The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has decided that hiring a hit man is not automatically a crime of violence under federal law, setting aside two felony solicitation convictions tied to a North Dakota murder‑for‑hire scheme. A three‑judge panel concluded that the statute's if death results language does not itself contain a separate guilty‑mind requirement, so a defendant could be convicted even if a death were accidental. The ruling does not spring the defendant from prison, since he is already serving two consecutive life sentences on related counts.
In an opinion filed on Wednesday, the panel reversed the district court’s refusal to vacate the remaining solicitation counts and sent the case back with instructions to wipe out two convictions. The judges held that the death results element of 18 U.S.C. § 1958(a) lacks the mens rea needed to qualify as a predicate crime of violence. As detailed by Justia, the panel assumed the death‑results language meets the physical‑force requirement but said it fails the separate intent element that the solicitation statute demands.
Case background
Prosecutors say James Terry Henrikson, a former trucking and oil‑drilling operator, paid Timothy Suckow tens of thousands of dollars to kill two business associates during an oil‑well dispute in North Dakota. Suckow allegedly beat one man to death with a tire jack and later shot another in his home. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, Henrikson was convicted in 2016 on multiple counts and ultimately received two consecutive life terms plus additional years. A lower court had already vacated two solicitation counts tied to plots that never produced killings, and the appellate panel extended that statutory‑text reading to two counts that did result in deaths.
What the ruling means
The decision puts the Ninth Circuit at odds with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which in 2021 held that conspiracy to commit murder‑for‑hire resulting in death counts as a crime of violence. See Justia. The Henrikson panel said more recent Supreme Court rulings have tightened the categorical‑approach test and concluded that courts cannot smuggle an intent requirement into an if-death-results clause when Congress chose not to write one in.
Practical fallout
Defense lawyers are expected to test similar challenges anywhere federal statutes use the if death results formulation, while prosecutors may lean more heavily on alternative charges that explicitly require intent. The panel also pointed to the concurrent‑sentence doctrine, which can allow affirmed sentences to stand even after related counts are wiped out. In Henrikson’s case, that means the ruling does not change his immediate custody status. As the Los Angeles Times reports, the appeals court remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.
For now, the opinion takes a narrow, text‑driven approach that treats mens rea as the deciding factor rather than a free pass for the underlying conduct. The remand gives lower courts and litigants a clearer test to work with and could set the stage for more appeals, including a possible Supreme Court review to resolve the growing split between circuits.
