Opinion ID: 24806
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Gillyard's Sentencing Enhancement

Text: 11 Gillyard also argues that the district court erred in assessing a three-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3A1.2(b) for assault on a law enforcement officer and a two-level enhancement under § 3C1.2 for reckless endangerment during flight for the same high-speed car chase. The PSR recommended a three-level enhancement under § 3A1.2 because Gillyard's threatening conduct toward the officers was tantamount to aggravated assault against a law enforcement officer and a two-level enhancement under § 3C1.2 for recklessly endangering others (i.e., construction workers, school children, and other motorists) during the high-speed chase. Although the district court was initially inclined to not do both, it later applied both enhancements. Gillyard argues that this assessment constitutes impermissible double counting that is explicitly prohibited by the Application Notes to § 3C1.2. See United States v. Morris, 131 F.3d 1136, 1140 (5th Cir. 1997) ([D]ouble counting is prohibited only if the particular guidelines at issue forbid it.). 12 This court reviews the sentencing court's application of the U.S.S.G. de novo, while reviewing the sentencing court's factual findings for clear error. United States v. Fitch, 137 F.3d 277, 281 (5th Cir. 1998) (citing United States v. Edwards, 65 F.3d 430, 432 (5th Cir. 1995)). Section 3A1.2(b) provides for a three-level increase if during the course of the offense or immediate flight therefrom, the defendant . . . assaulted [an] officer in a manner creating a substantial risk of serious bodily injury. Section 3C1.2 requires a two-level increase [i]f the defendant recklessly created a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to another person in the course of fleeing from a law enforcement officer. Application note 1 to section 3C1.2 instructs that this enhancement should not be applied where the offense guideline in Chapter Two, or another adjustment in Chapter Three, results in an equivalent or greater increase in offense level solely on the basis of the same conduct. § 3C1.2, Application Note 1. 13 Gillyard contends that his conduct did not rise to the level of assault against officers. Gillyard argues that the police were not endangered by his erratic driving and that he did not intentionally threaten them, but took evasive action to avoid striking the police car. Moreover, Gillyard argues that his conduct did not create a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to others because he did not fire shots and because he stayed in the eastbound lane of the Interstate. Gillyard also contends that applying both enhancements from § 3A1.2 and § 3C1.2 constitutes impermissible double counting. 14 The PSR and the evidence are sufficient to support as not clearly erroneous the district court's evident factual findings that the high-speed chase endangered both police officers and others. As the government contends, Gillyard travelled through a one lane construction zone to move around other vehicles, struck another vehicle, drove onto the median causing construction workers to jump out of the way for their safety and continued driving erratically across the Louisiana state line. In addition, Gillyard's reckless driving in residential neighborhoods and disregard of stop signs and traffic lights endangered others. The PSR revealed that the defendant made threatening moves with his car towards the police vehicles and almost struck a Caddo Parish Sheriff's car. During the Sentencing Hearing, the district judge, after considering the statements in the PSR and viewing the videotape of the car chase, concluded that Gillyard placed numerous people in serious jeopardy and committed aggravated assault against law enforcement officers, and applied both enhancements. Because Gillyard has not shown that the district court's factual findings on these issues were clearly wrong, we will not disturb the court's judgment on these issues. 15 With respect to whether the two sentencing enhancements assessed by the district court under sections 3A1.2 and 3C1.2 constituted impermissible double counting, we have found no Fifth Circuit case squarely on point on both facts and law. The government cites other circuits' decisions discussing the application of sections 3A1.2(b) and 3C1.2 in which the defendant alleged double counting. Although most of the cases are distinguishable as they involve a combination of different kinds of actions (i.e., firing a gun and leading police on a car chase), 1 other cases bear on our analysis by analogy. 16 The courts that have addressed the issue of double enhancements for different aspects of a criminal transaction have focused on the temporal and spatial distinctiveness or separateness of the acts in determining whether the defendant's conduct involves more than one culpable act. United States v. Matos-Rodriguez, 188 F.3d 1300, 1312 (11th Cir. 1999). 2 Threats to police and to bystanders that occur at different times and in different places have been viewed as two separate acts worthy of two separate enhancements under the guidelines. Matos-Rodriguez, 188 F.3d at 1312 (11th Cir. 1999). In Matos-Rodriguez, the court applied both enhancements because the defendant not only gunned the engine of his car, causing the police officer in front of the vehicle to push off in self-defense, but also sped away running stop signs and driving the wrong way on the street. Id. The court concluded that Matos' conduct did not occur in a small area of only 'two or three car lengths,' or in a brief expanse of time. Rather, Matos' assault of [the police] was separated temporally and spatially from his subsequent, reckless conduct in leading police officers on a high-speed chase. The court concluded that this was not a single, uninterrupted event and that enhancements were not levied 'solely on the basis of the same conduct.' Id. ; see also United States v. Lowhorn, No. 99-6641, 2001 WL 303359, at  (6th Cir. Mar. 20, 2001) (unpublished)(holding that two adjustments for the defendant's conduct during a single car chase of accelerating toward a police road block and ignoring stop signs and traffic signals were permissible because they were applied to address separate and distinct instances of harm caused by factually distinct actions by the defendant); United States v. Kadunc, Nos. 99-3908 & 99-3909, 2001 WL 224002, at  (6th Cir. Feb. 27, 2001) (unpublished) (holding that enhancements under § 3A1.2(b) and § 3C1.2 are permissible as the reckless endangerment of an unidentified motorist at the red light is separate and distinct [both temporally and geographically] from the vehicular assault on the FBI agent); United States v. Miner, 108 F.3d 967, 970 (8th Cir. 1997) (holding that the district court properly increased Miner's offense level for assaulting a police officer when he rammed his car into a police roadblock, and for his chase-related conduct that created a risk of serious injury to other drivers and pedestrians); United States v. Hernandez-Sandoval, 211 F.3d 1115, 1118 (9th Cir. 2000) (allowing a double enhancement under § 3A1.2(b) and § 3C1.1 and holding that the defendant's conduct of speeding through streets and ramming police cars were . . . not only on independent actions but [perpetrated] on distinct victims). 17 On the other hand, threats to police and bystanders that happened in the same or nearby place and at the same time are viewed as one act deserving of only one enhancement. United States v. Hayes, 135 F.3d 435, 437 (6th Cir. 1998). In Hayes, 135 F.3d at 437, the Sixth Circuit concluded that punching a car's accelerator which resulted in injury to a law enforcement officer and endangerment of a child riding in the car was a single, uninterrupted act. To suggest that the conduct that caused the assault of [the officer] was different from that which placed the young child in danger would be 'an artificial and unrealistic division of a single uninterrupted course of conduct into separate events.' Id. (quoting United States v. Beckner, 983 F.2d 1380, 1384 (6th Cir. 1983)); cf. United States v. Cabral-Castillo, 35 F.3d 182 (5th Cir. 1994) (disallowing a double enhancement under § 3C1.2 and § 2D1.1(b)(1) for reckless endangerment during flight and use of a deadly weapon (i.e., his car) when the defendant drove his car at a high speed toward a border patrol agent). 18 As in Matos-Rodriguez, Gillyard's acts of assault against a policeman and reckless endangerment of others were temporally and geographically separate. Although both occurred during the same car chase, both occurred at different times and in different places. Although the car chase jeopardized all in the vicinity, Gillyard's threats of force upon police occurred on the interstate and after his endangerment of the construction workers on the median. Similarly, the police endangerment occurred before Gillyard's violations of reckless driving, speeding, disobeying stop signs and signals, and illegally passing a school bus in a different vicinity. Gillyard's conduct is pertinently distinguishable from that in Hayes and in Cabral-Castillo. The threat in Hayes, although involving two victims, clearly involved one temporally and spatially unified action; the conduct in Cabral-Castillo involved only one threat to one victim. Because we find that Gillyard's conduct involved two temporally and geographically separate acts aimed at different victims, two enhancements were appropriate and not prohibited by comment 1 to § 3C1.2.