Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-95-05181/USCOURTS-ca10-95-05181-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Pieter Solomon
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

FILED 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS UnitedStatesCo!Jrt~rAppea1s Tntll Carcuat 

TENTH CIRCUIT SEP 3 • 1996 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

PATRICK FISHER 

Clerk 

Plaintiff- Appellee, 

v. No. 95-5181 

PIETER SOLOMON, 

Defendant - Appellant. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA 

(D.C. No. 95-CR-25-K) 

Submitted on the briefs:· 

Stephen J. Knorr, Federal Public Defender (Stephen J. Greubel, Assistant Federal Public 

Defender, with him on the brief), Office of the Federal Public Defender, Tulsa, 

Oklahoma, for the Appellant - Defendant. 

Stephen C. Lewis, United States Attorney (Lucy 0. Creekmore, Assistant United States 

Attorney, with him on the brief), Office of the United States Attorney, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 

for the Plaintiff- Appellee. 

Before SEYMOUR, Chief Judge, KELLY and LUCERO, Circuit Judges. 

LUCERO, Circuit Judge. 

·At the parties' request, the case is unanimously ordered submitted without oral 

argument pursuant to the applicable rules. 

Appellate Case: 95-5181 Document: 01019277470 Date Filed: 09/03/1996 Page: 1 
Defendant Pieter Solomon appeals from his criminal conviction and sentence. The 

sole issue on appeal is whether United States Sentencing Guideline§ 2K2.1(a)(4)(B) is 

unconstitutionally vague as applied to the facts of this case. Our jurisdiction arises under 

18 U.S.C. § 3742(d) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm. 

In August 1994 defendant sold a small quantity of marijuana to co-defendant Roy 

Winkleman. Over the next several months, Solomon bought methamphetamine from 

Winkleman on a weekly basis. At the instruction of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 

Firearms agent Billy Magalassi, an informant purchased both drugs and firearms from the 

defendant. When federal agents searched Solomon's residence pursuant to a warrant on 

January 17, 1995, they found methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia and firearms with 

obliterated serial numbers. 

Solomon and Winkleman were charged in a twenty-four count superseding 

indictment alleging various drug and firearm offenses. 21 U.S.C. §§ 841 and 846, 18 

U.S.C. §§ 922(o) and 924(c), and 26 U.S.C. §§ 5861(d), (e), (f) and (g). Pursuant to a 

plea agreement, Solomon pled guilty to seven counts of the indictment. Prior to 

sentencing, probation officer Doug Burris recommended setting defendant's base offense 

level at 20 pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1. The basis of this recommendation was that 

Solomon was "an unlawful user of a controlled substance" and therefore a "prohibited 

- 2-

Appellate Case: 95-5181 Document: 01019277470 Date Filed: 09/03/1996 Page: 2 
person" within the meaning of§ 2K2.l(a)(4)(B). Presentence Report at~ 34; see§ 

2K2.1, comment. (n.6). Defendant objected, claiming that the "prohibited person" 

adjustment should not apply, and that therefore the base offense level should be 18 under 

§ 2K2.1(a)(5). Addendum to Presentence Report at 1. 

At sentencing, the court heard two witnesses, Agent Magalassi and Probation 

Officer Burris, give testimony relevant to this issue. According to Magalassi, Solomon 

admitted after his arrest that the drugs seized were "his personal stash, for his own 

personal use." tr. at 8, and that he had used marijuana for a number of years and 

methamphetamine for a shorter period, tr. at 8-9. Magalassi also testified that he had 

spoken with Solomon's wife, who "said that he just smoked marijuana and hadn't been 

doing crank much or methamphetamine much ... " Tr. at 10. Burris testified, based on 

his presentence investigation, that Solomon "was a frequent user of controlled 

substances." Tr. at 13. Even after Solomon pled guilty in the present case, according to 

Burris, he tested positive twice for methamphetamine and once for amphetamine. 

Relying on the findings of the presentence investigative report and the testimony of these 

two witnesses at the sentencing proceeding, the district court overruled defendant's 

objection and set his base offense level at 20. He timely appealed the resulting sentence. 

The relevant guideline sets a base offense level of twenty if the defendant "is a 

prohibited person, and the offense involved a firearm described in 26 U.S.C. § 5845(a) or 

18 U.S.C. § 92l(a)(30)." § 2K2.l(a)(4)(B). "Prohibited person" includes anyone who "is 

- 3 -

Appellate Case: 95-5181 Document: 01019277470 Date Filed: 09/03/1996 Page: 3 
an unlawful user of, or is addicted to, any controlled substance." § 2K2.1, comment. 

(n.6). The guidelines commentary offers no further explanation of the phrase "unlawful 

user" and it is this phrase which appellant claims is unconstitutionally vague. 

It is well established that a criminal statute must explicitly convey what it outlaws, 

"and a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that 

men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its 

application violates the first essential of due process oflaw." Connally v. General Constr. 

~, 269 U.S. 385, 391 (1926). However, in evaluating whether a law is vague, we must 

take into account the "'limitations in the English language with respect to being both 

specific and manageably brief" and not deem void for vagueness those laws which are 

"'set out in terms that the ordinary person exercising ordinary common sense can 

sufficiently understand and comply with, without sacrifice to the public interest."' 

Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601,608 (1973) (quoting United States Civil Serv. 

Comm'n v. National Ass'n ofLetter Carriers. AFL-CIO, 413 U.S. 548, 578-79 (1973)). 

Furthermore, vagueness challenges which do not involve First Amendment freedoms 

"'must be examined in the light of the facts of the case at hand."' United States v. Powell, 

423 U.S. 87, 92 (1975) (quoting United States v. Mazurie, 419 U.S. 544, 550 (1975)). In 

reviewing the district court's application of the sentencing guidelines to the facts, we 

review legal questions de novo and factual determinations for clear error. United States 

v. Shewmaker, 936 F.2d 1124, 1126 (lOth Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1037 (1992). 

-4-

Appellate Case: 95-5181 Document: 01019277470 Date Filed: 09/03/1996 Page: 4 
Solomon contends that the phrase "unlawful user" is susceptible to varied 

interpretations, not all of which apply to him. He claims that the term could mean (1) 

"one who has 'used' an illegal substance in the past but has since ceased such conduct"; 

(2) "one who currently 'uses' an illegal substance but never around firearms"; or (3) "one 

who currently 'uses' an illegal substance while in possession of firearms." Appellant's 

Br. at 4-5. However, the third option-- which Solomon states is inapplicable to him-- is 

not a definition which "an ordinary person exercising ordinary common sense" could 

glean from the guideline. The guideline requires, conjunctively, that the defendant be a 

"prohibited person" and that the offense involved a firearm. Nothing in the guideline or 

commentary suggests that the two components exist simultaneously; in fact, because they 

are worded in different tenses, we assume they need not coincide. In addition, the 

distinction between past and present substance abusers is, for purposes of this case, 

irrelevant. Solomon admits to having had a drug problem and other testimony confirms 

his habit. The urinalysis results indicate that his problem is ongoing. Examining 

Solomon's vagueness challenge in light of the facts at hand, then, we conclude that the 

guideline unambiguously applies to the defendant. 

Language inevitably contains ambiguity, but whatever ambiguity exists in the 

words of§ 2K2.1 does not render the guideline unconstitutionally vague with respect to 

this case. "[S]training to inject doubt as to the meaning of words where no doubt would 

- 5 -

Appellate Case: 95-5181 Document: 01019277470 Date Filed: 09/03/1996 Page: 5 
be felt by the normal reader is not required by the 'void for vagueness' doctrine, and we 

will not indulge in it." Powell, 423 U.S. at 93. We therefore AFFIRM. 

- 6 -

Appellate Case: 95-5181 Document: 01019277470 Date Filed: 09/03/1996 Page: 6