United States v. Rodney Vinson

This case presents the question of whether a court should treat a state offense as divisible when the relevant state law is itself ambiguous and/or inconsistently applied. North Carolina’s common law crime of assault is one such offense. See United States v. Kelly, 917 F.Supp.2d 553, 556-59 (W.D.N.C.2013) (conducting a detailed review of North Carolina common law and describing it as a “quagmire of alternative definitions for assault on a female”). In the face of that uncertainty, it would be prudent to err on the side of constitutional caution, construing state law in a way that minimizes…