Opinion ID: 2980841
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Calculation of Pardue’s Criminal History

Text: 4 In this case, the district court found that Pardue’s prior convictions yielded eighteen criminal history points. The court then added two additional points because the instant offense occurred less than two years after Pardue’s release from prison. A sentence is procedurally unreasonable if the district court improperly calculated the guidelines range (for which the offense level may be determinative). See Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. Thus, if improperly calculated, Pardue’s sentence would suffer from procedural error. Pardue argues that the court’s initial calculation of eighteen criminal history points was incorrect, resulting in procedural error. Specifically, he objects to the calculation of separate criminal history points for a driving under the influence conviction in 2005 and a drug conviction in 2006, both of which stemmed from events occurring on December 7, 2005, when Pardue was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and driving on a revoked license. Pardue was searched incident to that arrest, and was found to be in possession of marijuana. For reasons we do not know, Pardue was not arrested for possession of marijuana until December 15, 2005. Pardue pled guilty to the driving offenses on December 12, 2005 and to possession of marijuana on April 4, 2006. Pardue argues that the driving and drug offenses constitute one continuous incident, and the district court thus erred in treating them as two distinct convictions when calculating his criminal history. The Guidelines provide that, when calculating criminal history, “[p]rior sentences always are counted separately if the sentences were imposed for offenses that were separated by an intervening arrest.” U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(a)(2). An intervening arrest occurs where the defendant is arrested for the first offense prior to committing the second offense. Id. Absent an intervening arrest, prior 5 sentences are counted separately unless they resulted from offenses contained in the same charging instrument or were imposed on the same day. Id. In this case, Pardue’s marijuana possession was discovered during a search incident to his arrest for driving under the influence. Thus, Pardue was not “arrested for the [driving] offense prior to committing the [possession] offense.” Id. However, we need not delve into the charging instruments or docket: Even if the offenses had been treated as one instead of two, it would not have affected Pardue’s criminal history category of VI, which is triggered by thirteen or more criminal history points. When the arrests are counted as separate incidents, Pardue has twenty criminal history points, and when they are counted as a single incident, Pardue has nineteen. Under either calculation, the Guidelines propose the same sentencing range. Because the separation of Pardue’s two earlier offenses made no difference to Pardue’s Guidelines range, any error that may have occurred was harmless. See United States v. Charles, 138 F.3d 257, 268 (6th Cir. 1998). In light of these facts, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion.