Opinion ID: 1352691
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Official Victim Enhancement

Text: The district court granted a three-level upward enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3A1.2(a) because Salim's victim was a government officer and Salim's offense was motivated by Officer Pepe's official status. Salim I, 287 F.Supp.2d at 307. Salim first cites United States v. Goolsby, 209 F.3d 1079, 1081 (8th Cir.2000), where a defendant, awaiting sentencing for a drug conviction, assaulted a federal corrections officer during an escape attempt. The Eighth Circuit held that the enhancement could not be applied to the drug conviction because the officer was not a victim of the drug offense. Id. at 1082. Goolsby is readily distinguishable, however, because the underlying offense here is attempted murder of a federal officer, and Pepe is plainly the victim of this offense. Next, Salim asserts that there was no proof that his offense was motivated by Pepe's official status. But Salim's testimony showed both knowledge of Pepe's status and an assault committed to obtain a key that Pepe possessed only as a result of this status. Given this evidence, the district court's finding that the assault was motivated by the victim's official status was not clear error. See United States v. Bailey, 961 F.2d 180, 182 (11th Cir.1992) (finding that robbery was motivated by official status when defendant robbed the postmistress because, as a postal employee, she was in possession of money orders and a money order validation machine). Finally, Salim argues that this enhancement should not apply to an offense that specifically incorporates an officer's status. In United States v. Padilla, 961 F.2d 322, 327 (2d Cir.1992), we rejected a similar argument with respect to 18 U.S.C. § 111, which proscribes the assault of a federal officer, because the enhancement, unlike the underlying statute of conviction, required knowledge of the victim's status. Salim's statute of conviction, 18 U.S.C. § 1114, while incorporating the victim's official status as an element, does not require proof that the motivation for the attack was the victim's status. Thus, applying the enhancement here does not involve impermissible double counting because the guideline enhances for an additional factor that will not be present in every conviction under the statute. Padilla, 961 F.2d at 327.