Opinion ID: 195454
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Accomplice Attribution Test.

Text: 15 The accomplice attribution test is restated in the case law with great frequency, but rarely in quite the same form or with quite the same emphasis. Thus, our perlustration must start with the guideline itself. 16 In its current iteration, 4 the applicable guideline states that relevant conduct includes all reasonably foreseeable acts and omissions of others in furtherance of the jointly undertaken criminal activity, that occurred during the commission of the offense of conviction, in preparation for that offense, or in the course of attempting to avoid detection or responsibility for that offense. U.S.S.G. Sec. 1B1.3(a)(1)(B) (Nov.1993). Reading the 1988 version of section 1B1.3(a)(1) in light of subsequent clarifying amendments to both the guideline and its commentary, we understand the Sentencing Commission to have mandated a two-part inquiry for accomplice attribution in the relevant conduct milieu. First, the sentencing court must determine what acts and omissions of others were in furtherance of the defendant's jointly undertaken criminal activity. This task requires the court to ascertain what activity fell within the scope of the specific conduct and objectives embraced by the defendant's agreement (whether explicit or tacit). Second, the court must determine to what extent others' acts and omissions that were in furtherance of jointly undertaken criminal activity likely would have been foreseeable by a reasonable person in defendant's shoes at the time of his or her agreement. 5 17 We think it is important to emphasize that the vantage point for the foreseeability judgment is the time of the defendant's agreement--not necessarily the time he personally undertook the performance of criminal activity, or the time of his entry into the conspiracy. Siting the vantage point in this way has at least two salient implications. For one thing, a court examining relevant conduct may attribute to a defendant acts committed by his accomplices prior to the commission of his own acts, so long as they occur subsequent to his agreement. For another thing, because a single defendant may make multiple agreements or expand an existing agreement, a defendant sometimes may be chargeable with losses arising out of conduct that he could not have foreseen at the time he entered the conspiracy, so long as such conduct was foreseeable at the time that he signaled his agreement to the expanded scope of jointly undertaken criminal activity embracing such conduct. 18 In this case, the inquiry may be truncated. There has never been any suggestion that the 60-something transactions closed by appellant's coconspirators were outside the scope of appellant's agreement, or, put another way, that those transactions were other than in furtherance of the jointly undertaken criminal activity. Consequently, this appeal turns exclusively on the issue of foreseeability. 19