Opinion ID: 4564550
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Body-Armor Enhancement

Text: During his testimony regarding the early years of the conspiracy, Rogers said that he saw Hernandez and Kelly wearing bulletproof vests on multiple occasions at Maple and Duke Streets. Under the Guidelines, a defendant “convicted of a drug trafficking crime or a crime of violence” may be eligible for a two- or a four-level increase to his offense level based on the use of body armor in the commission of the offense. U.S.S.G. § 3B1.5(1). The two-level increase applies when “the offense involved the use of body armor.” U.S.S.G. § 3B1.5(2)(A). The four-level one applies if “the defendant used body armor during the commission of the offense, in preparation for the offense, or in an attempt to avoid apprehension for the offense.” U.S.S.G. § 3B1.5(2)(B). Kelly received the latter enhancement; Atkinson and Eatmon the former. Kelly asserts that Rogers’s testimony does not provide a sufficient nexus between the wearing of the body armor and the commission of the offense. The commentary to § 3B1.5 de- 92 fines “use” in part as “active employment in a manner to protect the person from gunfire.” U.S.S.G. § 3B1.5 cmt. n.1. Kelly was said to have worn body armor multiple times on Maple and Duke Streets—the eponymous location of the primary crew of drug traffickers on the South Side. Further, Rogers’s testimony was not an offhand remark; it came in the context of a description of the conspiracy’s early years, when Kelly and Hernandez began supplying crack to Rogers, Atkinson, Eatmon, and Rice. Kelly, Hernandez, and Cruz would be “standing there on Duke Street, so you would just buy the drugs from them and then go sell them on your own.” App. 3546. It was also when Kelly and Hernandez helped to introduce guns to the South Side, and the South Side-Parkway rivalry escalated from fistfights to gunfights. There is, therefore, a spatial and temporal nexus between Kelly’s use of the body armor and the commission of the conspiracy offense. Application of the four-level enhancement was not clear error. This same evidence supports the application § 3B1.5(2)(A) to Atkinson and Eatmon. We apply to the Guidelines the ordinary principles of statutory interpretation. See, e.g., United States v. James, 952 F.3d 429, 433, 439 (3d Cir. 2020). The provisions here are notably different: while the four-level enhancement concerns the actions of the defendant, the two-level one concerns the nature of the offense. The latter—which encompasses “the offense of conviction and all relevant conduct,” U.S.S.G. § 3B1.5 cmt. n.1 (citing U.S.S.G. § 1B1.1 cmt. n.1(I))—need only “involve[]” the use of body armor. According to Rogers’s testimony, Kelly and Hernandez’s use of the body armor occurred at the time Atkinson and Eatmon were being supplied by them. Eatmon protests he had not joined the conspiracy by this point, but he presents no evidence to question the District Court’s judgment. 93