Opinion ID: 747836
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Use of Prior Convictions in Sentencing

Text: 20 In calculating LaBarbara's criminal history category under the Guidelines, the district court included a prior conviction of LaBarbara for violating the Taft-Hartley Act by accepting gratuities from an employer. LaBarbara argues that the district court erred in considering that conviction as relevant to criminal history under U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2 rather than as relevant conduct determining his base offense level under U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3. We disagree. 21 Appellate review of a district court's determination of whether particular acts are relevant conduct for purposes of Section 1B1.3 employs clear-error analysis. United States v. Vazzano, 906 F.2d 879, 883 (2d Cir.1990); see also Giraldo, 80 F.3d at 679; United States v. Rodriguez, 989 F.2d 583, 585 (2d Cir.1993); United States v. Chartier, 970 F.2d 1009, 1015 (2d Cir.1992). To the extent that the issue is whether the district court properly construed terms like common scheme or plan, however, review is de novo. See Chartier, 970 F.2d at 1015. 22 Application Note 1 of Guidelines Section 4A1.2 provides: 23 Prior sentence means a sentence imposed prior to sentencing on the instant offense, other than a sentence for conduct that is part of the instant offense. See § 4A1.2(a). A sentence imposed after the defendant's commencement of the instant offense, but prior to sentencing on the instant offense, is a prior sentence if it was for conduct other than conduct that was part of the instant offense. Conduct that is part of the instant offense means conduct that is relevant conduct to the instant offense under the provisions of § 1B1.3 (Relevant Conduct). 24 Guidelines Section 1B1.3 provides, in pertinent part, that relevant conduct includes: 25 solely with respect to offenses of a character for which § 3D1.2(d) would require grouping of multiple counts, all acts and omissions described in subdivisions (1)(A) and (1)(B) above that were part of the same course of conduct or common scheme or plan as the offense of conviction. 26 U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(2). A common scheme or plan requires that the offenses be substantially connected to each other by at least one common factor, such as common victims, common accomplices, common purpose, or similar modus operandi. U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3 Application Note 9(A). 27 We have held that a finding of a common scheme or plan must be based on subjective as well as objective elements. See Chartier, 970 F.2d at 1016. In Chartier, we found no common scheme or plan connecting four robberies. Id. The victim of the first robbery was a fast-food restaurant. However, when the defendant and his cohorts decided that the proceeds were too meager, they turned to robbing banks. Further, the identity of the other perpetrators constantly shifted, and one of the robberies was done on the spur of the moment. Id. Although the issue in Chartier involved the relatedness of prior offenses under Section 4A1.2(a)(2) Application Note 3, the relevant test involved the existence of a common scheme or plan, and there is no reason to conclude that that term has a different meaning when used in Section 1B1.3. Chartier itself treated common scheme or plan under Section 4A1.2(a)(2) Application Note 3, and under Section 1B1.3(a)(2), as the same inquiry. See Chartier, 970 F.2d at 1015 (quoting Vazzano, 906 F.2d at 883, a case under Section 1B1.3(a)(2)). Furthermore, in Chartier, as in this case, the defendant argued that his conduct did constitute a common scheme or plan, in Chartier to avoid career offender status, here to avoid an increased criminal history category. 28 There are some similarities between LaBarbara's 1989 Taft-Hartley violation and the offenses that are the subject of this appeal. The 1989 convictions were for accepting gratuities from an employer that amounted to either bribery or extortion. LaBarbara's greed is certainly common to both sets of crimes; each involved LaBarbara's willingness to abuse his positions of trust for profit; and there is a temporal overlap. Moreover, there is also some overlap of victims in that Local 66's members may have suffered some diminution in wages and benefits as a result of the payments to LaBarbara that were the subject of the 1989 conviction as well as harm from the loss to the Funds in the instant case. Nevertheless, we agree with the district court that the two sets of crimes were not part of a common scheme or plan. 29 The fact that LaBarbara was personally enriched by the two sets of crimes is not by itself enough to establish a common scheme or plan. Chartier, 970 F.2d at 1016. Moreover, the differences between the two sets of crimes easily outweigh the similarities. With regard to the present offenses, the co-conspirators were different; members of LaBarbara's family, as well as LaBarbara himself, were enriched; and the Funds were victims as well as the individual members. Most significantly, the nature of the two sets of crimes was different. As noted, the 1989 crimes involved bribery by, and/or extortion from, employers. The gravamen of the crimes here was embezzlement through purchases of land and overpriced construction contracts, a fraudulent mortgaging of union property, false filings, and fraudulent concealment. Indeed, the differences between the crimes in the instant matter exceed those between the crimes in Chartier. 30 Offenses that are not part of a common scheme or plan may nevertheless be part of the same course of conduct 31 if they are sufficiently connected or related to each other as to warrant the conclusion that they are part of a single episode, spree, or ongoing series of offenses. Factors that are appropriate to the determination of whether offenses are sufficiently connected or related to each other to be considered as part of the same course of conduct include the degree of similarity of the offenses, the regularity (repetitions) of the offenses, and the time interval between the offenses. When one of the above factors is absent, a stronger presence of at least one of the other factors is required. 32 U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3 Application Note 9(B). Before the adoption of this definition, our caselaw had held that [t]he 'same course of conduct' concept ... looks to whether the defendant repeats the same type of criminal activity over time. It does not require that acts be 'connected together' by common participants or by an overall scheme. It focuses instead on whether defendant has engaged in an identifiable 'behavior pattern' of specified criminal activity. United States v. Perdomo, 927 F.2d 111, 115 (2d Cir.1991) (quoting United States v. Santiago, 906 F.2d 867, 872 (2d Cir.1990)) (citation omitted). 33 Whether our earlier interpretation and the new definition of the same course of conduct are identical need not be determined because the district court's analysis was proper under either. The court found that the offenses were not part of the same course of conduct because embezzling from the union is dissimilar from accepting gratuities from employers in exchange for favorable terms. While the offenses bear some very general resemblance to each other, we agree that there is no substantial similarity. 3