Opinion ID: 800685
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Change in Location

Text: At oral argument, the parties focused their disagreement on the previous questionwhether the victims accompanied Reynos from the bathroom to the cash register. Their briefing, however, devotes the largest portion of argument to the question of whether moving from the bathroom area to the cash register amounted to a change in location. Reynos maintains that this movementa distance of approximately thirty-four feetdid not amount to a change in location. He argues that the narrow confines of Ed's Pizza House constituted a singular site and no change in location could have occurred unless Reynos moved the victims outside of the facility. The Government disagrees. We have not considered this question previously and we have no precedent interpreting what constitutes a change of location for purposes of the abduction enhancement. Other courts, however, have addressed the issue. In United States v. Hawkins, 87 F.3d 722 (5th Cir.1996), for example, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the term different location should be interpreted flexibly, on a case-by-case basis. Id. at 726-28. At issue in Hawkins was whether moving a victim at gunpoint 40 or 50 feet across a parking lot to a van amounted to an abduction (the victim in Hawkins fled before being actively put into a van). The Court of Appeals determined that the term different location, as set out in the comments to § 1B1.1, is flexible and thus susceptible of multiple interpretations, which are applied case by case to the particular facts under scrutiny, not mechanically based in the presence or absence of doorways, lot lines, thresholds and the like. Id. at 727-28; see also United States v. Johnson, 619 F.3d 469, 472 (5th Cir.2010). The Court explained further: In ordinary parlance, location can refer to an outside building or parking lot, so that a miniscule movement, such as the crossing of a threshold separating interior and exterior of a building, would constitute movement to a different location. On the other hand, in ordinary parlance, location is frequently used in reference to a single point where a person is standing, or to one among several rooms in the same structure, or to different floors in the same building. In other words, while movement from outside to inside, or vice versa, or movement across a property line, might be factors giving support to a conclusion of different locations, the absence of such facts does not bar such a conclusion. Id. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has also followed Hawkins' approach. In United States v. Osborne, 514 F.3d at 389, 390 (4th Cir.2008), the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the application of an abduction enhancement where the victims were forcibly moved from one section of a drugstore to another. In Osborne, the offender used force to move the victims from the secured pharmacy section of a Walgreens drugstore, across the retail floor, stopping at the front of the store. Id. at 389-90. Important to the Osborne Court was the fact that the pharmacy area and retail portion of the store were separated by a counter as well as a secure door which could be opened only by authorized personnel through the use of a digital keypad. Id. at 390. The Osborne court also deemed it important that the offender had moved the victims in order to facilitate his escape. Id. We find the flexible approach outlined in the Hawkins and Osborne decisions to have considerable merit. The term `location' connotes several things; hence, the necessity of a flexible definition. Certainly, two separate physical structures are two distinct locations. And, a location does not need to have a physical constructa park or the beach can be a location just as a courthouse or church. No one could argue that moving from one of these physical structures or geographic locations to another is not a change in location. The term `location,' however, is broad enough to encompass different points of reference within the constructs of a single building or geographic site. See Osborne, 514 F.3d at 389. A courthouse, for example, has numerous distinct locations within: a clerk's office, courtrooms, security offices and judicial chambers are all separate and distinct locations within the same structure. Paring it down further, a judge's chambers in that same courthouse may have several locations: a reception area, judge's office, law clerk cubicles and file rooms, for example. Of course, the smaller the space, the more difficult it is to find a change in location. But, even then, the smallest of areas still may contain different locations: a judge's private office may have a location containing a desk and computer that is separate and distinct from a location containing a conference table and chairs. It is precisely because of the broad scope of the term `location' that courts must use a highly flexible approach in finding one; an approach that recognizes that the abduction enhancement may properly be applied even though the victim remained within the confines of a single building. Hawkins at 728. After thoroughly reviewing the facts before it, the District Court in this case found a change in location, determining: I think the Government says that it was 39 feet from the locked bathroom to the cash register. The defense says it was 34 feet. I don't know that it makes much of a difference. For the benefit of the doubt of the Defendant, I'll find that it was 34 feet, but when I originally looked at the picture of the pizzeria, it seemed that the bathroom and the cash register were in close proximity, but the video was very illuminating; they're not. They're [sic], and I won't describe it perfectly, but you have to go down a couple different halls to get from one area of the bathroom which is far away from the register, so it's not a matter of one being right next to the other. We have, at least based on the Defense's version, 34 feet. This finding was not erroneous. The record fully supports the District Court's determination. The District Court was quite thorough in making this finding. After the sentencing hearing, the Court recessed for a week in order to obtain additional details on the exact layout of Ed's Pizza House. During this recess, the parties submitted video documentation of the store as well as photographs and diagrams indicating the physical measurements of the store. By virtue of its locked door, separate walls and distance from the cash register, the District Court found the bathroom of the pizza shop to be a different location from the cash register area, a conclusion well within its considerable discretion. Unduly legalistic and punctilious are words previously used to describe a less than flexible approach to finding a `change in location' under the Guidelines' definition of enhancement. See, e.g., Hawkins, 87 F.3d at 728. We agree and will not disturb the District Court's finding.