Opinion ID: 173129
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The District Court's Decision to Depart Upward.

Text: U.S.S.G. § 3C1.2 provides for a two-level enhancement for flights when 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. An application note allows a potential upward departure from the guidelines for such flights, stating that [i]f death or bodily injury results or the conduct posed a substantial risk of death or bodily injury to more than one person, an upward departure may be warranted. Id. at n. 6. The guidelines explain that a sentencing court may upwardly depart from the applicable guideline range in an exceptional case, ... if the court determines that such circumstance is present in the offense to a degree substantially in excess of ... that which ordinarily is involved in that kind of offense. U.S.S.G. § 5K2.0(a)(3). The application note to this subsection states in part: Subsection (a)(3) authorizes the court to depart if there exists an aggravating ... circumstance ... to a degree not adequately taken into consideration in the guidelines. However, inasmuch as the Commission has continued to monitor and refine the guidelines since their inception to determine the most appropriate weight to be accorded the ... aggravating circumstances specified in the guidelines, it is expected that departures based on the weight accorded to any such circumstance will occur rarely and only in exceptional cases. U.S.S.G. § 5K2.0, n. 3(B)(i). At the sentencing hearing, the district court gave two alternative holdings for why Mr. Osborne's case merited an upward departure from the guidelines. First, the district court held that a high-speed car chase (which Mr. Osborne's was) automatically qualifies for an upward departure from the guidelines, citing U.S.S.G. § 3C1.2 n. 6: In this Court's opinion a high speed car chase does, in fact, always endanger more than one person, meaning it should automatically qualify for consideration of an upward departure under Application Note 6 because a car chase would, in this Court's opinion, automatically take it out of the heartland cases. Rec. vol. II, at 39 (emphasis added). Second, the district court described the specific facts of Mr. Osborne's high-speed car chase, holding them to be exceptional and outside of the heartland of ordinary cases: I find by a preponderance of the evidence that the Defendant's repeated high speed passes through and past the Wal-Mart Store parking lot, the gas station and the McDonald's put a huge number of people at risk that would not have been  that ordinarily would not be affected in fleeing from law enforcement officers. It's to a degree not adequately considered by the Sentencing Commission in 3(c)1.2. Therefore, Application Note 6's suggestion of the possibility of an upward departure is applicable in this case and causes this case to differ significantly from the heartland of cases covered by this guideline. Id. at 41. We adopt the second of the district court's two rationales, and affirm the upward departure because the facts of Mr. Osborne's high-speed car chase were exceptional and therefore outside of the heartland of ordinary cases.