Opinion ID: 608132
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: President as victim

Text: 15 The letter McAninch sent to President Bush over the signature of Ramsey Al-Salam threatened that if the President did not [e]nd the imperialist aggression against the Iraqi people, he would pay with [his] life. It continued, How would your wife, Barbara, like to walk into [the] Oval Office and see your brains splattered all over the wall? or visit Seattle with you and return to the White House ALONE?  (E.R. 6 at 11.) 16 Because the communication threatened the President, the government and probation officer both recommended that the court depart upward pursuant to application note 2 to guideline section 3A1.2. The court adopted this recommendation as one of the grounds for its three-level upward departure. McAninch concedes the factual basis of the departure, that the President was a victim, but argues that to depart upward on this basis constituted impermissible double-counting in that an element of the offense of which he was convicted in count ten was that the President was a victim. McAninch further contends that his mailing of the letter was not motivated by the President's status. 17 Section 3A1.2(a) (Official Victim) of the 1991 Sentencing Guidelines 6 instructs the court to increase the offense level by three 18 [i]f ... the victim was a law enforcement or corrections officer; a former law enforcement or corrections officer; an officer or employee included in 18 U.S.C. § 1114; a former officer or employee included in 18 U.S.C. § 1114; or a member of the immediate family of any of the above, and the offense of conviction was motivated by such status. 19 Because 18 U.S.C. § 1114 does not include the President among the list of officials it is designed to protect, however, section 3A1.2 does not provide for an upward adjustment when the official victim is the President. Application note 2 to that section fills in that lacuna: Certain high-level officials, e.g., the President and Vice President, are not expressly covered by this section. The court should make an upward departure of at least three levels in those unusual cases in which such persons are victims. 20 An application note cannot be disregarded by the district court unless it is inconsistent with the related guideline. United States v. Anderson, 942 F.2d 606, 612 (9th Cir.1991) (en banc); see also United States v. Fine, 975 F.2d 596, 599 n. 4 (9th Cir.1992) (en banc) (application notes entitled to considerable weight). Application note 2 is complementary to guideline 3A1.2. The note requires an increase of at least three levels whenever the President is the victim of an offense. In using the word should, it differs from more typical guided departures encountered in the guidelines, which ordinarily employ nonobligatory language. 7 Nonetheless, the Sentencing Commission has denominated the apparently mandatory increase contemplated by application note 2 a departure, so we treat it as such. 21 We find no merit in McAninch's contention that the upward departure constituted double-counting under the guidelines. Because all sorts of threatening communications fall within the ambit of section 2A6.1, the guideline which provided the base offense level for count ten, the relevant comparison in determining whether there was double-counting in this case is between the applicable guidelines provisions, not between the guidelines provisions and the criminal code. Indeed, the commentary to section 2A6.1 notes that 22 [t]he Commission recognizes that this offense includes a particularly wide range of conduct and that it is not possible to include all of the potentially relevant circumstances in the offense level. Factors not incorporated in the guideline may be considered by the court in determining whether a departure from the guidelines is warranted. 23 U.S.S.G. § 2A6.1 application note 1 (1991). This commentary is borne out in McAninch's case, since section 2A6.1 applied to count nine as well, which did not involve the President. 24 Because section 2A6.1 does not specify any victim-related adjustments at all, a court's departure pursuant to application note 2 is not redundant. To the contrary, as is demonstrated by the involvement of the Secret Service in this case, a sentencing enhancement based on the fact that the President was the recipient of a threat is easily supportable because of the response the threat necessarily provokes in those whose responsibility it is to protect the chief of state. See Roy v. United States, 416 F.2d 874, 877 (9th Cir.1969) (observing that threats against President's life cannot be ignored); United States v. McCaleb, 908 F.2d 176, 179 (7th Cir.1990) (noting enormously disruptive and costly impact of such threats). We note that our conclusion is consistent with that of the other circuit to address this issue. See United States v. Pacione, 950 F.2d 1348, 1356 (7th Cir.1991) (victim's official status is not incorporated in guidelines section 2A6.1), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 3054, 120 L.Ed.2d 920 (1992); McCaleb, 908 F.2d at 178-79 (upholding upward departure under application note 2 to section 3A1.2 for offense falling under section 2A6.1). 25 Relying on the language in guideline section 3A1.2, McAninch argues in the alternative that the three-level upward departure pursuant to application note 2 was improper because the letter was not motivated by the President's official status. See United States v. Hoyungowa, 930 F.2d 744, 748 (9th Cir.1991) (upward adjustment under section 3A1.2 requires finding that defendant was motivated by victim's official status). We find this argument unpersuasive, for two reasons. 26 To begin with, application note 2 does not contain the motivated by language to which McAninch refers; nor do we perceive a reason to read the language into this departure provision since it functions independently of the section to which it is appended. Even if we were to read such a requirement into the application note, however, it was undoubtedly met in this case because such motivation was inherent in the offense to which McAninch pleaded guilty. Application note 4 to section 3A1.2 offers guidance on interpreting the language motivated by such status. It explains that an offense arising out of a personal dispute between coworkers at a government agency would not be considered to have been motivated by the victim's official status. In this case, President Bush's official status was not incidental to the conduct at issue. In urging Bush to end a military conflict, McAninch in his threatening letter obviously referred to the President's official duties. Moreover, in keeping with the scheme of harassment devised by McAninch, the purpose of the communication evidently was to implicate its purported author in unlawful activities that would attract the attention of the authorities. 27 The court's decision to depart upward because the President was a victim was legally and factually justified. 8