Opinion ID: 161910
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Application of Sentence Enhancement

Text: 49 The district court applied a two-level sentence enhancement under USSG 3A1.1(b)(1) for the exploitation of vulnerable victims, and another two-level enhancement under USSG 3A1.1(b)(2) based on the large number of vulnerable victims. The Caballeros contend that the trial court erred in applying the enhancements because the court did not make an adequate finding that the victims in this case were unusually vulnerable. 50 We review the district court's identification of unusually vulnerable victims for clear error. United States v. Creech, 913 F.2d 780, 781-82 (10th Cir. 1990). A vulnerable victim is a person (A) who is a victim of the offense of conviction and any [relevant] conduct... and (B) who is unusually vulnerable due to age, physical or mental condition, or who is otherwise particularly susceptible to the criminal conduct. USSG 3A1.1, n.2. We have found application of this enhancement appropriate when some characteristic renders a victim 'particularly susceptible' to the criminal conduct...[and the victim] is unable to protect himself or herself from criminal conduct... United States v. Shumway, 112 F.3d 1413, 1423 (10th Cir. 1997). 51 The Caballeros claim that the district court looked only to the victims' status as immigrants and applied the enhancements without making the required particularized findings of vulnerability pertaining to individual victims. United States v. Smith, 133 F.3d 737, 749 (10th Cir. 1997). The Caballeros rely primarily on United States v. Creech, 913 F.2d 780, 781-82 (10th Cir. 1990), a case in which this court reversed a vulnerable-victim enhancement after finding that it had been applied only because of the victim's status as a newlywed. Notably, the defendant in Creech pled guilty, and the district court therefore heard no evidence from the victim, nor any evidence regarding the victim's susceptibility to the criminal conduct. Creech, 913 F.2d at 781. By contrast, the government presented evidence from sixteen victim-witnesses at the Caballeros' trial. In observing the victim-witnesses' testimony, the court gathered facts about their demeanor, language, culture, illegal immigrant status, and uneasiness with the legal system. In its ruling, the court specifically discounted class-based application of the enhancements, saying that aliens in the United States are not as a class always vulnerable victims within the meaning of the enhancement, but that the facts of this case that the Court heard at trial, there were a number of victims who were particularly vulnerable and defendants targeted them because defendants knew they were particularly vulnerable. XXIV R. at 173. 52 Specifically, the court identified the victims' language problems, unfamiliarity with the laws of the United States, the cultures from which the victims came, and their illegal status as the basis for dubbing them vulnerable. XXIV R. at 172. Not only must there be particularized evidence of a victim's vulnerability, but the evidence must also distinguish the victim as atypical of the usual targets of the relevant criminal conduct. Creech, 913 F.2d at 782. The court's findings in this case serve to make such a distinctionnot every victim of fraud, either generally or in the Caballeros' particular scheme, struggle with the English language, are uneasy dealing with the legal system, or are in an illegal immigrant status. The district court's findings of fact support the vulnerable victim enhancements, are not clearly erroneous, and will not be disturbed. United States v. Smith, 930 F.2d 1450, 1455 (10th Cir. 1991). 53 AFFIRMED.