Opinion ID: 3061872
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Possession of Firearm Enhancement

Text: Fifth, Evans argues that the district court clearly erred by enhancing his offense level under U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(b)(1) for possession of a firearm because he was acquitted of the charged 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) offense, and he should not be punished for conduct the jury did not find illegal. Evans also argues that the enhancement violated his Second Amendment right to possess a firearm, as set forth in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. ___, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008). We review the district court’s interpretation of the Sentencing Guidelines de novo and its factual findings for clear error. United States v. Jordi, 418 F.3d 1212, 1214 (11th Cir. 2005) (citation omitted). “Possession of a firearm for sentencing purposes is a factual finding.” United States v. Geffrard, 87 F.3d 448, 452 (11th 13 Cir. 1996) (citation omitted). According to “long-standing precedent, [r]elevant conduct of which a defendant was acquitted nonetheless may be taken into account in sentencing for the offense of conviction, as long as the government proves the acquitted conduct relied upon by a preponderance of the evidence.” United States v. Faust, 456 F.3d 1342, 1347 (11th Cir. 2006) (alteration in original) (quotation omitted). According to U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(b)(1), a court should increase the offense level by two “[i]f a dangerous weapon (including a firearm) was possessed.” The enhancement “should be applied if the weapon was present, unless it is clearly improbable that the weapon was connected with the offense.” Id. cmt. n.3. The government has the burden “to demonstrate the proximity of the firearm to the site of the charged offense by a preponderance of the evidence.” United States v. Audain, 254 F.3d 1286, 1289 (11th Cir. 2001) (per curiam) (citation omitted). “If the government is successful, the evidentiary burden shifts to the defendant to demonstrate that a connection between the weapon and the offense was ‘clearly improbable.’” Id. (citation omitted). A pistol was found at Evans’s restaurant, laying on top of a safe containing $27,000 in tightly wrapped bundles of cash. A government witness testified that the possession of firearms and other weapons is common among individuals 14 involved in the drug trade because of the danger presented by law enforcement and thieves. In other words, the pistol found in Evans’s restaurant could reasonably be determined to be an instrumentality used to protect the large amounts of money generated by Evans’s drug trade. As for Evans’s Second Amendment argument, “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” Heller, 128 S. Ct. at 2816. Heller specifically stated that the opinion was not meant to cast doubt on longstanding restrictions on the possession of firearms, such as prohibiting possession by felons. Id. at 2816–17. There is no support in Heller for the invalidation of the firearm enhancement on the basis of the Second Amendment. The district court did not clearly err by finding that Evans possessed a firearm in connection with the drug offense. The district court could apply the enhancement even though the jury acquitted Evans of the § 924(c) firearm charge because the government proved by a preponderance of the evidence that the firearm was connected with the offense. Additionally, application of the enhancement did not violate Evans’s Second Amendment right to bear arms.