Opinion ID: 171585
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Scope of Policy Statement

Text: Mr. Montgomery contends that the plain language of § 5K2.1 restricted the district court to granting an upward departure only when the death resulted from a homicide. Alternatively, he asserts that even if § 5K2.1 is not limited to homicide deaths, it cannot be extended to include a death that occurs as the result of suicide. We reject this argument, as did the district court. The plain language of § 5K2.1 provides for an upward departure [i]f death resulted. There is no indication that § 5K2.1 limits the word death to mean only deaths due to homicide. The policy statement contains no explicit reference to suicide, nor does the language of § 5K2.1 require that the victim be killed by the defendant or by anyone else. [3] While the provision does instruct that the sentencing judge must give consideration to matters that would normally distinguish among levels of homicide, this directive is included within the context of a broad range of factors that are listed to guide the court regarding both the propriety of a departure and the extent of any departure that is granted. U.S.S.G. § 5K2.1. The reference to homicide does not denote that the provision is limited to cases involving homicide; rather, it indicates that the same factors that determine an offender's culpability in homicide casessuch as state of mind and the degree of planning or preparationmust be considered by the district court and may be relevant alongside factors such as whether multiple deaths resulted or the means by which life was taken in determining whether an upward departure is warranted under § 5K2.1. Although this Court is unaware of another case in which § 5K2.1 was the basis for an upward departure when the death undisputedly resulted from suicide, the plain language of § 5K2.1 does not restrict its application solely to deaths by homicide. Moreover, Mr. Montgomery's narrow reading of § 5K2.1 is belied by the courts' application of it in various contexts. Upward departures under § 5K2.1 have been sanctioned in cases where the death resulted from criminal conduct that could not be clearly deemed to have effected a homicide. In United States v. Purchess, for example, a drug courier or mule voluntarily swallowed drugs packaged into pellet form, intending to sell the drugs for his own profit. 107 F.3d 1261, 1263 (7th Cir. 1997). When one or more pellets burst in his stomach he denied that he was ferrying drugs, refused medical treatment, and died of a drug overdose. Id. at 1263-64. The defendant, an illegal drug importer, argued that the courier caused his own death. The defendant did not force the courier to swallow the drugs, to deny that he had done so, or to refuse medical treatment. Id. at 1263-64, 1270. Nevertheless, the Seventh Circuit upheld an upward departure under § 5K2.1, concluding that the defendant knowingly risked the courier's death and that the death resulted from the unusually dangerous circumstances arising from the manner in which the drugs were packaged when bought from the defendant. Id. at 1270-72; see United States v. Ihegworo, 959 F.2d 26, 29-30 (5th Cir.1992) (affirming § 5K2.1 departure when a drug user died from ingesting the extraordinarily pure heroin that the defendant was convicted of possessing with intent to distribute); see also United States v. Davis, 30 F.3d 613, 615-16 (5th Cir.1994) (affirming an upward departure under § 5K2.1 where the traumatic event of a robbery caused a gas station attendant to suffer a fatal brain aneurysm); cf. United States v. Pacheco, 489 F.3d 40, 46-48 (1st Cir.2007) (analogizing § 5K2.1 language and precedent to § 5K2.2 and upholding departure where victim's significant physical injury resulted from a polydrug overdose, and he had purchased one of the drugs from defendant).