Opinion ID: 164559
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Limited Participation Departure

Text: 15 The United States argues that we should reverse the Langs' downward departures because the district court departed based on unauthorized considerations. As noted above 16 [t]o determine whether the factors [employed by the district court] are authorized, we look to 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b)(1), which provides that a district court may depart if there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines. Jones, 332 F.3d at 1300 (quotations omitted). 17 For factors already considered by the Guidelines, departure from the applicable guideline range is warranted only if the factor is present to a degree substantially in excess of that which ordinarily is involved in the offense. U.S.S.G. § 5k2.0; see also United States v. Fagan, 162 F.3d 1280, 1284 (10th Cir.1998). 18 The district court departed in this case based on the Langs' short involvement as accessories, reasoning that in such situations it would be outside the heartland to sentence the Langs based on drug quantities from drug dealing that ha[d] gone on for an extended period of time. We disagree. 19 The Langs' limited participation as accessories does not warrant a downward departure because the Guidelines already account for an accessory's minimal participation. Section 2X3.1 of the Guidelines relies on the minimal participation inherent for all accessories in deducting six levels from the base offense level of the underlying offense. U.S.S.G. § 2X3.1(a)(1). Moreover, § 3B1.2 directs a sentencing court to decrease a defendant's offense level by 4 levels [i]f the defendant was a minimal participant in any criminal activity or by 2 levels [i]f the defendant was a minor participant in any criminal activity.... U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2. The Guidelines note, however, that [t]he adjustment from § 3B1.2 (Mitigating Role) normally would not apply [to an accessory] because an adjustment for reduced culpability is incorporated in the base offense level. U.S.S.G. § 2X3.1, Application Note 2. As these provisions make clear, the Guidelines already consider an accessory's limited participation. Therefore, the district court may depart downward on that basis only if the Langs' involvement as accessories was exceptionally short. 20 Compared to that in other accessory cases, the Langs' involvement, which ranged from a couple of hours to a day, was not exceptionally short. Individuals often act as accessories for a much shorter period. For instance, perjury in respect to a criminal offense falls under the Guidelines' structure for accessory, see U.S.S.G. § 2J1.3, and yet a perjurer often violates the law for only a matter of seconds, see United States v. Renteria, 138 F.3d 1328, 1330 31 & 1334 (10th Cir.1998). Likewise, disposing of a weapon used to commit a felony may take only minutes, and yet this crime falls within the heartland of the accessory guidelines. See United States v. Martinez, 342 F.3d 1203, 1205 (10th Cir.2003). Therefore, because the Lang's involvement was not exceptionally short, we find that the district court erred in departing downward on that basis. See e.g. United States v. Jimenez, 282 F.3d 597, 600-01 (8th Cir.2002).