Opinion ID: 786759
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: upward departure: extreme conduct

Text: 9 The Wrights challenge the district court's decision to depart upward under U.S.S.G. § 5K2.8. They argue that their offense conduct was well within the heartland of the applicable guideline and was not extreme enough to warrant departure. The district court properly concluded otherwise.
10 While [t]he district court's understandable desire to spare the ... victim[s] resulted in an articulation of reasons that were perhaps less specific than they might have been had the court spelled [them] out in graphic terms, United States v. Hampton, 260 F.3d 832, 836 (8th Cir.2001), the court indicated that it had viewed the visual depictions of the sexually explicit conduct in order to understand the extent and severity of the crimes. As in Hampton, the court confirmed that those images supplied ample evidence of the extreme nature of the defendants' conduct. See id. 11 The district court determined that James's conduct, excluding that learned of during his proffer, fell out of the heartland of the production offense and supported a finding of extreme conduct involving unusually heinous, cruel, brutal, or degrading conduct. U.S.S.G. § 5K2.8. Despite its reluctance to publicly elaborate on the full details of the crimes, the district court's decision was clearly based on the specific facts presented. 12 The district court also determined that Tracey's conduct merited an upward departure under § 5K2.8. It based its decision on the recommendations in the revised pre-sentence report, stating that [t]he defendant actively participated in all of these [sic] very troubling sexual conduct, and actually filmed — took pictures of much of what was happening. I'm satisfied that the ... 5K2.8 guideline applies. 13 Although the district court did not explicitly include in its heartland analysis the finding that defendants' conduct differed from other offenders, the pre-sentence reports for both defendants specifically state that, According to the investigating case agent, the instant offense is one of the worst child pornography cases she has ever seen in terms of the volume and nature of the pornography. Cf. United States v. Thompson, 315 F.3d 1071, 1074-75 (9th Cir.2002) (vacating sentence where district court did not make a comparison and there was little in the record to show that Thompson's conduct differed from other offenders). 14
15 In reviewing the district court's upward departure, we must first determine whether the basis for the departure was already accounted for by the offense guideline. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b)(2)(A)(i) (authorizing a departure where the court finds that there exists an aggravating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines that should result in a sentence greater than that described); see also United States v. Sablan, 114 F.3d 913, 916-17(9th Cir.1997). In order to consider a factor accounted for in the guidelines, it must be present to an exceptional degree or in some other way make[ ] the case different from the ordinary case where the factor is present. United States v. Semsak, 336 F.3d 1123, 1126 (9th Cir.2003) (quoting Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 96, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996)). 16 The Wrights' argument is premised on the assertion that crimes involving the production of material involving the sexual exploitation of children are by their nature so extreme that the corresponding guideline necessarily encompasses their conduct in this case. This theory is belied, however, by United States v. Chatlin, 51 F.3d 869, 873 (9th Cir.1995), in which the defendant pleaded guilty to the sexual abuse of a minor under 18 U.S.C. § 2243(a), and we held that on remand a § 5K2.8 departure would be appropriate due to the type of sexual abuse inflicted. 17 Furthermore, this court has previously approved of upward departures in cases involving serious crimes such as second-degree murder and vehicular involuntary manslaughter. In United States v. Roston, 986 F.2d 1287, 1293 (9th Cir.1993), we held that the district court had authority to depart under § 5K2.8 when the defendant, who was convicted for second-degree murder, cruelly killed his wife of nine days. Id. The vicious murder, which took place during the couple's honeymoon on the deck of a cruise ship and was perpetrated for no apparent reason, went beyond the circumstance of intentional killing [that] must have been taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission. Id.; see also United States v. Roston, 168 F.3d 377 (9th Cir.1999). 18 In Semsak, this court affirmed the application of a 4-level upward departure under U.S.S.G. § 5K2.14 to the sentence of a defendant truck driver who pleaded guilty to vehicular involuntary manslaughter. 336 F.3d at 1124-25. The defendant had been driving an 18-wheel trailer with a blood alcohol level of 0.17, nearly twice the legal limit in the state, when he hit and crushed a car and its driver. Id. at 1124. The district court applied U.S.S.G. § 2A1.4 and increased the base offense level by 4 because defendant's conduct of driving drunk was reckless and not merely criminally negligent. See id. at 1125. On top of that adjustment, the court also applied the § 5K2.14 departure, which provides for an increase if national security, public health, or safety was significantly endangered. Id. at 1125-26. 19 Semsak argued that because drunk reckless driving is always a threat to public safety, the guideline's base offense level fully encompassed his conduct. Id. at 1126. The district court found, however, that the offense guideline did not encompass `reckless conduct with an 80,000 pound vehicle.' Id. at 1125. On appeal, the court agreed that Semsak's behavior pushed the upper limits of recklessness. Id. at 1126. In reaching this conclusion it relied on United States v. Whiteskunk, 162 F.3d 1244 (10th Cir.1998), in which the Tenth Circuit reasoned that recklessness covers a broad spectrum of behavior ... [and] district courts should be free to depart if the facts indicate `a degree of recklessness that falls on the periphery of reckless conduct.' Semsak, 336 F.3d at 1126 (quoting Whiteskunk, 162 F.3d at 1251). 20 As in Semsak, James's conduct falls outside of, or at a minimum, on the periphery of § 2G2.1. The charged offense was the production of sexually explicit materials — a crime that covers a broad spectrum of behavior. Id. ; see also 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251, 2256(sexually explicit conduct ranges from actual or simulated sexual intercourse to masturbation to sadistic abuse to lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person). In this case, James could have been sentenced for the production of material involving the sexual exploitation of a minor without repeatedly engaging in various forms of sex with an 11-month old infant. See Semsak, 336 F.3d at 1127(reasoning that the base offense level did not fully capture the wrongfulness of Semsak's behavior because he could have been sentenced for reckless involuntary manslaughter even if he had not been driving an 18-wheel truck in such an extremely hazardous way); see also United States v. Wiegand, 812 F.2d 1239, 1241(9th Cir.1987) (defendant convicted under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251, 2252 for posing two girls, 17 and 10 years old, for photographs focusing on their genitalia). 21 In particular, James engaged in anal intercourse with his minor son to produce the images. This court has found before that vaginally and anally penetrating a young child necessarily hurt[s] the child. Rearden, 349 F.3d at 615. This court has also held that extreme conduct [under § 5K2.8] may be established by a showing of anal intercourse, which is a degrading form of sexual abuse. Chatlin, 51 F.3d at 872-73. 22 We hold that James's production of images showing his actual anal penetration of and oral copulation with the infant is an aggravating factor that is present to an exceptional degree, meriting an upward departure under § 5K2.8. Koon, 518 U.S. at 96, 116 S.Ct. 2035. See also United States v. Ellis, 935 F.2d 385, 396 (1st Cir.1991) (holding that sexual abuse, including fellatio, cunnilingus, and digital penetration, warranted upward departure when performed on a child victim). 23 The application of § 5K2.8 to Tracey's sentence similarly was not in error. Her factually undisputed relevant conduct confirms that she took pictures of James anally penetrating their 3-year old son with his penis. In addition, she took a series of photographs that include images of James anally penetrating a 3-year old girl with his fingers. She also took a series of photographs labeled picnic that depict James anally and vaginally penetrating a 17-month old girl. According to her pre-sentence report, that series includes an image of [the 17-month old girl's] vaginal area with semen on it. 24 Not only was Tracey present, but she documented these numerous instances of painful abuse. While she herself did not commit any of the sexually explicit activity, she permitted or caused at least five children to be subjected to sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction. Such repeated participation in and production of painful, degrading, and sexually explicit materials involving minors goes beyond the conduct contemplated by the guideline. 3