Opinion ID: 6506
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Inclusion of Cocaine in Relevant Conduct: Punishment?

Text: 27 First, the government contends that inclusion of the cocaine in relevant conduct to calculate the defendant's base offense level is legally no different than enhancing his sentence by increasing a base offense level to a higher level under the Guidelines because of prior criminal activity. As increasing a base offense level by use of prior crimes is not punishment for prior crimes, argues the government, neither is using prior crimes to calculate a base offense level punishment for those prior crimes. Thus, concludes the government, Witte has not been punished for the cocaine offense. Witte counters that although enhancement of a sentence may not be punishment, counting the cocaine to determine his base offense level, with a corresponding 287-month increase in the maximum possible length of his sentence, is punishment. 28 It is well-settled that using prior crimes to enhance a sentence does not impinge on double jeopardy, because defendants are not punished for crimes so considered. 31 Pre-Guidelines, uncharged criminal conduct could be considered at sentencing as aggravating circumstances and could still form the basis of a later indictment, conviction, and sentence without violating double jeopardy. 32 The real offense approach to relevant conduct, however, may well lead to the conclusion that Witte was punished for the cocaine offense. 29 Stepping back from the somewhat artificial distinction between enhancement and calculation of a base offense level, we examine whether, pre-Guidelines, the prosecution and punishment of Witte for the cocaine offense would have been foreclosed because Witte's cocaine activities were considered in imposing sentence for the marijuana offense. Williams v. Oklahoma 33 indicates that the answer is no. As the Supreme Court noted in Williams, the sentencing court is authorized, if not required, to consider all of the mitigating and aggravating circumstances involved in the crime. 34 30 And in view of the obvious fact that, under the law of Oklahoma, kidnaping is a separate crime, entirely distinct from the crime of murder, the court's consideration of the murder as a circumstance involved in the kidnaping crime cannot be said to have resulted in punishing petitioner a second time for the same offense, nor to have denied to him due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. 35 31 In Witte's case, the sentencing court is required by the Guideline's relevant conduct rules to consider the circumstances surrounding the particular offense of conviction. We find it clear that, like the crimes of kidnap and murder of the kidnap victim in Williams, the marijuana charge to which Witte pleaded guilty and was sentenced is an offense separate and distinct from the cocaine offense. 36 If, in Williams, consideration of the conduct constituting the separate offense of murder to increase the severity of the sentence for kidnaping was not punishment for the conduct so considered, then the use of relevant conduct to increase the punishment of a charged offense does not punish the offender for the relevant conduct. Of course, there is double use of single acts, but Williams apparently permits this. Williams was given a life sentence for murder and then the same murder was used to step up his punishment for kidnaping to death. 32 The only ostensible missing link in this analysis lies in the answer to the question whether, when Williams was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, the sentencing court considered the kidnaping of the murder victim. Although not clear from the text of Williams, we may fairly assume that the uncharged kidnaping was considered when Williams was sentenced for murder. After all, the sentencing court [was] authorized, if not required, to consider all of the mitigating and aggravating circumstances involved in the crime. 37 If so, then Williams is this case--pre-Guidelines. 33 The fact that Witte's double jeopardy challenge arises post-Guidelines does not change the analysis of the punishment issue presented in Williams. Before adoption of the Guidelines, judges exercised their sound discretion in determining the appropriate level of punishment within established statutory ranges of imprisonment. Post-Guidelines, judges are still required to determine a sentence within an established statutory range. The Guidelines simply provide a formulae for what used to be left to trial court discretion. To improve consistency in sentencing, the Guidelines attempt to accommodate multiple uses of conduct. Specifically, the Guidelines require that when, in cases such as Witte's, the sentencing court has considered the marijuana conviction in determining the offense level for the cocaine offense, the court must impose concurrent sentences. 38 34 Even if we assume arguendo that Williams does not absolutely dispose of this threshold punishment question, we would not end our analysis at this juncture. Rather, we accept for purposes of our analysis that Witte has been punished by inclusion of the cocaine activities in relevant conduct and proceed to consider whether a second punishment is nonetheless permitted by Congress. 35