Opinion ID: 559900
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Application of the United States Sentencing Guidelines

Text: 21
22 The United States Sentencing Guidelines (Guidelines) provide that a sentencing court must consider a defendant's involvement with quantities of narcotics not charged in the indictment when such conduct was part of the same course of conduct or common scheme or plan as the offense of conviction. U.S.S.G. Sec. 1B1.3(a)(2). See United States v. Byrd, 898 F.2d 450, 452 (5th Cir.1990). 8 23 In the instant case, the district court explicitly stated that it found credible Korycki's testimony that she had purchased cocaine from Register eight to ten times prior to the January 20 and January 22 transactions and would have no difficulty basing a finding on her testimony. Nevertheless, the district court stated that it would just look at the immediate period of this particular offense and this particular conspiracy in the near time frame ... [although] [i]t may well be it doesn't reflect the scale of Mr. Register's culpability. The district court therefore assigned to Register an offense level of 20, which corresponds to the amount of cocaine seized from Register on January 22. Had the district court aggregated that amount (218 grams) with the amount of drugs allegedly sold in previous transactions by Register to Korycki, Register would have been assigned, under the Guidelines, an offense level of 24. 9 24 This court will uphold a district court's sentence so long as it results from a correct application of the Guidelines to factual findings that are not clearly erroneous. United States v. Sarasti, 869 F.2d 805, 806 (5th Cir.1989). In this case, the district court failed to make a reviewable finding as to whether the relevant conduct extended back prior to January 20. This court cannot properly review the sentence imposed by the district court without a finding whether the conduct prior to the January 20 and 22 transactions was part of the same course of conduct as the offense of conviction. We therefore vacate the sentence and instruct the district court to (a) make a factual finding as to the relevant course of conduct and (b) apply the Guidelines accordingly.
25 Guideline Sec. 2D1.1(b) calls for the enhancement of a defendant's sentence by two levels if a dangerous weapon was possessed during commission of the offense. The district judge in this case refused to enhance the sentence, however, because he found it improbable that that weapon was used in the commission of this offense (emphasis added). The policy statement to Guideline Sec. 5K2.6 states that the court may increase the sentence above the authorized Guideline range [i]f a weapon ... was used or possessed in the commission of the offense (emphasis added). Moreover, the commentary to Guideline Sec. 2D1.1(b)(1) states that the court should enhance a sentence for weapon possession unless it is clearly improbable that the weapon was connected to the offense. 10 26 This court has upheld upward adjustments for mere possession of a firearm. See, e.g., United States v. Otero, 868 F.2d 1412, 1414 (5th Cir.1989) (firearm use or possession per se is a permissible basis for upward adjustment); United States v. Hewin, 877 F.2d 3, 5 (5th Cir.1989) (mere possession of gun in car, notwithstanding acknowledgment by district judge that defendants probably never intended to use gun in connection with drug offense, sufficient basis for upward adjustment); United States v. Mueller, 902 F.2d 336, 345 (5th Cir.1990). While the decision to make an upward adjustment based on firearm possession appears to be somewhat discretionary, we find in this case that the district judge may not have applied the correct legal standard in exercising his discretion, as he may not have considered possession to be sufficient grounds for sentence enhancement. We therefore instruct the district court on remand to apply the proper standard in determining whether an upward adjustment is appropriate in this case. 11