Opinion ID: 577004
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Herbert Alan Butt

Text: 55 Butt was sentenced for his Hobbs Act and RICO violations under U.S.S.G. § 2E1.1, Unlawful Conduct Relating to Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations. That guideline provides: 56
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59 Commentary to the provision states that to determine which offense level is greater, applicable adjustments, set forth in Chapter Three of the guidelines, are to be added to each. § 2E1.1, comment. (n. 1). 60 The government and Butt agreed that the underlying racketeering activity of which Butt was convicted, for purposes of subsection (a)(2), was extortion under color of right, which carries a base offense level of ten. 18 The parties then proceeded to add to 19 and 10 the applicable Chapter Three adjustments. One such adjustment, U.S.S.G. § 3B1.3, imposes a two-level increase [i]f the defendant abused a position of public or private trust, or used a special skill in a manner that significantly facilitated the commission ... of the offense. The provision contains an exception clause, stating that [t]his adjustment may not be employed ... if an abuse of trust or skill is included in the base offense level or specific offense characteristic. § 3B1.3. 61 The parties agreed that abuse of public trust was an element of the offense of extortion under color of right, and that the § 3B1.3 adjustment therefore should not be added to the base offense level of ten, under § 2E1.1(a)(2). Their disagreement arose as to whether the RICO offense level prescribed in subsection (a)(1) also included the abuse of trust element. 62 Troubled by what it viewed as the prospect of double counting, and adverting to equitable and viscerally appealing arguments, the district court held that it did. Reasoning that Butt's status as a police officer was as intrinsic to his RICO convictions as it would be to an extortion under color of right conviction, the court concluded that subsection (a)(1) must, like subsection (a)(2), engage the § 3B1.3 limitation. In addition, the court believed that the structure of § 2E1.1--requiring a comparison of calculations made under the two subsections--meant that a sentence under subsection (a)(1) necessarily would include the underlying racketeering activity. Thus, the adjustment for abuse of trust would not apply to (a)(1) if it did not apply to (a)(2). 63 The government contends that the trial court's construction of §§ 2E1.1 and 3B1.3 was erroneous. See 18 U.S.C. § 3742(b) (government may appeal sentence on ground that district court incorrectly applied sentencing guidelines). The issue is both complex and technical. We wholly understand and sympathize with the district court's efforts to avoid a double-acting effect. Yet, after careful consideration of this matter, we are persuaded by the government's arguments. 64 By incorporating the underlying racketeering activity into subsection (a)(1), the trial court treated subsection (a)(1) as nothing more than a short-hand variant of (a)(2). In so doing, it undermined the logic of § 2E1.1. 65 The base offense level prescribed by the guidelines for a particular crime presumably reflects, or includes, those characteristics considered by Congress to inhere in the crime at issue. In the case of extortion under color of right, abuse of trust would be one such characteristic, since Congress could reasonably have determined that every act of extortion under color of right involves an abuse of public trust. Because the RICO statute, by contrast, can be violated in innumerable ways, there are, arguably, no offense characteristics common to all RICO offenses. We believe it appropriate, therefore, to take the base offense level set forth in § 2E1.1(a)(1) as one finds it--as establishing a generic base offense level for RICO crimes, one that includes no particular offense characteristic or special skill. See United States v. Dempsey, 768 F.Supp. 1277, 1281 (N.D.Ill.1991) (base offense level in § 2E1.1(a)(1) reflects legislative judgment that RICO is a specific, identifiable crime apart from any underlying predicates). 66 The reference to specific underlying racketeering activity in subsection (a)(2) does not require a contrary reading. Subsection (a)(1), as we understand it, establishes a minimum base offense level (nineteen) for RICO violations. This minimum reflects a legislative judgment that RICO violations--because entailing not one criminal act, but a pattern of predicate crimes--warrant a higher base offense level than do non-racketeering offenses. See Dempsey, 768 F.Supp. at 1281. ([I]t is both logical and correct that the Sentencing Commission chose a specific offense level for RICO which punishes such activity more harshly than ... nonrepetitive criminal conduct.). The comparison between subsections (a)(1) and (a)(2) mandated by § 2E1.1 merely ensures that a RICO defendant will not receive a lesser sentence than would attach to the underlying acts, simply by virtue of his having committed them in furtherance of a racketeering scheme. 67 Properly understood as a universal base offense level for RICO violations, implying no specific offense characteristics, subsection (a)(1) cannot be read to include abuse of trust. It, therefore, does not fall within the limitation of § 3B1.3, and applying the abuse of trust adjustment to the subsection (a)(1) calculation produces no double counting. See Dempsey, id. at 1283. 68 Because there appears to be no disagreement that Butt, as a police officer, abused the public trust in perpetrating the racketeering scheme of which he was convicted, the district court ought to have granted the government's request for the § 3B1.3 adjustment. Its failure to do so was error. Butt's sentence accordingly must be vacated and recalculated. 69 To ensure proper application of the guidelines on remand, clarification of one further point is necessary. Contrary to the district court's statement at the disposition hearing, the Chapter Three adjustments are added to both the subsection (a)(1) and (a)(2) offense levels. See § 2E1.1, comment. (n. 1). We therefore concur in the government's determination that the applicable base offense level under subsection (a)(1) is twenty-one (nineteen plus the two level adjustment for abuse of trust), rather than nineteen, as the district court suggested.
70 Butt appeals the district court's refusal to grant him a downward departure under U.S.S.G. § 5K2.0 based upon the discrepancy between his prison term (thirty months) and that of Semon (eighteen months). 19 His argument rests on the extraordinary contention that a departure is necessary to correct for alleged prosecutorial impropriety in the framing of the indictment, to wit, the decision to charge only Butt with the RICO and Hobbs Act offenses. Butt maintains that the evidence at trial established that he and Semon were equally culpable for the extortion and racketeering, notwithstanding the fact that Semon was neither charged nor convicted of these crimes. 71 At disposition, the district court concluded that since Butt and Semon each were sentenced under the guideline applicable to the offense of conviction, neither the fact of a disparity in the resultant prison terms, nor Butt's allegations of unfair prosecution, afforded a basis for disturbing his sentence. We find nothing improper in the district court's analysis. Only recently this court has held that a perceived need to equalize sentencing outcomes for similarly situated codefendants, without more, will not permit a departure from a properly calculated guideline sentencing range. United States v. Wogan, 938 F.2d 1446, 1448 (1st Cir.1991). The case against Butt is stronger yet, where, as here, the co-defendants, because charged with and convicted of different offenses, are not similarly situated with respect to the sentencing guidelines. 72 The sentence of Herbert Alan Butt is vacated and remanded to the district court for proceedings in accordance with this opinion; in all other respects, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.