Opinion ID: 64501
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Sentencing Enhancement for Abuse of a Position of Trust

Text: The application of [U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual] § 3B1.3 is a sophisticated factual determination reviewed under the clearly erroneous standard. United States v. Fisher, 7 F.3d 69, 70-71 (5th Cir.1993); see also United States v. Dial, 542 F.3d 1059, 1060 (5th Cir.2008) (per curiam) (resolving an intra-circuit split regarding the applicable standard of review).
Ollison received a two-level enhancement under § 3B1.3 for abusing a position of public or private trust in a manner that significantly facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense. Application Note 1 of § 3B1.3 states the following: Public or private trust refers to a position of public or private trust characterized by professional or managerial discretion (i.e., substantial discretionary judgment that is ordinarily given considerable deference). Persons holding such positions ordinarily are subject to significantly less supervision than employees whose responsibilities are primarily non-discretionary in nature. For this adjustment to apply, the position of public or private trust must have contributed in some significant way to facilitating the commission or concealment of the offense (e.g., by making the detection of the offense or the defendant's responsibility for the offense more difficult). This adjustment, for example, applies in the case of an embezzlement of a client's funds by an attorney serving as a guardian, a bank executive's fraudulent loan scheme, or the criminal sexual abuse of a patient by a physician under the guise of an examination. This adjustment does not apply in the case of an embezzlement or theft by an ordinary bank teller or hotel clerk because such positions are not characterized by the above-described factors. [C]ommentary in the Guidelines Manual that interprets or explains a guideline is authoritative unless it violates the Constitution or a federal statute, or is inconsistent with, or a plainly erroneous reading of, that guideline. Stinson v. United States, 508 U.S. 36, 38, 113 S.Ct. 1913, 123 L.Ed.2d 598 (1993). The district court applied the enhancement for the following reasons: (1) although approximately 1,200 DISD employees had P-Cards, not every employee had one; (2) P-Card holders were in a position of trust because they used the card to make purchases on behalf of DISD; and (3) Ollison was secretary to the Superintendent, who was a high-ranking DISD official. [8] We conclude that the district court clearly erred in applying this enhancement to Ollison. The § 3B1.3 enhancement is appropriate if (1) Ollison occupied a position of trust, (2) that she used to significantly facilitate the commission or concealment of the offense. United States v. Kay, 513 F.3d 432, 459 (5th Cir.2007). Thus, the sentencing court must conduct a two-step inquiry when considering whether to apply the § 3B1.3 enhancement. First, the court must determine whether the defendant occupied a position of trust at all. If not, the inquiry ends and no enhancement accrues. If, however, this initial query produces an affirmative response, the court must proceed to ascertain the extent to which the defendant used that position to facilitate or conceal the offense. [9] United States v. Reccko, 151 F.3d 29, 31 (1st Cir.1998). The Reccko two-step inquiry is consistent with the law of this circuit. See Kay, 513 F.3d at 459 (describing it as a two-part test). In United States v. Brown, we stated: By its terms, § 3B1.3 encompasses two [conjunctive] factors: (1) whether the defendant occupies a position of trust, and (2) whether the defendant abused his position in a manner that significantly facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense. 941 F.2d 1300, 1304 (5th Cir.1991) (per curiam) (emphasis added). Logically, one must occupy a position of trust before one can abuse it.
To a lay person, it might appear that Ollison occupied a position of trust because she had limited authority to purchase various items with her P-Card. DISD trusted that Ollison would not use her P-Card to make personal purchases. However, if the § 3B1.3 enhancement relied on this colloquial definition of position of trust, then most if not all employees who stole from their employers would be subject to the enhancement because the employers trusted that their employees would not steal. See United States v. Edwards, 325 F.3d 1184, 1187 (10th Cir.2003) ([T]he adjustment under § 3B1.3 is not intended to be routinely applied to every employee fraud or embezzlement case.); see also United States v. Garrison, 133 F.3d 831, 838 (11th Cir.1998) (stating that because there is a component of misplaced trust inherent in the concept of fraud, a sentencing court must be careful not to be `overly broad' in imposing the [§ 3B1.3] enhancement) (internal citation omitted). For purposes of this enhancement, a position of trust is a term of art that must be defined through reference to the guideline commentary and our case law. See Stinson, 508 U.S. at 38, 113 S.Ct. 1913. A position of trust is characterized by (1) professional or managerial discretion (i.e., substantial discretionary judgment that is ordinarily given considerable deference), and (2) minimal supervision. See U.S. SENTENCING GUIDELINES MANUAL § 3B1.3 cmt. n.1 (2006); see also United States v. Brown, 7 F.3d 1155, 1161 (5th Cir.1993) (The primary trait that distinguishes a person in a position of trust from one who is not is the extent to which the position provides the freedom to commit a difficult-to-detect wrong). According to the dissent, Ollison occupied a position of trust because Ollison was given substantial autonomy to make purchases using her P-Card on behalf of the [Superintendent's] office. However, Ollison's discretionary authority to make official purchases on her P-Card was limited to a few discrete categories of inexpensive items. [10] The level of professional or managerial discretion held by Ollison is not commensurate with the level of discretion held by other defendants in this circuit who have been subject to the enhancement. Absent proof of other aggravating circumstances, we do not think that the § 3B1.3 enhancement should apply to a secretary who made unauthorized charges on a corporate credit card that was issued to 1,200 other employees. Ollison's fraud is the modern day equivalent of an ordinary bank teller who was pilfering money from the till. See Edwards, 325 F.3d at 1187 (Opportunity and access do not equate to authority, or to the kind of `substantial discretionary judgment that is ordinarily given considerable deference.') (citation omitted). [11] A recent case from the D.C. Circuit explains why Ollison did not occupy a position of trust for purposes of the § 3B1.3 enhancement. In United States v. Tann, the defendant stole money from her former employers by forging checks and depositing them in her personal checking account. 532 F.3d 868, 870-71 (D.C.Cir. 2008). Tann worked as the office manager for two non-profit organizations: DCCIL and Generations. Id. At DCCIL, her duties included hiring, ordering equipment, scheduling travel, and managing the expenditures and checks that were written. Id. at 870. (ellipsis and brackets omitted). At Generations, her duties included preparing checks, maintaining a computerized check ledger, and reconciling monthly bank statements with the ledger. Id. at 871. In concluding that Tann did not occupy a position of trust for purposes of the § 3B1.3 enhancement, the D.C. Circuit stated the following: Tann may have occupied a position of trust in the colloquial sense that she was trusted not to use her access for nefarious purposes; in that sense, so is every bank teller who has access to the bank's money and every janitor who cleans an office where desk drawers are left unlocked. Like the bank teller or the janitor, however, Tann did not have a job that required her to exercise professional or managerial discretion, which is the standard set forth in the application note to the Guideline. As we have said before, to apply the enhancement to a defendant merely because he or she is entrusted with valuable things and has little or no supervision while performing his or her duties would stretch the abuse-of-trust enhancement to cover endless numbers of jobs involving absolutely no professional or managerial discretion, in clear contravention of the plain language of the commentary to section 3B1.3. Id. at 875-76 (citation omitted). Similarly, in this case, Ollison's duties as secretary were clerical in nature. Her limited authority to make official purchases with her P-Card is not the type of professional or managerial discretion contemplated by the application note to the Guidelines. Id. at 875. Ollison's authority to purchase inexpensive, food-related items for her office does not involve the type of complex, situation-specific decisonmaking that is given considerable deference precisely because it cannot be dictated entirely by, or monitored against, established protocol. United States v. Tiojanco, 286 F.3d 1019, 1021 (7th Cir.2002). Like all employees, Ollison was trusted not to steal, but her secretary position did not give her substantial discretionary judgment, the exercise of which permitted her to perpetrate the fraud.
Under the Reccko two-step inquiry, our analysis should end once we conclude that Ollison did not occupy a position of trust. In this case, we will proceed to the second step in order to fully address the arguments raised by the dissent. Even assuming arguendo that Ollison occupied a position of trust, the Government did not provide sufficient evidence that Ollison used her secretary position in a manner that significantly facilitated the commission or concealment of the theft. [12] In this case, the delay in detection is properly attributable to lax oversight of the P-Card program by DISD, not concealment by Ollison. It was simply blind luck that she was not discovered sooner. See United States v. Ragland, 72 F.3d 500, 503 (6th Cir.1996). Although Ollison did alter some receipts before submitting them to DISD, her amateurish effort at concealment was not furthered by or related to her secretary position. The dissent correctly observes that Ollison was responsible for maintaining receipts for all purchases that she made, [13] but DISD never requested those receipts until the P-Card program was terminated in July 2006. Ollison did not evade detection through the abuse of substantial discretionary judgment that was associated with her secretary position. Ollison's position as a secretary gave her the opportunity to commit the crime, but the discretionary authority associated with that position was not instrumental in accomplishing the fraud. [14] Because Ollison's legitimate spending authority was severely limited, it did not assist her in achieving her illegitimate objective. See Tiojanco, 286 F.3d at 1021; see also Ragland, 72 F.3d at 503 ([T]here is no indication that what little autonomy defendant did possess in any way facilitated her scheme....). This case is distinguishable from United States v. Smith , where we held that a bank teller was subject to the enhancement because her position gave her knowledge of the inner workings of the bank and its security measures[, which] significantly facilitated the commission of the offense. 203 F.3d 884, 893 (5th Cir. 2000). Ollison's secretary position did not give her insider knowledge or access to private records that facilitated the commission of the theft. [15] Ollison's misuse of her P-Card, without more, does not subject her to the § 3B1.3 enhancement. See United States v. Hemmingson, 157 F.3d 347, 359-60 (5th Cir.1998) (affirming the district court's refusal to apply the enhancement to an attorney who never performed legal services to facilitate or conceal the crime).