Opinion ID: 2780869
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Added Criminal History Points.

Text: In selecting a defendant's criminal history category (CHC), the guidelines direct the sentencing court to add two criminal history points if the defendant committed the offense(s) of conviction while under a criminal justice sentence. See USSG §4A1.1(d). It is undisputed that a supervised release term is a criminal justice sentence, see id., and that the defendant was on supervised release in connection with a prior drug-trafficking conviction until December 13, 2011. For this reason, the court below added the two criminal history points — an action that boosted the defendant into a higher CHC. The defendant protests. He insists that the conduct underlying the offenses of conviction did not begin until December -18- 15, 2011 (the date of the first controlled buy) and that, therefore, the district court had no right to add the two extra criminal history points. This dog will not hunt. The conspiracy charge is the linchpin of the government's case, and the indictment stated that the lifespan of the conspiracy ran at least from November of 2011 to January of 2012. The defendant pleaded guilty to that charge. By doing so, the defendant admitted that he was guilty of participating in the charged conspiracy as early as November of 2011 (a time when he was still serving his supervised release term). See United States v. Hernández, 541 F.3d 422, 424-25 & n.1 (1st Cir. 2008); see also United States v. Grant, 114 F.3d 323, 329 (1st Cir. 1997) (When a criminal defendant pleads guilty, he admits not only that he committed the factual predicate underlying his conviction, but also that he committed the crime charged against him. (internal quotation marks omitted)). No more is exigible to justify the two added criminal history points.4 4 If more were needed — and we do not think that it is — the presentence investigation report cited evidence that the defendant and Murphy were actively selling crack cocaine out of the apartment in November and early December. Although the defendant unsuccessfully objected to those portions of the report, he offered no evidence in refutation. Where, as here, a defendant's objections to a presentence investigation report are wholly conclusory and unsupported by countervailing evidence, the sentencing court is entitled to rely on the facts set forth in the presentence investigation report. See United States v. Cyr, 337 F.3d 96, 100 (1st Cir. 2003). -19-