Opinion ID: 4233784
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Upward Departure from Base Offense Level

Text: Next, we consider whether the district court erred by applying a four-level upward departure from Peeples’s total offense level under § 5K2.6, raising his offense level from 21 to 25. We review the district court’s “decision to depart upward on the basis of a permissible factor . . . for abuse of discretion.” United States v. Donelson, 450 F.3d 768, 774 (8th Cir. 2006). We review the district court’s factual findings supporting departure for clear error. United States v. Tjaden, 473 F.3d 877, 879 (8th Cir. 2007). Peeples first argues that the district court’s conclusion that he targeted his neighbor’s bedroom was clearly erroneous because the record lacks sufficient -6- evidence to prove that Peeples knew the shots he fired would enter Heminover’s bedroom or even that he knew where the bedroom was. Clear error occurs when the district court’s finding is “(1) not supported by substantial evidence; (2) based upon an erroneous view of the law; or (3) such that ‘we are left with the definite and firm conviction that an error has been made.’” Phelps-Roper v. Ricketts, 867 F.3d 883, 890 (8th Cir. 2017) (quoting Sawheny v. Pioneer Hi-Bred Int’l, Inc., 93 F.3d 1401, 140708 (8th Cir. 1996)). The district court cited to uncontested facts in the PSR that, after arguing with his downstairs neighbors, Peeples fired a gun from his upstairs apartment into his downstairs neighbor’s bedroom. The court noted that it was 1:00 a.m. when Peeples fired the shots. The district court is correct that most people are in their bedrooms at 1:00 a.m., and Peeples would have known that his neighbors were home because he had argued with them earlier in the evening. Furthermore, the PSR indicates that there were several bullet holes in Heminover’s bedroom wall, and it is not difficult to believe that Peeples knew he was firing into the bedroom since he lives in the apartment directly above Heminover and Kowalsky and had interacted with them. Based on this information, the district court concluded that Peeples targeted his neighbor’s bedroom. Because the district court’s factual conclusions are supported by substantial evidence and we are not left with a definite and firm conviction that an error has been made, we find that the district court did not clearly err in concluding that Peeples targeted Heminover’s bedroom. Peeples then argues that the district court engaged in double counting by departing upward four levels under § 5K2.6 because he had already received a fourlevel adjustment under § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) that fully accounted for his felony conduct of discharging the gun in his apartment. “Double counting occurs if ‘one part of the Guidelines is applied to increase a defendant’s punishment on account of a kind of harm that has already been fully accounted for by application of another part.’” -7- Donelson, 450 F.3d at 774 (quoting United States v. Hipenbecker, 115 F.3d 581, 583 (8th Cir. 1997)). In United States v. Donelson, the defendant was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Id. The district court found that the defendant used a firearm in connection with the Iowa offense of Intimidation with a Deadly Weapon. Id. The court applied a four-level enhancement under § 2K2.1(b)(5) for use of a firearm in connection with a felony offense and departed upward an additional two levels under § 5K2.6 “because the offense involved a reasonably foreseeable and substantial risk of death or bodily injury to multiple victims.” Id. at 772. The defendant appealed, claiming that the district court had engaged in impermissible double counting by departing upward the additional two levels. Id. at 774. We affirmed the district court, holding that the kinds of harm underlying the departures were not identical because one harm was the use of the firearm and the other harm was the substantial risk to multiple victims of death or bodily injury. Id. In United States v. Porter, the defendant also received a four-level enhancement under § 2K2.1 for use of a firearm in connection with a felony offense, as well as a seven-level enhancement under § 5K2.6 for firing a high-powered weapon into the victim’s home. 409 F.3d 910, 914 (8th Cir. 2005). The defendant appealed, arguing that the district court erred by departing upward seven levels under § 5K2.6 for firing a weapon into the victim’s home because that was fully accounted for in the four-level enhancement. Id. at 917. We affirmed the district court’s sentence, holding that the additional seven-level enhancement was appropriate because the defendant’s conduct was incredibly dangerous and could have killed the victim. Id. at 918. Here, the district court found that the four-level adjustment under § 2K2.1(b)(6) applied, and additionally departed upward four levels under § 5K2.6 because Peeples’s actions of firing a gun into his neighbors’ apartment and targeting the bedroom were “unbelievably dangerous” and the additional four-level enhancement was necessary -8- to account for the extent to which Peeples endangered his neighbors. Following Donelson and Porter, we find that the district court did not engage in double counting. The harm accounted for under the § 2K2.1(b)(6) adjustment, to which Peeples did not object, is the use of a firearm in connection to the felony offense of Intimidation with a Dangerous Weapon under Iowa Code § 708.6. The harm accounted for under the § 5K2.6 upward departure is the incredible threat of serious injury or death to Heminover and Kowalsky. Because the enhancements account for two distinct harms, we hold that the district court did not err in applying an additional four-level enhancement under § 5K2.6.