Opinion ID: 170809
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Grouping and Bodily Injury

Text: First, Mr. Martin argues that the district judge erred in determining the total offense level for Mr. Martin's multiple counts of conviction. The judge, accepting the recommendation of the PSR, calculated Mr. Martin's sentence as follows: for each of the rape charges, the Sentencing Guidelines provide a base offense level of 30. U.S.S.G. § 2A3.1. There is a 4-point enhancement for convictions under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, the aggravated sexual abuse statute under which the defendant was convicted. U.S.S.G. § 2A3.1(b)(1). There is another 4-point enhancement if the victim sustained life-threatening bodily injury. Id. § 2A3.1(b)(4). This produced an offense level of 38 on these counts. The assaults would have had an offense level of up to 25 (for the assault with the knife) and 21 (for the other assault), see id. § 2A2.2, but as we shall explain they will be disregarded in any total-offense-level calculation because their level is so much lower than that of the rapes. Chapter 3, Part D then provides the rule for combining all of these counts. If they are counted as a single transaction involving substantially the same harm, ( i.e., grouped), the total offense level is 38 the level of the most serious count. [5] U.S.S.G. §§ 3D1.2, 3D1.3(a). If each one is counted as a separate injury or transaction, ( i.e., not grouped), the four counts cumulate to an offense level of 40-38 for the most serious count, an additional two levels for the fact that there is another equally serious count, id. § 3D 1.4(a), and no increase for the assaults because their offense level is at least nine levels below the level of the most serious counts, id. § 3D 1.4(c). The district judge chose to group the charges together as one transaction, thus giving Mr. Martin the lower offense level. A decision not to group the charges would have given Mr. Martin a potential Guidelines sentence of life imprisonment. As best we understand, Mr. Martin has two complaints about this calculation: that the district judge should not have grouped the charges together, and that once the charges are not grouped, the 4-level enhancement for serious bodily injury would apply only to the assaults and not to the rapes. This would have produced an offense level of 36, and a guidelines range of 235-293 months. We are not sure why Mr. Martin's lawyer argued so strenuously below that the offenses should not be grouped, which would send his offense level up rather than down, [6] but in any case we conclude that the district court was correct on both issues. It was proper to group the charges together. The Guidelines require grouping [w]hen counts involve the same victim and either the same act or transaction or two or more acts or transactions connected by a common criminal objective. Id. § 3D1.2(a), (b). Here, the judge and the PSR concluded that all four charges were sufficiently connected, and we agree. The beatings and rapes happened over the course of a few hours with little break, as part of one prolonged brutal attack. Under those circumstances, grouping is appropriate. See United States v. Sneezer, 983 F.2d 920, 924-25 (9th Cir. 1992) (two counts of rape against the same victim in a short span of time should be grouped); see also U.S.S.G. § 3D1.3 cmt. 4 (For example, if the defendant commits forcible criminal sexual abuse (rape), aggravated assault, and robbery, all against the same victim on a single occasion, all of the counts are grouped together under § 3D1.2.). It was also proper to apply the bodily-injury enhancement to the rapes, for reasons that have nothing to do with grouping. Mr. Martin's argument appears to be that because the bodily injury was directly caused by the knife and the beating, it should enhance only the assaults and not the rapes. Whatever logic such a sentencing scheme might have, it is not the one envisioned by the guidelines. Guideline 2A3.1(b)(4)(A) provides for a specific offense enhancementapplicable particularly to sexual assault chargeswhen the victim sustain[s] permanent or life threatening bodily injury. The crime is using force to procure sex, so this enhancement includes injuries sustained because the rapist was beating the victim into submission. See United States v. Bell, 367 F.3d 452, 470 (5th Cir.2004). Mr. Martin perpetrated the rapes by using very serious force against the victim, and the judge concluded that this force nearly killed her. This is precisely the situation envisioned by the enhancement.