Opinion ID: 582662
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The district court's vertical analogy

Text: 75 As an additional justification for the extent of its departure, the district court drew an analogy to the guideline sentencing range for the separate offense of aggravated assault: 76 THE COURT: And as I said earlier, those adjustments and the sentence then fit within the, I think, the guideline purposes and principles and would be comparable to the sentence for aggravated assault, in going through the guideline determinations that we have discussed previously. 77 S.T. 81. Faced with conceptual difficulty in moving laterally across the sentencing table, the district judge evidently chose a different and more serious offense to serve as a supplemental guide in increasing Streit's sentence. The guidelines do not condone this mode of reasoning. 78 The offense guideline for aggravated assault specifies a base offense level of 15, which is increased by four levels if a firearm is used. See U.S.S.G. § 2A2.2. For a defendant in category VI with an offense level of 19, the sentencing table prescribes a range of 63-78 months of imprisonment. In comparing Streit's ultimate sentence with the sentence Streit might have received for aggravated assault, the district court analogized to a wholly separate substantive offense that had been rejected by the jury. 79 The commentary to the offense guideline for aggravated assault defines that offense as a felonious assault that involved (a) a dangerous weapon with intent to do bodily harm (i.e., not merely to frighten), or (b) serious bodily injury, or (c) an intent to commit another felony. U.S.S.G. § 2A2.2, comment. (n. 1). At Streit's trial, however, the jury specifically declined to convict Streit of assault with a dangerous weapon and instead convicted on the lesser included offense of assault without a dangerous weapon. 80 The structure of the Sentencing Guidelines makes clear that the factors to be considered in departing from applicable criminal history categories are distinct from those relevant to departing from appropriate offense levels. Offense level departures are based on extraordinary aspects of the offense for which the defendant was convicted. See U.S.S.G. § 5K2.0. We agree with the D.C. Circuit that the guidelines assume a basic dichotomy between conduct that is related to the current offense and conduct that is part of the defendant's criminal history. United States v. Jones, 948 F.2d 732, 739 (D.C.Cir.1991); see also United States v. Thornton, 922 F.2d 1490, 1494 (10th Cir.1990) (Prior criminal conduct reflecting on the adequacy of a defendant's criminal history category does not provide the basis for an offense level departure.). Indeed, in the instant case, the district court already had increased Streit's sentence--through the section 5K2.2 departure--to reflect the physical injury to the FBI agents. 81 Finally, we note that permitting departures by vertical analogy to more serious offenses suggests no obvious limit on the district court's discretion once the court determines that a defendant's criminal history category is inadequate. We therefore join those circuits that have rejected this approach to justifying upward departures from category VI.