Source: https://m.openjurist.org/87/f3d/722/united-states-v-hawkins
Timestamp: 2017-12-17 06:17:22
Document Index: 496914739

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2119', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 2', '§ 4', '§ 2', '§ 1', '§ 2', '§ 1', '§ 2', '§ 2113', '§ 2113', '§ 2113', '§ 2', '§ 2113', '§ 3553', '§ 5', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 5', '§ 2']

87 F3d 722 United States v. Hawkins | OpenJurist
87 F. 3d 722 - United States v. Hawkins
87 F3d 722 United States v. Hawkins
87 F.3d 722
Jermeka Voya HAWKINS, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 95-40828
Defendant-Appellant Jermeka Voya Hawkins, who was convicted on a plea of guilty to carjacking and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2119 and 924(c)(1) and (2), appeals his sentence only. Hawkins complains of sentencing errors by the district court in (1) assessing a six-level upward adjustment to Hawkins' offense level on grounds of permanent or life-threatening injuries to a victim, pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b)(3)(C); (2) assessing a four-level upward adjustment for abduction, pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b)(4)(A); and (3) departing upward from the guideline range for extreme conduct under § 5K2.8, multiple firearms under § 5K2.0, multiple victims under § 2A2.1, and inadequacy of criminal history category under § 4A1.3. When we consider the district court's treatment of the applicable guidelines under the facts peculiar to this case, we conclude that the court committed no reversible error in sentencing Hawkins, and therefore affirm his sentence.
We have jurisdiction to review a defendant's challenge to a sentence only if it was (1) imposed in violation of law or as a result of a misapplication of the sentencing guidelines; (2) was the result of an upward departure; or (3) was imposed for an offense for which there is no sentencing guideline and is plainly unreasonable. United States v. DiMarco, 46 F.3d 476, 477 (5th Cir.1995). We review the application of the sentencing guidelines de novo and the district court's findings of fact for clear error. United States v. Wimbish, 980 F.2d 312 (5th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 919, 113 S.Ct. 2365, 124 L.Ed.2d 272 (1993).
1. Permanent or Life Threatening Injury
The Presentence Report (PSR) recommended a six-level upward adjustment pursuant to § 2B3.1(b)(3)(C), a specific offense characteristic for robbery, based on the numerous permanent scars on McFadden's back, arm, and leg resulting from wounds caused by pistol bullets and shotgun pellets. Hawkins objected, arguing that the injuries sustained by McFadden were neither permanent nor life threatening, as they neither caused the loss or substantial impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty, nor produced any obvious disfigurement that was likely to be permanent. At the sentencing hearing, Hawkins repeated this objection and argued in addition that if the court were to accept the government's argument that the gunshot wounds caused permanent disfigurement, the six-level increase would apply in every case in which someone was shot. The district court overruled the objection, finding that there were some 22 shotgun pellets and bullets in McFadden's body and that there was both permanent scarring and bodily movement restrictions.
Section 2B3.1(b)(3)(C) provides for a six-level increase in the base offense level for robbery if any victim sustains permanent or life-threatening bodily injury. This is defined as "injury involving a substantial risk of death; loss or substantial impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty that is likely to be permanent; or an obvious disfigurement that is likely to be permanent." § 1B1.1, comment. (n. 1(h)).
Hawkins insists that the district court erred in increasing his offense level by four levels for abduction, pursuant to § 2B3.1(b)(4)(A). He argues that, although there may have been an attempted abduction, as a matter of law the victims were never actually abducted because they were not forced from one location to another.
Section 2B3.1(b)(4)(A) provides for a four-level increase in the base offense level for robbery "[i]f any person was abducted to facilitate commission of the offense or to facilitate escape." " 'Abducted' means that a victim was forced to accompany an offender to a different location. For example, a bank robber's forcing a bank teller from the bank into a getaway car would constitute an abduction." § 1B1.1, comment. (n. 1(a)).
Our independent research has produced no cases in this Circuit interpreting the term "abduction" that is helpful in determining whether the discrete facts of this case constitute an abduction for purposes of § 2B3.1(b)(4)(A). Hawkins cites United States v. Elkins, 16 F.3d 952, 953 (8th Cir.1994), in which the Eighth Circuit affirmed the application of the four-level adjustment for abduction. In Elkins, the defendant held a bank patron at knife-point, forced the patron out of the bank and into the parking lot, demanded the keys to the patron's vehicle, then released the patron and escaped in the vehicle. The court stated that there was no doubt that the defendant had forced the bank patron to another location by moving the patron from the bank lobby to the parking lot. Id.
The government cites as analogous an Eleventh Circuit case involving the aggravating circumstance, not of abduction but forcible accompaniment under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(e), in which that court stated that the statute did not require that the government prove that the defendant crossed a property line to establish that the defendant forced a person to accompany him without consent. United States v. Bauer, 956 F.2d 239, 241 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 976, 113 S.Ct. 469, 121 L.Ed.2d 376 (1992).
The defendant in United States v. Reed, 26 F.3d 523, 526-28 (5th Cir.1994), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1116, 130 L.Ed.2d 1080 (1995), approached an employee of a credit union early in the morning as she was unlocking the exterior doors, forced her at gunpoint to enter the building, turn off the alarm system, open the vault, give him a bag of money, and lie down on the floor, after which he bound her and left. The defendant argued that forcing the employee to walk the short distance from the bank's exterior doorway to the vault was insufficient to prove the accompaniment element under § 2113(e). After noting that, in the context of bank robbery, movement of victims inside the bank frequently will be orchestrated by the perpetrator, so that concluding that such behavior produces accompaniment would convert many ordinary bank robberies into aggravated ones, we stated that "moving the victim as a hostage into the bank is an accompaniment, just as moving her out of the bank would have been an accompaniment." True, our opinion in Reed can be read to suggest that crossing the threshold of the bank was an important factor. It can also be read, however, as authority to find abduction when the forced movement from one location to another on a property owned by a single property owner can be the kind of "different location" required for an abduction.
The Seventh Circuit, in United States v. Davis, 48 F.3d 277, 278-79 (7th Cir.1993), considered a factual situation similar to the one in Reed: The defendant approached a credit union employee as she was unlocking the exterior door, put a gun to her side, and told her to get him all the money. Once inside, he "paraded" her about the building to deactivate the alarm, then to her desk to get the keys to the vault, then to the lobby to turn on the lights, then back to the vault, then inside the vault, and then back to the lobby. The defendant also insisted that the employee accompany him on his getaway, but she refused and he fled. The Seventh Circuit, citing Bauer and Reed, held that § 2113(e) applied. The Davis court noted that the defendant forced the employee, at gunpoint, "to go from the parking lot into the credit union," and affirmed the application of the upward adjustment in offense level pursuant to § 2B3.1(b)(4)(A), stating that the defendant's "compulsion of [the employee] at gunpoint to accompany him from the credit union parking lot to inside the credit union easily satisfies the Guidelines' requirement of forced accompaniment to another location." Id. at 279. The Davis court added that there is "nothing in the text of [§ 2113(e) ] that requires that the elements of a federal kidnapping or any other crime be satisfied." Id.
A district court may depart upward from the sentencing guidelines if the court finds the existence of an aggravating circumstance that was not adequately taken into consideration by the guidelines. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b); United States v. Ashburn, 38 F.3d 803, 807 (5th Cir.1994) (en banc), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1969, 131 L.Ed.2d 858 (1995). If the court departs upward, it must state the specific reason for doing so. Ashburn, 38 F.3d at 807. We review the district court's decision to depart upward for abuse of discretion, and shall affirm an upward departure if (1) the district court gives acceptable reasons for departing, and (2) the extent of the departure is reasonable. Id. The district court has wide discretion in determining the extent of departure, and although the district court should give reasons for the extent of the departure, it is not absolutely required to do so. United States v. Moore, 997 F.2d 30, 36-37 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 647, 126 L.Ed.2d 605 (1993).
Other circuits have found § 5K2.8's extreme conduct applicable in the context of similar carjackings. See United States v. Clark, 45 F.3d 1247, 1251-52 (8th Cir.1995) (upheld upward departure based on extreme conduct in carjacking in which defendant robbed victim, demanded more money, held cocked gun to victim's head and told him he was going to die, then told him to get out of the car and drove away); United States v. Quinones, 26 F.3d 213, 217-18 (1st Cir.1994) (held upward departure justified for extreme conduct in carjacking in which defendant continually struck and pistol-whipped victim on head and aimed gun at second victim; remanded on other grounds). The district court did not abuse its discretion in basing its upward departure in part on extreme conduct.
The district court justified its upward departure in part on a finding that at least three firearms were discharged. The district court also justified its upward departure in part on a finding that the offense created a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to one or more persons, apparently in reliance on the PSR's recommendation suggesting § 2B3.1, comment. (n. 5) as a basis for departure. This comment states that "[i]f the defendant intended to murder the victim, an upward departure may be warranted; see § 2A2.1 (Assault With Intent to Commit Murder; Attempted Murder)." Section 2A2.1, comment. (n. 3) states that "[i]f the offense created a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to more than one person, an upward departure may be warranted."
In Jones, No. 94-50786, at pp. 3-4, we affirmed the district court's upward departure pursuant to § 5K2.0 on the additional basis of multiple victims. Hawkins is incorrect in asserting that the robbery guideline took multiple victims into consideration. Section 5K2.0 itself states that "because the robbery guideline does not deal with injury to more than one victim, departure would be warranted if several persons were injured." Albeit miraculous, Height was not actually shot; the muzzle of the shotgun was touching his abdomen when it discharged, and he thought that he had been shot and was going to die, but no pellets penetrated his body. Under the Jones reasoning, Height's justified fear for his life was sufficient to warrant an upward departure for a second victim. See Jones, No. 94-50786 at pp. 3-4; see also United States v. Fuentes-Vazquez, 52 F.3d 394, 396-97 (1st Cir.1995) (armed carjacking created risk of harm to bystanders warranting upward departure). Further, Height was beaten, and he alleged that an injury to his back resulted. The district court's upward departure in reliance on the presence of multiple victims is based on an acceptable reason.
Regarding the allegedly unwarranted use of multiple firearms as a basis for upward departure, Hawkins cites United States v. LNU, 16 F.3d 1168, 1170 (11th Cir.1994), in which the court held that the Commission considered the use of multiple weapons in drafting § 2B3.1. Hawkins fails to add, however, that on rehearing the court held that the fact that the robbery involved four bank robbers, three of whom were armed, took the case "outside the heartland of bank robberies and justif[ied] an upward departure." United States v. Omar, 24 F.3d 1356, 1357 (11th Cir.1994).
Under Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b), we may correct forfeited errors only when the appellant shows (1) there is an error, (2) it is clear or obvious, and (3) it affects his substantial rights. United States v. Calverley, 37 F.3d 160, 162-64 (5th Cir.1994) (en banc) (citing United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 730-37, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1775-79, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993)), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1266, 131 L.Ed.2d 145 (1995). Even when these three factors are present, the decision whether to correct the forfeited error remains within the sound discretion of the appellate court, which will not exercise that discretion unless the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Olano, 507 U.S. at 735-36, 113 S.Ct. at 1778-79.
Hawkins was 16 at the time of this offense. He had no prior convictions, so his criminal history category was I. The PSR notes that Hawkins has no juvenile adjudications, but lists numerous instances of criminal conduct that Hawkins committed as a juvenile, beginning at age 10, but which did not result in convictions. Hawkins did not object to the reliability of the information contained in these paragraphs. Thus, it was not error for the district court to rely on it. See United States v. Mir, 919 F.2d 940, 943 (5th Cir.1990) (if defendant does not object or offer rebuttal evidence to refute facts in PSR, district court is free to adopt facts in PSR without further inquiry).