Opinion ID: 785776
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Gaskin's Sentencing Challenges

Text: 102 Gaskin submits that the evidence failed to support the district court's application of four Sentencing Guidelines enhancements. Although we review a district court's legal application of the Guidelines de novo, see United States v. Genao, 343 F.3d 578, 583 (2d Cir.2003), we review its factual findings deferentially for clear error, see 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e), bearing in mind that the standard of proof at sentencing is a preponderance of the evidence, see United States v. Thorn, 317 F.3d 107, 117 (2d Cir.2003). 103 When making sentencing determinations, a district court may rely on any facts available to it, including information contained in the Pre-Sentence Report. See United States v. Shepardson, 196 F.3d 306, 309 (2d Cir.1999); United States v. Sisti, 91 F.3d 305, 312 (2d Cir.1996). Further, a sentencing court, like a jury, may base its factfinding on circumstantial evidence and on reasonable inferences drawn therefrom. Indeed, this will often have to be the case when the issue in dispute is a defendant's knowledge and intent. See United States v. Khedr, 343 F.3d 96, 102 (2d Cir.2003); United States v. Sisti, 91 F.3d at 313.
104 When Gaskin arrived at the Carvel parking lot in his Honda Accord on June 17, 1999, he was accompanied by his seventeen-year-old son. Having heard extensive testimony about this parking lot meeting both at a suppression hearing and at trial, the district court, at sentencing, reached what it characterized as an inescapable conclusion: Gaskin had deliberately brought his son to the meeting so that the boy could drive Gaskin's car away from the parking lot while Gaskin drove the motor home. Accordingly, the court imposed a two-level sentencing enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3B1.4. 105 Guideline § 3B1.4 provides that [i]f the defendant used or attempted to use a person less than eighteen years of age to commit the offense or assist in avoiding detection of, or apprehension for, the offense, increase by 2 levels. U.S.S.G. § 3B1.4. The application notes broadly define [u]sed or attempted to use to include directing, commanding, encouraging, intimidating, counseling, training, procuring, recruiting, or soliciting. Id. Application Note 1; see Stinson v. United States, 508 U.S. 36, 38, 113 S.Ct. 1913, 123 L.Ed.2d 598 (1993) ([C]ommentary in the Guidelines Manual that interprets or explains a guideline is authoritative unless it violates the Constitution or a federal statute, or is inconsistent with, or a plainly erroneous reading of, that guideline.). 106 As this language makes plain, the appropriate focus of a court's inquiry is on the actions and intent of the defendant. Whether the minor himself engaged in any criminal actions, whether the minor intended to assist in the adult's criminal activity, or whether the minor even knew that the adult was involved in criminal activity are factors irrelevant to application of the § 3B1.4 enhancement. Recent decisions by our sister circuits share this view. See United States v. Tran, 285 F.3d 934, 937-38 & n. 2 (10th Cir.2002) (upholding § 3B1.4 enhancement for using a minor as an unwitting driver during criminal activity); United States v. Anderson, 259 F.3d 853, 863-64 (7th Cir.2001) (upholding § 3B1.4 enhancement for directing minor bank tellers under defendant's supervision to make withdrawals that tellers did not know were unauthorized); see also United States v. Castro-Hernandez, 258 F.3d 1057, 1059-61 (9th Cir.2001) (upholding enhancement where father used three-year-old son as decoy during drug smuggling trip to avoid detection); United States v. Warner, 204 F.3d 799, 800-01 (8th Cir.2000) (upholding enhancement where defendant offered to leave eight-year-old daughter with drug purchasers as collateral for the payment money they entrusted to him). Thus, regardless of what Gaskin's son knew or intended with respect to his father's drug trafficking activities on June 17, 1999, if the evidence supported a conclusion that Gaskin brought the boy to the parking lot to help in any manner with his drug transfer plans, the district court properly applied a § 3B1.4 enhancement. 107 Trial evidence indicated that Gaskin had come to the meeting with Shaw pursuant to a specific appointment made earlier that day. This fairly supported an inference that the boy's presence at the meeting site was not coincidental but the product of a conscious choice by Gaskin. Further, the evidence showed that the single purpose of the Gaskin/Shaw meeting was to transfer possession of a motor home containing marijuana. Because Gaskin was arrested as he attempted to drive this motor home from the meeting site, it was obvious that he needed the assistance of some other person to drive his own car from the scene. Shaw's testimony indicated that it was never contemplated that he would drive Gaskin's car from the location. Thus, the logical conclusion to draw from the fact that Gaskin had brought his son to the meeting and left the boy in the Honda when he got in the motor home was that Gaskin intended his son to drive the car. 108 Because the district court did not clearly err in finding such intended use of a minor, it properly applied the § 3B1.4 enhancement to Gaskin's guideline calculations.
109 Guideline § 3C1.1 provides a two-level enhancement [i]f (A) the defendant willfully obstructed or impeded, or attempted to obstruct or impede, the administration of justice during the course of the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the instant offense of conviction, and (B) the obstructive conduct related to (i) the defendant's offense of conviction and any relevant conduct. U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1. The application notes to this guideline identify among the types of conduct deemed obstructive, threatening, intimidating, or otherwise unlawfully influencing a co-defendant, witness, or juror, directly or indirectly, or attempting to do so. Id. Application Note 4(a). 110 Bonnie Gahr testified that, sometime after June 17, 1999, Gaskin told her that he planned to kill the drug courier — Theodore Shaw — whose cooperation had led to his arrest. The district court concluded that Gaskin made this statement to Gahr, a potential witness who could provide even more incriminating evidence against him than Shaw, to intimidate her into not cooperating with authorities in their pending investigation of his drug trafficking. A threat to a potential witness qualifies as an attempt to obstruct justice and fully warrants a sentencing enhancement pursuant to § 3C1.1. See United States v. Sanchez, 35 F.3d 673, 680 (2d Cir.1994). Nevertheless, Gaskin submits that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding that his intent in threatening Shaw's life was to intimidate Gahr. Gaskin submits that the evidence shows only that he was blowing off steam. Gaskin's Br. at 19. 111 Gaskin's argument casts his words and conduct in the light most favorable to him, a view the district court was not required to adopt. United States v. Greer, 285 F.3d 158, 182-83 (2d Cir.2002). We generally defer to a sentencing court's findings as to what a speaker meant by his words, and how a listener would reasonably interpret those words. United States v. Shoulberg, 895 F.2d 882, 884 (2d Cir.1990); accord United States v. Sanchez, 35 F.3d at 680. In this case, the district court's conclusion about Gaskin's intimidating intent was supported by evidence of Gaskin's past efforts to ensure Gahr's silence with offers of financial assistance. In short, Gaskin had long recognized the risk presented by Gahr's possible cooperation. With investigative pressure mounting in the aftermath of his arrest, Gaskin's disclosure to Gahr of his plans to kill a cooperating courier necessarily communicated that the same fate could await her if she did not maintain her silence. The district court properly applied a § 3C1.1 enhancement. 112
113 Guideline § 2D1.1(b)(1) provides a two-level enhancement for defendants who possess firearms during drug crimes. Bonnie Gahr testified that she saw Gaskin armed with a gun on several occasions when he came to her home to pick up marijuana. Despite the district court's explicit finding that it credited Gahr's testimony, Gaskin argues that no enhancement was warranted because he was acquitted of Count Seven, which charged him with violating 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) by carrying a firearm during and in relation to the charged marijuana conspiracy. 114 Gaskin's argument is foreclosed by the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Watts, 519 U.S. 148, 117 S.Ct. 633, 136 L.Ed.2d 554 (1997) (per curiam), which holds that a jury's verdict of acquittal does not prevent the sentencing court from considering conduct underlying the acquitted charge, so long as that conduct has been proved by a preponderance of the evidence, id. at 157, 117 S.Ct. 633. Even before Watts, this court had ruled that a § 2D1.1(b)(1) enhancement could be applied to a defendant acquitted of violating 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). See United States v. Rodriguez-Gonzalez, 899 F.2d 177, 182 (2d Cir.1990); accord United States v. Lynch, 92 F.3d 62, 67 (2d Cir.1996). 115 We defer to the district court's credibility finding with respect to Gahr's testimony about Gaskin's firearm possession, see United States v. Lynch, 92 F.3d at 67 (crediting testimony of confidential informant that he had seen defendant carrying a gun during narcotics transactions), and conclude that it properly applied a § 2D1.1(b)(1) enhancement.
116 Guideline § 3B1.1(a) provides a four-level enhancement [i]f the defendant was an organizer or leader of a criminal activity that involved five or more participants or was otherwise extensive. U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(a). Gaskin submits that the district court erred both in finding him an organizer or leader and in concluding that five or more persons were involved in his drug transport scheme. 117 Once again, Gaskin's argument depends on a view of the evidence that is most favorable to him rather than the government. Notably, he eliminates from consideration as participants in his drug scheme all persons who were not themselves convicted or who were involved in the substantive crimes for which he was acquitted. This approach is at odds with § 3B1.1(a), the commentary to which states that [a] `participant' is a person who is criminally responsible for the commission of the offense, but need not have been convicted.  Id. Application Note 1 (emphasis added); see United States v. Si Lu Tian, 339 F.3d 143, 156 (2d Cir.2003). 118 Based on the totality of the trial evidence, the district court reasonably concluded that there were at least eight persons involved in the charged criminal activity; (1) Gaskin; (2) Castle; (3) Gahr; (4) Shaw; (5) the San Diego supplier, Mundahla; (6) Gahr's fellow courier, Ron Ruffin; (7) Kevin Miller; and (8) Miller's fellow courier, Julie. Indeed, it might have added a ninth participant: the Rochester aide identified by Castle as Sammy. Defendant need have been an organizer or leader only with respect to any one of these participants for the § 3B1.1(a) enhancement to apply. See United States v. Si Lu Tian, 339 F.3d at 156 (Guidelines only require that the defendant be an organizer or leader of one or more of [the five] participants for the section 3B1.1(a) enhancement to be appropriate.); accord United States v. Zichettello, 208 F.3d 72, 107 (2d Cir.2000). Factors relevant to determining whether defendant was an organizer or leader include: the exercise of decision making authority, the nature of participation in the commission of the offense, the recruitment of accomplices, the claimed right to a larger share of the fruits of the crime, the degree of participation in planning or organizing the offense, the nature and scope of the illegal activity, and the degree of control and authority exercised over others. U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1, Application Note 4. 119 The testimony of Gahr and Shaw indicated that Gaskin met each of these criteria in managing their drug-related activities. He personally recruited both Gahr and Shaw to serve as drug couriers in an ambitious scheme to transport large quantities of marijuana cross-country on a regular basis in order to supply Gaskin's Rochester distribution operation. Gaskin planned and organized every detail of these drug transports. He exercised total control over the couriers' conduct, affording them almost no discretion. He expended hundreds of thousands of dollars financing all aspects of the scheme from the acquisition of the drugs to reimbursement of the couriers' travel expenses to covering legal costs. Undoubtedly, he claimed the largest fruits of the crime: all transported marijuana was delivered to him. We do not mean to suggest that only someone who, like Gaskin, so clearly satisfies each and every factor detailed in Application Note 4 qualifies as an organizer or leader. Rather, we highlight this fact to emphasize the patent lack of merit to this part of Gaskin's sentencing challenge. We conclude that a § 3B1.1 enhancement was properly applied. 120