Opinion ID: 203944
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Administrative Assistant to Dr. Walton's Medical Office

Text: The PSR states that Dr. Walton relied on appellant to conduct his daily affairs, giving her substantial professional discretion to manage the financial and administrative functions of the office. These generalities, repeated by the government in its brief, draw no support from the specific responsibilities attributed to Sicher. Her specific duties, as set forth in the PSR, included ministerial tasks such as opening mail, welcoming patients, scheduling appointments, bookkeeping, and collecting and depositing payments. These kinds of ministerial tasks do not normally require substantial discretionary judgment that is ordinarily given considerable deference, U.S.S.G. § 3B1.3 cmt. n. 1, and the record gives us no reason to conclude that they did in this situation. Notably, the record does not reveal that appellant had authority to make spending decisions for the medical office, prepare a budget, approve or deny spending requests, or conduct any other discretionary task with respect to the financial and administrative functions of the office. While is true that appellant's responsibilities gave her the opportunity to commit her crimes, they reposed in her no discernable discretion. Reccko, 151 F.3d at 32; see also United States v. Spear, 491 F.3d 1150, 1154 (10th Cir.2007) (`The fact that [the defendant] was trusted by her employer with significant responsibility... is not determinative.' (alterations in original) (quoting Edwards, 325 F.3d at 1187)).