Opinion ID: 773504
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Overstatement of the Seriousness of the Offense

Text: 16 In the case at hand, the District Court departed downward in large part because it found that the market value of the smuggled roe overstated the seriousness of the offense. The District Court arrived at this conclusion, however, by erroneously assuming that the seriousness of appellants' offenses should be measured by the economic loss caused by those offenses. 17 The enhancement provision in Section 2Q2.1 instructs a sentencing court to base the enhancement on the market value or the fair-market retail price of the endangered species involved, not on the economic loss caused by an offense. See United States v. Borden, 10 F.3d 1058, 1063 (4th Cir. 1993) (using the market value to determine the appropriate enhancement); United States v. Eyoum, 84 F.3d 1004, 1007 (7th Cir. 1996) (using the fair-market retail price to determine the enhancement); see also U.S.S.G. § 2Q2.1, application note 4 (When information is reasonably available, 'market value' under subsection (b)(3)(A) shall be based on the fair-market retail price.). The District Court incorrectly concluded that, by directing courts to use the table in Section 2F1.1, the enhancement provision incorporated the concept of loss mentioned in Section 2F1.1. 18 We find instructive the Fifth Circuit's decision in United States v. Cho, 136 F.3d 982 (5th Cir. 1998). In that case, a defendant was found guilty of trafficking in counterfeit merchandise and was sentenced under Section 2B5.3 of the Guidelines, which concerns the criminal infringement of copyrights and trademarks. Section 2B5.3 contains an enhancement provision almost identical to the one here: It directs courts to increase a defendant's offense level by the corresponding number of levels from the table in § 2F1.1 (Fraud and Deceit) if the retail value of the infringing items exceeds $2,000. U.S.S.G. § 2B5.3(b)(1) (1998). 4 The defendant in Cho argued that the reference to the Fraud and Deceit table in Section 2F1.1 incorporated the concept of loss in that Section, and, therefore, her enhancement should be based on the loss incurred by the victim of her crime rather than on the retail value of the infringing item. See Cho, 136 F.3d at 984. The Fifth Circuit rejected this argument. It held that Section 2B5.3(b)(1) only referred to the table in Section 2F1.1 and did not incorporate Section 2F1.1's concept of loss; accordingly, sentencing under Section 2B5.3 depended only on the retail value of the infringing item and not on the loss incurred by others. See id. 19 We believe that similar reasoning applies here. Section 2Q2.1(b)(3)(A) provides that the offense level should be increased by the corresponding levels from the table in § 2F1.1 (Fraud and Deceit). U.S.S.G. § 2Q2.1(b)(3)(A) (1998) (emphasis added). The reference to the table in Section 2F1.1 does not incorporate Section 2F1.1's reliance on loss to calculate the appropriate enhancement in fraud and deceit cases or, as Koczuk argues, the application notes of Section 2F1.1. 5 See id. § 1B1.5(b)(2) (An instruction to use a particular... table from another offense guideline refers only to the particular... table referenced, and not to the entire offense guideline.). Under Section 2Q2.1(b)(3)(A), a sentencing court is to use only the table in Section 2F1.1 to enhance the offense level, and this enhancement must be based on the market value or the fair-market retail price of the endangered species involved. In these circumstances, the District Court should not have been concerned with the economic loss resulting from appellants' conduct. By directing a sentencing court to use the market value of the endangered species, the Sentencing Commission made the decision that this value is the best measure of the seriousness of the offense. Accordingly, insofar as the District Court departed downward because it found no economic loss or, at most, a loss to the Russian government of some conceptual nature, we hold that this was error. 20