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Parties Involved:
Bobby Lee Dean
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FILED 

United Stata Cour.t of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) 

) 

Plaintiff-Appellee, ) 

) 

v. ) 

) 

BOBBY LEE DEAN, ) 

) 

Defendant-Appellant. ) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

AUG 11991 

.ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 90-6342 

(D.C. No. CR-89-60-R) 

(W.D. Okla.) 

Before LOGAN, MOORE, and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. 

submitted without oral argument. 

The case is therefore ordered 

Defendant Bobby Lee Dean appeals the sentence imposed by the 

district court after our vacation of his previous sentence and 

remand for resentencing. See United States v. Dean, 908 F.2d 1491 

(10th Cir. 1990). 

Dean pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a felon, in 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 90-6342 Document: 010110130191 Date Filed: 08/01/1991 Page: 1 
violation 

sentenced 

of 

the 

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(l). When he was initially 

district court determined that Dean's base offense 

level was eight, and that his criminal history points 

in criminal history category VI--indicating an 

guideline range of eighteen to twenty-four months. 

placed him 

appropriate 

The district 

court departed upwards from the guidelines and sentenced Dean to a 

prison term of four years to run consecutive to a sentence he was 

then serving. On appeal, we set aside this sentence because the 

district court's articulated reasons for departure improperly 

included the nature of the sentencing offense, which was 

adequately accounted for by the guidelines in determining the 

offense level, and because the court failed to properly explain 

the magnitude of the departure, without which the magnitude of the 

departure seemed unreasonably large. Dean, 908 F.2d at 1497-98. 

Before the resentencing hearing on remand, Dean's counsel 

provided the district court with an April 23, 1982, consent decree 

order issued by an Oklahoma state district court. This order 

concerned three prior Oklahoma convictions in 1969 and 1970 that 

had been listed in Dean's presentence report: assault with intent 

to kill (case No. CFR-70-2933), first degree rape (case No. CFR70-2935), and robbery with a dangerous weapon (case No. CFR-70-

2909). Dean's presentence report had listed each of these 

convictions as resulting in concurrent terms of incarceration of 

fifteen years each. 

Under the consent decree order, these sentences of 

incarceration were converted, "nunc pro tune, to be and to have 

been from their inception, sentences of fifteen years, concurrent, 

2 

Appellate Case: 90-6342 Document: 010110130191 Date Filed: 08/01/1991 Page: 2 
suspended .... " Consent Decree for Order Granting PostConviction Relief, No. CRF-69-1998 et al. (April 23, 1982). Dean 

had argued in a 1981 state post-conviction relief proceeding that 

each of his convictions in case Nos. CFR-70-2933, CFR-70-2935, and 

CFR-70-2909 were invalid because he was under the age of eighteen 

at the time of the charged offenses. He had been tried as an 

adult pursuant to Okla. Stat. tit. 10, § ll0l(a) (Supp. 1969) 

(repealed 1972), a statute that was held to be unconstitutional in 

Lamb v. Brown, 456 F.2d 18 (10th Cir. 1972). The decision to 

modify Dean's terms of incarceration to suspended sentences was 

the product of a negotiated settlement between Dean and the state 

of Oklahoma. 

The district court, at the resentencing hearing, amended 

Dean's presentence report to conform to the consent decree order. 

Before the amendment, the presentence report had assigned three 

criminal history points to the conviction for first degree rape in 

case No. CFR-70-2935 but no points for the convictions in case 

Nos. CFR-70-2933 and CFR-70-2909. After the amendment, the points 

assigned for the first degree rape conviction were stricken, and 

Dean's criminal history score was reduced from seventeen to 

fourteen points. Dean's criminal history category remained VI. 

In resentencing Dean, the district court again arrived at a 

guideline range of eighteen to twenty-four months and departed 

upward, sentencing Dean to a prison term of thirty-seven months. 

The court concluded that Dean's criminal history category VI did 

not adequately reflect the seriousness of his criminal history, 

specifically premising the departure on the three uncounted 

3 

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convictions which were modified, nunc pro tune, to suspended 

sentences. 1 

In justifying the departure sentence, the district court 

assigned each of the three uncounted convictions three criminal 

history points, thus increasing Dean's criminal history score from 

fourteen to twenty-three. The district court then observed that 

each of the criminal history categories, I through VI, "basically" 

contain three criminal history points. By the court's reasoning, 

Dean's criminal history score of twenty-three fell within a 

"hypothetical" criminal history category Ix. 2 The district court 

arrived at a thirty-seven month sentence by first determining that 

Dean's offense level of eight and criminal history category VI was 

equivalent to an offense . level of fifteen and criminal history 

category I, because both provided for a sentencing range of 

eighteen to twenty-four months. The district court then concluded 

that an offense level eight and a hypothetical criminal history 

category IX was equivalent to an offense level fifteen and 

criminal history category IV, which provides for a guideline range 

of thirty to thirty-seven months. Therefore, it concluded a 

sentence of thirty-seven months was appropriate. 

In the instant appeal, Dean argues that the decision to 

1 The district court also mentioned an uncounted conviction for 

concealing stolen property (case No. CFR-81-1709) as an additional 

basis for departure. This sentence, however, was not used by the 

district court in calculating the degree of departure from the 

guideline sentence. 

2 The criminal history axis of the guidelines is open-ended, 

but any defendant with thirteen or more criminal history points is 

placed in category VI. Thus, Dean's twenty-three criminal history 

points could only fall within a "hypothetical" criminal history 

category IX. 

4 

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increase his 

unreasonable. 

criminal history score by 

According to Dean, the district 

nine 

court 

points 

could 

was 

have 

permissibly arrived at a departure sentence by assigning each of 

the three uncounted convictions one criminal history point, which 

is what the convictions would have received as suspended sentences 

had they been eligible for use in tabulating Dean's criminal 

history score. See u.s.s.G. § 4Al.l(c). Dean also argues that 

the district court's decision to assign three criminal history 

points to each of the uncounted convictions was, in essence, an 

impermissible after-the-fact determination by the district court 

that Dean should have received terms of incarceration for the 

convictions. Dean further argues that the district court's 

imposition of a sentence beyond the range appropriate to category 

VI was improper in light of language in the guidelines which 

discourages such departures except in extraordinary circumstances. 

See u.s.s.G. § 4Al.3 (departures beyond category VI are reserved 

for the "case of an egregious, serious criminal record in which 

even the guideline range for a Category VI criminal history is not 

adequate to reflect the seriousness of the defendant's criminal 

history. ") . 

We review the district court's upward departure under the 

three-step framework set forth in United States v. White, 893 F.2d 

276, 277-78 (10th Cir. 1990). In this case, steps one and two are 

not at issue. We only have to determine whether the degree of 

departure is unreasonable. Id. at 278. In determining the 

reasonableness of the degree of departure from category VI, we 

afford the district court due deference, and we do not "lightly 

5 

Appellate Case: 90-6342 Document: 010110130191 Date Filed: 08/01/1991 Page: 5 
overturn determinations of the appropriate degree of departure." 

United States v. Russell, 905 F.2d 1450, 1455 (10th Cir.), cert. 

denied, 111 s.ct. 267 (1990). When valid grounds for departure 

are present, we will uphold the district court's resolution of the 

matter so long as the circumstances warranting departure and the 

departure's extent and direction are reasonable. Id. at 1455-57. 

In the instant case, the district court noted that the three 

uncounted convictions were for serious offenses which fell into a 

pattern of criminal conduct. 3 A history of recidivism that is not 

adequately reflected in the criminal history category is a valid 

circumstance warranting departure. United States v. Harris, 907 

F.2d 121, 123 (10th Cir. 1990); see also United States v. Aymelek, 

926 F.2d 64, 72-73 (1st Cir. 1991) (prior convictions not 

considered in calculating a criminal history score may justify 

departure if those convictions are distinguished by their 

numerosity and dangerousness). Even though Dean is in the highest 

criminal history category of VI, the guidelines expressly allow 

for the possibility of a sentence above that category if it does 

not adequately reflect Dean's criminal history. Furthermore, the 

guidelines permit looking beyond the nominal sentence to the 

criminal conduct underlying a conviction when, as here, due to a 

constitutional infirmity the sentence originally imposed has been 

altered such that it is no longer a function or reflection of the 

underlying criminal activity. See u.s.s.G. § 4Al.2, comment n.6 

3 Indeed, at the time of Dean's original sentencing, he was 

thirty-six years old and had been either in prison, on parole, or 

subject to an active arrest warrant for sixteen of the past 

twenty-one years. 

6 

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◄ ' • 

("Sentences resulting from convictions that have been reversed or 

vacated 

counted. 

because of errors of law. are not to be 

Nonetheless, any conviction that is not counted 

in the criminal history score may be considered pursuant to 

§ 4Al.3 (Adequacy of Criminal History Category)."). 

Thus, we hold it was not per se improper for the district 

court to refuse to mechanically assign each of the uncounted 

convictions only one criminal history point because the sentences 

imposed for those convictions were suspended years later. Nor do 

we find the decision to give three points for each of the 

convictions to be unreasonable. The criminal history points given 

by the district court for the uncounted convictions are points 

which would have been given under the guidelines in light of the 

severity of the underlying criminal conduct as reflected in the 

fifteen years sentences originally imposed for each of the 

offenses. See u.s.s.G. § 4Al.l(a). The approach taken by the 

district court linked the extent of the departure to the structure 

of the guidelines and was, therefore, reasonable. See United 

States v. Jackson, 921 F.2d 985, 993 (10th Cir. 1990) (en bane); 

see also Aymelek, 926 F.2d at 73 (departure sentence reasonable 

when district court "moved across the grid, from category V to 

category VI ... on the theory that, if the outdated conviction 

had been counted, appellant's criminal history score would have 

placed him well within the latter classification"). 

AFFIRMED. 

Entered for the Court 

James K. Logan 

Circuit Judge 

7 

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