Opinion ID: 197215
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Role in the Offense Determinations

Text: 31 James contests his two level enhancement for being a manager or organizer of the criminal activity, seeking instead to award that role to Dailey. We can dispose of this contention forthwith. Reviewing again only for clear error, United States v. Voccola, 99 F.3d 37, 44 (1st Cir.1996), we find that James' admission in his response to the Pre-Sentencing Report that to the extent that his son Scott Fraza is involved in this case, it is solely due to James Fraza's fault and not Scott Fraza, is enough to allow us to say again that we discern no error here. 32 Scott complains of the court's refusal to grant a downward adjustment for his minor role in the offense, a position which was not opposed by the government. Apparently, at sentencing this brass ring was within reach when the Probation Officer interrupted the proceeding and engaged in an ex parte communication with the court some time after which the downward adjustment was denied. According to Scott, the Probation Officer discarded his role as ... an impartial 'arm of the Court' and donned the mantle of an advocate for rejection of the requested 2-point deduction.... 33 Defendant's moral outrage regarding this issue was evident at oral argument, but we are perplexed as to his expectations of the Probation Officer's proper behavior. We would expect the officer to exercise his independent judgment as to the application of the guidelines and we see no error in his interruption of the proceedings to make his judgment known. See United States v. Belgard, 894 F.2d 1092, 1097 (9th Cir.1990) (observing that a probation officer's duty is to provide the trial judge with as much information as possible in order to enable the judge to make an informed decision). Anything less would be a dereliction of duty. Scott's attempt to condemn the officer for doing his job is misplaced and can not act as a basis for overturning a ruling that is not clearly erroneous.