Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-06-30614/USCOURTS-ca9-06-30614-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Eugene Raymond Rising Sun
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

No. 06-30614 Plaintiff-Appellee,

D.C. No.

v.  CR-05-00061-RFC

EUGENE RAYMOND RISING SUN,

OPINION Defendant-Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Montana

Richard F. Cebull, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

September 26, 2007—Seattle, Washington

Filed April 14, 2008

Before: Betty B. Fletcher, Andrew J. Kleinfeld, and

Ronald M. Gould, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Gould

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COUNSEL

Mark S. Werner, at argument, & Anthony R. Gallagher, on

the briefs, Federal Defenders of Montana, Billings, Montana,

for appellant Eugene Rising Sun. 

Corey Endo, at argument, and William W. Mercer & Lori

Harper Suek, on the briefs, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Billings,

Montana, for appellee United States.

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OPINION

GOULD, Circuit Judge: 

Eugene Rising Sun (“Rising Sun”) appeals two consecutive

life sentences which were imposed after he pled guilty to two

counts of second-degree murder. He argues that the sentencing court erred in applying the enhancement found at

U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1(b)(1) for vulnerable victims because of the

remote location where the murders occurred and in applying

the enhancement found at U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 for obstruction of

justice because he threatened a witness and tried to destroy

evidence before the police investigation began. Rising Sun

also argues that the sentence was unreasonable. We have

jurisdiction to hear the appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we

vacate and remand for resentencing. 

I

Koren Diebert was reported missing on November 22,

2003. Five days later her body, along with that of LaFonda

Big Leggins, was found in a ditch off Big Horn County Road

50A in Montana, which is part of the Crow reservation. An

autopsy revealed that both young women had died from blunt

force trauma to their heads caused by a heavy object. 

Investigations by law enforcement authorities determined

that Diebert and Big Leggins were last seen in the late evening of November 18 in the company of Rising Sun and his

two brothers. One witness told investigators that Rising Sun

had commented to her that “he had gotten rid of some of his

stuff because it was evidence.” Another witness reported seeing, on the morning of November 19, a maroon Corsica

parked at an abandoned house on the Crow reservation where

the Rising Sun family used to live. A third witness had linked

that same car to the murders of Diebert and Big Leggins. The

FBI obtained a search warrant for the abandoned house,

which was executed on December 5, 2003. In a trash can out3870 UNITED STATES v. RISING SUN

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side the house, agents found items of clothing and jewelry

that appeared to have blood stains on them and that also

appeared to have been burned. DNA tests conducted on the

items seized from the trash can revealed that these items contained blood from Diebert and Big Leggins. 

Rising Sun’s younger brother Moses was interviewed twice

by law enforcement personnel. During the first interview,

three days after Diebert was reported missing, he denied having seen either of the young women after the early evening of

November 18. When interviewed again in January of 2004,

however, Moses admitted that on November 18, after a night

of heavy drinking, he and his two brothers had driven with

Diebert and Big Leggins to a remote area several miles south

of Harden, Montana so they could “party together.” Moses

said that the group decided to stop the car so that some of the

occupants could relieve themselves, and that when the vehicle

stopped, both Rising Sun and Big Leggins got out of it. Soon

thereafter, Moses heard “a thump” and a woman screaming.

He then saw Rising Sun “smack” Big Leggins and accuse her

of being a “narc.” According to Moses, Rising Sun dragged

Big Leggins into a nearby ditch and then chased after Diebert

and repeatedly hit her with an object he had obtained from the

trunk. 

Moses further stated that when the brothers returned to

their mother’s home later that night, Rising Sun took a shower

and placed the clothes he had been wearing in a plastic bag.

Moses also said that Rising Sun then told him not to tell his

girlfriend about what had happened, and that when Moses

said that he was going to tell, Rising Sun threatened him with

a knife. 

Rising Sun was indicted on one count of first-degree murder on May 20, 2005. Pursuant to a plea agreement, he later

pled guilty to a superseding information charging him with

two counts of second-degree murder under 18 U.S.C.

§§ 1153(a) and 1111. As part of this plea agreement, Rising

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Sun stated his willingness to serve consecutive sentences on

the two counts. 

After assigning a base offense level of 33 for each count

pursuant to the 2003 edition of the federal Sentencing Guidelines,1

 the presentence report recommended applying two twolevel enhancements, one for vulnerable victims under

U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1(b)(1) because the killings occurred in a

remote location, and one for obstruction of justice under

U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 because Rising Sun had attempted to

destroy evidence and had threatened his brother Moses to prevent him from talking to his girlfriend about the murders. At

Rising Sun’s sentencing hearing in November 2006, the district court adopted both of these enhancements over Rising

Sun’s objections and also imposed a three-level upward

departure based on Extreme Conduct and Criminal Purpose,

resulting in an adjusted offense level of 39. The applicable

sentencing range, taking into account Rising Sun’s criminal

history category of IV, was 360 months to life for each count

of second-degree murder. The district court then determined

that because of the heinous nature of these murders and Rising Sun’s violent criminal history, it would impose the maximum allowable sentence of life for each offense, with the

sentences to be served consecutively. This appeal followed. 

II

We review a district court’s interpretations of the federal

Sentencing Guidelines de novo, its factual determinations for

1Although a sentencing court ordinarily will apply the version of the

Guidelines in effect on the date of sentencing, if doing so would violate

the Ex Post Facto Clause of the United States Constitution, “the court shall

use the [version] in effect on the date that the offense of conviction was

committed.” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.11 (2006). The district court determined that

the Ex Post Facto Clause was implicated in Rising Sun’s case because the

base offense level for second-degree murder rose from 33 to 39 between

the 2003 and 2004 editions of the Manual. Accordingly, it was correct for

the district court to use the 2003 edition of the Guidelines Manual. 

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clear error, and its application of the Sentencing Guidelines to

the facts as it has found them for abuse of discretion. United

States v. Kimbrew, 406 F.3d 1149, 1151 (9th Cir. 2005). If we

apply this framework to one of the issues presented in this

case, we review the district court’s determination that Diebert

and Big Leggins were vulnerable because they were assaulted

in a remote location as a factual finding for clear error, while

we review the conclusion that a two-level enhancement for

vulnerable victims was appropriate because of that remote setting for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Weischedel,

201 F.3d 1250, 1252, 1255 (9th Cir. 2000). If upon review

this court finds that the district court committed a “significant

procedural error,” see Gall v. United States, 128 S. Ct. 586,

597 (2007), such as a “material error in the Guidelines calculation that serves as the starting point for the district court’s

sentencing decision, we will remand for resentencing pursuant

to 18 U.S.C. § 3742(f).” United States v. Cantrell, 433 F.3d

1269, 1280 (9th Cir. 2006). If no such material error in applying the Guidelines is found, however, we may go on to evaluate the sentence for its substantive reasonableness under an

abuse of discretion standard. See Gall, 128 S. Ct. at 597; Cantrell, 433 F.3d at 1280. 

III

Rising Sun argues that the “vulnerable victim” enhancement described in U.S.S.G. § 3A1.1(b)(1) should not have

been applied to his sentence for two reasons. First, he contends that no personal traits of either Diebert or Big Leggins

rendered them particularly susceptible to his criminal conduct.

Second, he suggests that the two victims voluntarily accompanied him and his brothers to the remote location where they

were killed and were not lured there as part of a deliberate

scheme. We agree with the first of these objections and conclude that the “vulnerable victim” enhancement should not

have been applied in Rising Sun’s case because none of the

victims’ characteristics, alone or in combination with surrounding circumstances of the crime, made them more vulnerUNITED STATES v. RISING SUN 3873

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able to Rising Sun’s criminal conduct than any other members

of the public. 

[1] Section 3A1.1(b)(1) of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines

provides for a two-level enhancement where “the defendant

knew or should have known that a victim of the offense was

a vulnerable victim.” Application note 2 in the commentary

to this Guideline states that “ ‘vulnerable victim’ means a person . . . who is unusually vulnerable due to age, physical or

mental condition, or who is otherwise particularly susceptible

to the criminal conduct.” § 3A1.1 cmt. n.2. We have interpreted the “otherwise particularly susceptible” language as

requiring the sentencing court to consider both the victim’s

characteristics and the “circumstances surrounding the criminal act.” United States v. Peters, 962 F.2d 1410, 1417 (9th

Cir. 1992). However, although circumstances are to be considered, we also have held that where none of the victims’

personal characteristics made them particularly susceptible to

the crime at issue, the enhancement should not have been

applied because nothing about the victims “render[ed] the

defendant’s conduct more criminally depraved” than if the

same crime had been perpetrated against others. See United

States v. Castellanos, 81 F.3d 108, 111 (9th Cir. 1996). 

[2] We reconciled these two precedents in United States v.

Weischedel, explaining that in both Peters and Castellanos,

“we examined the personal traits of the victims and the specific circumstances in which the victims found themselves

when the crimes were committed, and asked whether there

were any characteristics or circumstances that made the victims particularly susceptible to the crime.” 201 F.3d 1250,

1254-55 (9th Cir. 2000). Weischedel involved a married couple who sought to steal a car by representing to a car salesman

that they were potential customers and asking him to accompany them on a test drive. Id. at 1252. After the three had

driven to a remote area, the husband fatally shot the car salesman and the couple took possession of the vehicle. Id. The

district court at sentencing imposed the two-level “vulnerable

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victim” enhancement on the ground that the salesman’s age

(sixty) and occupation, as well as the circumstances in which

he found himself in that he was driven to a remote location

by people he thought were customers, rendered him particularly susceptible to the defendants’ criminal conduct. Id. at

1252-53. In affirming the district court’s application of the

enhancement, we held:

Here the district court properly looked to the particularly vulnerable circumstances in which [the victim]

found himself after being placed in the front seat

with his killer behind him and driven to a remote

spot, at the behest of persons he believed his job

obligated him to accommodate. The district court did

not abuse its discretion in imposing the “vulnerable

victim” adjustment. 

Id. at 1255. 

The district court in this case, unlike the district court in

Weischedel, did not mention any characteristics of Diebert or

Big Leggins that made them particularly vulnerable victims.

Instead, the sentencing court focused exclusively on the

remote location in which the murders took place. The district

court reasoned that because of the uninhabited area in which

they found themselves, “the victims knew that there was no

avenue of escape” and “no possibility that anyone could assist

or stop” Rising Sun’s attack. Citing Weischedel, the sentencing court then concluded that the remote location of the murders was “one of those circumstances rendering the victim

otherwise particularly susceptible” under which the enhancement could be applied. 

[3] In our view, a correct reading of Weischedel does not

support the district court’s conclusion. Specifically, it was a

crucial factual component of Weischedel that the car salesman’s job required him to go to a remote area designated by

someone he thought was a potential customer. Nothing in that

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case implied that the remote location where the victim was

shot would have been independently sufficient to support the

enhancement. Rather, we made clear that the circumstances

that made the victim particularly susceptible to the criminal

conduct resulted from the requirements of his job. See

Weischedel, 201 F.3d at 1253. By contrast, in this case Diebert and Big Leggins were not obligated to accompany Rising

Sun, and there were no personal characteristics of either victim referred to by the district court that made them any more

likely than the average person to go with Rising Sun and his

brothers to the remote area where they were killed. If we were

to disregard this distinction and uphold a “vulnerable victim”

enhancement simply because the crime occurred in a remote

location, without reference to any characteristics particular to

the victim, we would be broadening the enhancement to the

point where it might be applied to almost any case where a

crime was committed in an unprotected or sparsely populated

area. 

[4] We do not hold that a remote location may never be

considered among the circumstances of the crime that may

bear on the applicability of the vulnerable victim enhancement. Such an approach would not be appropriate given the

required case-by-case nature of this inquiry and the deference

we accord to district courts in their role as finders of fact. We

simply hold that there must be something about the victim

that renders him or her more susceptible than other members

of the public to the criminal conduct at issue. A remote crime

location alone is not enough to sustain this enhancement.

Accordingly, we hold that the district court in this case abused

its discretion when it applied the “vulnerable victim”

enhancement to Rising Sun’s sentence solely based on the

remote location in which Big Leggins and Diebert found

themselves when attacked. Because we find error in the application of the “vulnerable victim” enhancement on this basis,

we do not reach Rising Sun’s alternative argument that the

enhancement can apply only if the victim is lured to the

remote location for a criminal purpose.

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IV

We next address the issue of whether the district court

properly imposed the two-level enhancement found at

U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 for obstruction of justice when Rising Sun’s

obstructive acts, threatening his brother not to talk about what

he had witnessed and attempting to destroy his blood-stained

clothing by burning it, both occurred before any police investigation had begun. Relying on circuit precedent, the language

of the Guideline, and its commentary, we conclude that this

enhancement should not have been applied. 

The 2003 version of the Sentencing Guidelines, under

which Rising Sun was sentenced, stated that “[i]f a defendant

willfully obstructed or impeded, or attempted to obstruct or

impede, the administration of justice during the investigation,

prosecution, or sentencing of the instant offense,” his offense

level should be increased by two levels. U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1.

We have previously held that this wording precluded the

imposition of the enhancement where the defendant’s obstructive conduct, secreting boxes of records in Costa Rica,

occurred at least eleven months before the commencement of

a criminal investigation against him for tax fraud to which

those records proved relevant. United States v. Ford, 989 F.2d

347, 352 (9th Cir. 1993) (interpreting an earlier but identically

worded version of U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1). While the length of the

delay between the obstructive actions and the onset of an

investigation might offer a way of distinguishing Ford, a

more recent Ninth Circuit case has reaffirmed the strictness of

§ 3C1.1’s temporal requirement. In United States v.

DeGeorge, we held that a defendant’s perjury during his civil

trial, which took place before his criminal investigation for

mail fraud began, could not be considered an “obstruction

offense” because the text of § 3C1.1 requires that “the perjury

. . . occur ‘during the course of the [criminal] investigation.’ ”

380 F.3d 1203, 1222 (9th Cir. 2004) (alterations in original).

Application note 1 in the commentary to the 2003 version

of § 3C1.1 also supports the conclusion that the enhancement

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could only apply if an investigation or prosecution was

already in progress when the obstructive actions were taken.

That note stated that “[the obstruction] adjustment applies if

the defendant’s obstructive conduct . . . occurred during the

course of the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the

defendant’s instant offense of conviction.” U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1

cmt. n.1 (2003). The note was added by amendment in 1998

in order to clarify “the temporal element of the obstruction

guideline (i.e., that the obstructive conduct must occur during

the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the defendant’s offense of conviction).” U.S.S.G. supp. to app. C,

Amend. 581 (1998). This application note removed any

ambiguity about the Sentencing Commission’s intent to

include a temporal restriction in § 3C1.1. 

[5] In applying § 3C1.1 to increase Rising Sun’s sentence,

the district court relied in part on subsection (d) of application

note 4 interpreting § 3C1.1, which lists examples of conduct

to which the obstruction enhancement would apply. These

examples include “destroying or concealing or directing or

procuring another person to destroy or conceal evidence that

is material to an official investigation or judicial proceeding

(e.g., shredding a document or destroying ledgers upon learning that an official investigation has commenced or is about

to commence).” § 3C1.1 cmt. n.4(d) (emphasis added). Application notes like this one are treated as authoritative interpretations of the Sentencing Guidelines, unless they violate the

Constitution or a federal statute or are inconsistent with, or a

plainly erroneous reading of, the Guideline they are meant to

interpret. See United States v. Powell, 6 F.3d 611, 613 (9th

Cir. 1993) (citation omitted). When commentary and the

Guideline it interprets are inconsistent so that “following one

will violate the dictates of the other, the Sentencing Reform

Act itself commands compliance with the guideline.” Stinson

v. United States, 508 U.S. 36, 43 (1993). Application note

4(d) is clearly inconsistent with the language of the Guideline

which requires that the obstructive conduct occur “during the

investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the instant

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offense.” U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 (emphasis added). We therefore

apply our precedent holding that U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 contained

a temporal restriction and that the enhancement could not

apply if the obstructive conduct occurred before the investigation began. See DeGeorge, 380 F.3d at 1222; Ford, 989 F.2d

at 352. 

While most circuits that have addressed the issue of preinvestigation obstruction and § 3C1.1, particularly in the wake

of the 1998 amendment, have followed our approach, many

have done so with reluctance. For example, the Sixth Circuit

in United States v. Baggett recognized that “[f]ollowing the

[1998] amendment, this circuit has adhered to . . . [a] strictly

temporal analysis” of § 3C1.1, but opined that “it seems

counter-intuitive to say that threats made by a defendant to

prevent a victim from reporting conduct that later results in a

conviction do not constitute obstruction of justice.” 342 F.3d

537, 541-42 (6th Cir. 2003). Perhaps in response to such policy concerns, in 2006 the Sentencing Commission amended

this Guideline to remove the temporal dimension from

§ 3C1.1. The version in effect beginning with the 2006 edition

of the Guidelines provides: 

If . . . the defendant willfully obstructed or impeded,

or attempted to obstruct or impede, the administration of justice with respect to the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the instant offense of

conviction, . . . increase the offense level by 2 levels.

§ 3C1.1 (2006) (emphasis added). Furthermore, the new

application note 1 in the commentary to § 3C1.1 states that

“[o]bstructive conduct that occurred prior to the start of the

investigation of the instant offense of conviction may be covered by this guideline if the conduct was purposefully calculated, and likely, to thwart the investigation or prosecution of

the offense of conviction.” Id. § 3C1.1 cmt. n.1. This application note would appear to be an almost letter-perfect description of the conduct that Rising Sun engaged in after

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committing the murders; nonetheless, it cannot be applied to

his case. 

[6] Although Rising Sun was sentenced in November of

2006, his sentence was calculated based on the 2003 edition

of the Guidelines in order to avoid an Ex Post Facto Clause

violation. See U.S.S.G. § 1B1.11(b)(1). Where an earlier edition of the Guidelines is used, that earlier edition must be used

in its entirety with one exception: “the court shall consider

subsequent amendments, to the extent that such amendments

are clarifying rather than substantive changes.” Id.

§ 1B1.11(b)(2). Amendment 693 to the Guidelines in 2006,

which changed the language of § 3C1.1 to omit the temporal

requirement and added new application note 1 on preinvestigation conduct, was not described as a clarifying

amendment. Rather, its stated purpose was to resolve “a circuit conflict regarding the issue of whether pre-investigative

conduct can form the basis of an adjustment under § 3C1.1.”

U.S.S.G. supp. to app. C, Amend 693 (2006). This was a substantive change, not merely a clarification, and so this amendment cannot properly be considered in determining Rising

Sun’s sentence. Consequently, the district court abused its discretion in applying the two-level “obstruction of justice”

enhancement solely on the basis of actions that Rising Sun

took before an investigation had begun. 

V

Because we conclude that material errors affected the

Guidelines calculation that served as the starting point for the

district court’s sentencing decision, we vacate Rising Sun’s

sentence and remand this matter for resentencing. See Gall,

128 S. Ct. at 597 (2007) (holding that “the appellate court

must . . . first ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error” and should consider the substantive

reasonableness of the sentence only if “the district court’s

sentencing decision is procedurally sound”); United States v.

Carty, No. 05-10200, 2008 WL 763770, at *5 (9th Cir. March

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24, 2008) (en banc) (“On appeal, we first consider whether

the district court committed significant procedural error . . .”);

United States v. Cantrell, 433 F.3d at 1280 (“[A] material

error by the district court in calculating the applicable Guidelines range is grounds for resentencing, just as it was before

Booker.”). We therefore decline to reach Rising Sun’s argument regarding the reasonableness of his sentence under

Booker. 

VACATED AND REMANDED. 

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