Opinion ID: 69267
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Facts & Proceedings in the District Court

Text: On October 16, 2008, Mr. Jeffries pleaded guilty to a single count of violating § 922(g)(1) following his arrest on March 15 of that year for possession of a firearm. The Probation Office returned a Presentence Investigation Report (PSR) recommending a base offense level of twenty with a three-level downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility, see U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1(a), (b), and a four-level enhancement for possession of a firearm in connection with another felony offense, see U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(b)(6), yielding a total offense level of twenty-one. Mr. Jeffries filed a single, late objection to the PSR arguing that the section 2K21.1(b)(6) enhancement was improper. [1] At his sentencing hearing on January 7, 2009, Mr. Jeffries testified that he had taken the gun at issue from a man (referred to in the record only as Mississippi) in the course of a violent altercation shortly before his arrest. According to Mr. Jeffries's testimony, after taking the gun, he got into his car, picked up his girlfriend, Laurie Krumpfer, and almost immediately thereafter was stopped by police responding to calls concerning Mr. Jeffries's fight with Mississippi. Mr. Jeffries told the officers that he had a gun in the car and gave his version of the circumstances while being arrested. In the course of a subsequent search of Mr. Jeffries's car, the police located both the gun and a single rock of crack cocaine. The gun was located on the driver's seat and the cocaine on the floor behind the driver's seat. At the sentencing hearing, Mr. Jeffries denied that the cocaine belonged to him, claiming that Ms. Krumpfer had put it in his car without his knowledge. In response, the Government introduced testimony from local police primarily concerning Mr. Jeffries's sole possession of the car in order to support the inference that the cocaine belonged to Mr. Jeffries. The same testimony also established that Ms. Krumpfer did not admit during Mr. Jeffries's arrest that the cocaine belonged to her. Ms. Krumpfer herself did not testify at the proceedings. [2] The Government also offered evidence that the police had received reports in connection with the fight between Mr. Jeffries and Mississippi that Mr. Jeffries had possession of the gun in his car before the fight began. The district court overruled the objection without explanation, accepted the PSR without change, and imposed a within-Guidelines sentence of sixty months imprisonment. Without the enhancement, the Guidelines range would have been between thirty-seven and forty-six months. [3] Mr. Jeffries timely appealed his sentence, again arguing only that section 2K2.1(b)(6) is inapplicable here. Because we conclude that the specific facts of this case cannot support the district court's implicit conclusion that Mr. Jeffries's possession of a firearm facilitated, or had the potential of facilitating, the felony offense of cocaine possession as Application Note 14(A) to section 2K2.1 now requires, we VACATE Mr. Jeffries's sentence and REMAND for re-sentencing.