Opinion ID: 195990
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Three-Level Increase for Possession of the Guns Found in the Fairlawn Estates Apartment

Text: 49 The district court found at sentencing that Powell possessed the guns found in the Fairlawn Estates apartment. It therefore increased Powell's offense level by one for possession of the guns, see Sec. 2K2.1(b)(1), and by two because one of the guns had an obliterated serial number, see Sec. 2K2.1(b)(4). Powell challenges this finding on two grounds. First, he contends that there was insufficient evidence to support the finding. Second, he asserts that his possession of these guns was not part of the same course of conduct or common scheme or plan as the offense of conviction, as is required by Sec. 1B1.3(a)(2). We are not persuaded by Powell's arguments. 50 As we already have explained, the district court did not abuse its discretion in deciding that the jury could find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the guns in the Fairlawn Estates apartment were possessed by Powell. See supra Section II-A. While fine semantic distinctions may make it theoretically possible for a court to have acted within the bounds of its discretion in deciding that a jury could make a preponderant finding, and then to have committed clear error in making the same preponderant finding itself, we are confident that this is not such a case. We therefore rely on our earlier explanation in rejecting Powell's sufficiency argument. 51 Although Powell's same course of conduct argument has some superficial appeal--after all, the guns in the Fairlawn Estates apartment did not play any role in the Powell's possession of the .44 on Humboldt Avenue--it is foreclosed by circuit precedent. In United States v. Sanders, 982 F.2d 4 (1st Cir.1992), we analyzed whether a defendant who had pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and to using or carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime could be subjected to an upward departure for possessing a weapon (used to shoot his girlfriend in the head) which was not named in the indictment. See 982 F.2d at 9-10. Answering this question required us to consider the scope of the same course of conduct provision in Sec. 1B1.3(a)(2), because the possession of the gun used in the shooting could only be taken into account at sentencing if it constituted relevant conduct under Sec. 1B1.3. Id. at 9. In answering the question in the affirmative, we said: 52 The 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. Here, defendant did repeat the same type of criminal activity--he illegally possessed three or four separate firearms when the victim was shot. We have no difficulty viewing the illegal possession of the four weapons as all part of the same course of conduct. 53 Id. at 9-10 (citation, ellipses, and internal quotation marks omitted). In other words, the contemporaneous, or nearly contemporaneous, possession of uncharged firearms is, in this circuit, relevant conduct in the context of a felon-in-possession prosecution. See id. 54 In this case, Powell clearly possessed the guns in the Fairlawn Estates apartment at the same time that he possessed the .44 used in the shooting. Accordingly, the district court did not err in finding that the possession of these weapons was part of the same course of conduct as the offense of conviction. 55 We therefore reject Powell's challenge to the court's three-level increase for the guns found in the Fairlawn Estates apartment. 56