Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-15-01457/USCOURTS-ca10-15-01457-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Eric Eugene Hartwell
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee, 

v. 

ERIC EUGENE HARTWELL, 

 Defendant - Appellant. 

No. 15-1457 

(D.C. No. 1:14-CR-00295-PAB-1) 

(D. Colo.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

_________________________________ 

Before LUCERO, MATHESON, and BACHARACH, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

A jury convicted Eric Eugene Hartwell of (1) escape from a halfway house under 

18 U.S.C. § 751(a) and (2) failure to register as a sex offender under 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a). 

The district court sentenced him to 120 months in prison. On appeal, he argues the 

district court erred (1) at trial, when it admitted as impeachment evidence his 2007 

conviction for failure to register as a sex offender, and (2) at sentencing, when it failed to 

group the two trial convictions in determining his advisory United States Sentencing 

																																																								 *

 After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of this 

appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, 

except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may 

be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 

10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

September 30, 2016

Elisabeth A. Shumaker

Clerk of Court

Appellate Case: 15-1457 Document: 01019698516 Date Filed: 09/30/2016 Page: 1 
‐	2	‐	

Guidelines (“U.S.S.G.”) range. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 

U.S.C. § 3742(a), we affirm. 

1. Use of Mr. Hartwell’s 2007 conviction to impeach his credibility 

 The Government twice asked the district court to allow it to use the 2007 

conviction. The court denied its first request to present the conviction under Federal Rule 

of Evidence 404(b). At the end of its case-in-chief, the Government argued the 

conviction could be used to impeach Mr. Hartwell under Rule 609. The court agreed. 

When Mr. Hartwell testified, his counsel elicited testimony about the conviction. On 

cross-examination, the Government used it to impeach his credibility. 

The Government argues that Mr. Hartwell waived objection to its use of the 2007 

conviction on cross-examination because he had testified about it on direct examination. 

We agree. Although Mr. Hartwell had objected to the Government’s request to use the 

conviction under Rule 609, he chose to introduce it preemptively during his direct 

examination. In Ohler v. United States, 529 U.S. 753 (2000), the Supreme Court said 

that “a defendant who preemptively introduces evidence of a prior conviction on direct 

examination may not on appeal claim that the admission of such evidence was error.” Id. 

at 760. Accord United States v. McConnel, 464 F.3d 1152, 1162 (10th Cir. 2006); United 

States v. Wagoner Cty. Real Estate 278 F.3d 1091, 1099 (10th Cir. 2002). This is so even 

where, as here, the party already had objected to the evidence. See Ohler, 529 U.S. at 

Appellate Case: 15-1457 Document: 01019698516 Date Filed: 09/30/2016 Page: 2 
‐	3	‐	

754-58; 1 Mark S. Brodin & Joseph M. McLaughlin, Weinstein’s Federal Evidence 

§ 103.15 at 103-31-32 (2d ed. 2016). We affirm on the basis of this authority.1

2. Failure to group the trial convictions under U.S.S.G. § 3D1.2 

Mr. Hartwell’s argument about failure to group his convictions challenges the 

procedural reasonableness of his sentence, which we review for abuse of discretion, Gall 

v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 46 (2007); United States v. Worku, 800 F.3d 1195, 1201 

(10th Cir. 2015), and “under which we review de novo the district court's legal 

conclusions regarding the [G]uidelines and review its factual findings for clear error,” 

United States v. Gantt, 679 F.3d 1240, 1246 (10th Cir. 2012). “An error of law is per se 

an abuse of discretion.” United States v. Lopez–Avila, 665 F.3d 1216, 1219 (10th 

Cir.2011) (citing Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 100 (1996) (“A district court by 

definition abuses its discretion when it makes an error of law.”)). As the parties agree, 

the district court’s ruling on grouping the offenses for sentencing is an “interpretation and 

application of the sentencing guidelines” that we review de novo. United States v. BaezaSuchil, 52 F.3d 898, 899 (10th Cir. 1995) (reviewing de novo the district court’s refusal 

to group counts under § 3D1.2). 

 U.S.S.G. § 3D1.2 provides that “[a]ll counts involving substantially the same harm 

shall be grouped together into a single Group.” The Government argues that because 

§ 3D1.2(d) provides that certain offenses are “[s]pecifically excluded from the operation 

of this subsection,” including “§ 2P1.1,” the escape offense Guideline, Mr. Hartwell’s 

																																																								 1 In his reply brief, Mr. Hartwell agrees that Ohler applies to this issue. Reply Br. 

at 1. 

Appellate Case: 15-1457 Document: 01019698516 Date Filed: 09/30/2016 Page: 3 
‐	4	‐	

convictions “are excluded from operation of the grouping rules,” Aplee Br. at 6, and that 

“convictions for escape are not subject to these grouping rules,” id. at 18. But this 

argument alone does not resolve the issue. Application Note 1 to § 3 D1.2 provides that 

“[c]ounts are to be grouped together into a single Group if any one or more of the 

subsections provide for such grouping.” (Emphasis added.)2

 We thus must also consider 

§ 3D1.2 subsections (a), (b), and (c). 

 Mr. Hartwell’s brief concentrates on subsections (a) and (b). “Counts involve 

substantially the same harm” under subsection (a) when they “involve the same victim 

and the same act or transaction,” § 3D1.2(a), and under subsection (b) when they 

“involve the same victim and two or more acts or transactions connected by a common 

criminal objective or constituting part of a common scheme or plan,” § 3D1.2(b). Here, 

where no identifiable person was the victim of either the escape or failure to register 

crimes, Application Note 2 states that “victim” under these subsections “is the societal 

interest that is harmed,” and “the counts are grouped together when the societal interests 

that are harmed are closely related.” 

The district court found that the societal interests underlying the two counts here 

were not closely related. As for the escape offense, the court recognized societal interests 

in (1) punishment for failure to fulfill a sentence and (2) avoiding danger to those 

involved or who are proximate to taking an escapee into custody. As for failure to 

																																																								 2 Mr. Hartwell also points out, id., that the last sentence of § 3D1.2(d) states: 

“Exclusion of an offense from grouping under this subsection does not necessarily 

preclude grouping under another subsection.” 

Appellate Case: 15-1457 Document: 01019698516 Date Filed: 09/30/2016 Page: 4 
‐	5	‐	

register as a sex offender, the court recognized societal interests in tracking and 

supervising the offender. ROA, Vol. III at 758-59. See 42 U.S.C. § 16901 (“[T]o protect 

the public from sex offenders and offenders against children, and in response to the 

vicious attacks by violent predators against the victims listed below, Congress . . . 

establishes a comprehensive national system for the registration of those offenders.”). 

Although these offenses, like the criminal law generally, share the objective of 

protecting the public, we cannot say the district court erred in determining that the 

societal interests underlying the offenses here are distinct. See Baeza-Suchil, 52 F.3d at 

900 (rejecting that counts qualify for grouping because “the offenses implicate the 

societal interest in prohibiting criminal conduct by convicted felons”). 

Mr. Hartwell argues that, because his escape and failure to register were factually 

linked, the district court should have focused on whether the criminal conduct underlying 

the two convictions harmed closely related societal interests rather than whether the 

offenses generally protect closely related societal interests. Aplt. Br. at 21-23; Reply Br. 

at 5-6. This court applied the latter approach in Baeza-Suchil, analyzing the general 

societal interests of the aggravated illegal reentry offense and the felony possession of a 

firearm. See 52 F.3d at 900 (holding societal interest in enforcing immigration law is 

distinct from the interest in regulating firearms). But even considering the harms based 

on the facts of this case, Mr. Hartwell’s escape implicated different societal interests than 

his failure to register. 

Subsection (c) states that “[c]ounts involve substantially the same harm” when 

“one of the counts embodies conduct that is treated as a specific offense characteristic in, 

Appellate Case: 15-1457 Document: 01019698516 Date Filed: 09/30/2016 Page: 5 
‐	6	‐	

or other adjustment to, the guideline applicable to another of the counts.” This subsection 

does not apply to the counts in this case, and Mr. Hartwell does not argue otherwise. 

For the foregoing reasons, the district court did not err in failing to group the 

offenses. 

* * * * 

 We affirm Mr. Hartwell’s convictions and sentence. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT, 

Scott M. Matheson, Jr. 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 15-1457 Document: 01019698516 Date Filed: 09/30/2016 Page: 6