal court, upheld the federal court conviction and mandatory 15-year sentence of Michael Anthony Martinez for being a felon in possession of ammunition. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “Federal law classifies a convicted felon as an armed career criminal, subject to the mandatory sentence, if he or she has at least three previous convictions for violent felonies.”

Martinez had been convicted of three prior felonies, including one in 2006 for flight in a vehicle from a pursuing police officer. In appealing his sentence, Martinez argued that flight from the police in a vehicle should not constitute a felony.

The 9th Circuit liberal judges really had no choice because in 2011, the Supreme Court upheld an Indiana flight-from-police law as a violent felony. The Justices “reasoned that vehicle flight from police inherently poses a serious potential risk to the safety of pedestrians and other drivers, as well as a risk of violent confrontation with police.”

Friday’s 9th Circuit unanimous ruling requires that the police car be marked, driven by a uniformed cop using emergency lights and siren, and that the fleeing suspect showed a “willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property,” which, of course, he would show by driving at dangerously high speeds, weaving in and around other motorists, and disregarding stop signs and traffic lights.

The Supreme Court and 9th Circuit rulings fly in the face of current criminal justice reforms that call for non-violent offenders not to be sent to prison. Most reformers would consider fleeing from the police a non-violent offense. On the contrary, fleeing from the cops carries with it the real potential of killing innocent bystanders, and as such should be considered a violent felony and severely punished, a prior clean record notwithstanding.