Court Opinion

ID: 2965973
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2015-09-21 21:47:08.663311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:43:08.181243
License: Public Domain

USCA1 Opinion

	

                  United States Court of Appeals
                      For the First Circuit
                       ____________________

No. 99-1059

                          UNITED STATES,

                            Appellee,

                                v.

                      DAVID HOLIS LAFORTUNE,
                          A/K/A LUCKIE,

                      Defendant, Appellant.

                       ____________________

           APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

                    FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE

           [Hon. Morton A. Brody, U.S. District Judge]

                       ____________________

                              Before

                     Torruella, Chief Judge,

                   Hill, Senior Circuit Judge,

                    and Boudin, Circuit Judge.

                      _____________________

    Joseph S. Berman, by appointment of the Court, with whom
Berman & Dowell was on brief, for appellant.
    Margaret D. McGaughey, Assistant United States Attorney, with
whom Jay P. McCloskey, United States Attorney, was on brief, for
appellee.

                       ____________________

                       September 15, 1999
                       ____________________         HILL, Senior Circuit Judge.  Appellant David Hollis
"Luckie" LaFortune is an admitted bank robber.  In calculating
LaFortune's sentence, the district court added a six-level weapons
enhancement, finding that LaFortune had "otherwise used," U.S.S.G.
§ 2B3.1(b)(2)(B), rather than "brandished, displayed, or
possessed," U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b)(2)(C), a firearm during the robbery
which would have warranted only a five-level enhancement.  We
affirm.
                                I.
         On February 4, 1998, LaFortune and co-defendant Michael
Kenneth Morganstern stole a teal-colored minivan parked outside a
convenience store.  The next morning, LaFortune and Morganstern
drove to the residence of a woman and her eleven-year-old son. 
They asked the woman to stitch closed the mouth openings of two
black ski masks.  Obtaining needle and thread from a neighbor, the
woman complied.  Morganstern then told the boy that "he was going
to do something really stupid, [so] if he got shot, don't cry; he
was going to rob a bank, [but] don't tell [anybody]."  The two men
then left the woman's house.
         That same morning, February 5, two young white males
entered a branch of the Bangor Savings Bank wearing black ski
masks, ski-type gloves and dark parkas.  According to a teller, one
robber announced the robbery, carried a silver-colored revolver
with a thin barrel, and stayed on the customer side of the counter. 
The other robber climbed or jumped over the teller counter, and
began removing money from the cash drawers, filling a brown duffle
bag with bank currency stacks.
         Pointing the silver gun at tellers and customers, the
armed robber then shoved or pushed one customer to the floor,
telling her to "get down" and "don't talk."  The customer saw the
silver flash of (what she perceived as) a gun in his hand.  A bank
employee heard the armed robber yell for everyone to get down and
"saw him wave the small handgun at people in the bank."  Another
bank employee reported that the armed robber pointed the handgun
directly at her and told her to get down.  After the armed robber
yelled at the robber behind the teller counter to hurry up, the two
ran from the bank, removing their ski masks as they fled.  Running
down the street to the teal-colored minivan, they sped away, but
not before a citizen recorded its Maine license plate number.
         LaFortune and Morganstern returned to the woman's house
later that same morning, February 5.  This time they were carrying
a plain brown duffle bag.  The bag contained money, ski-type
gloves, the ski masks and the mini-revolver.  The two men asked the
woman's child to dispose of the ski masks and gloves, and also
their sneakers, pants and shirts.  The child obeyed by placing the
items in a dumpster outside.  They also asked the boy to get rid of
the keys to the teal-colored minivan.  He threw them into a nearby
yard.  At their direction, the child also bought the men two pair
of new sneakers at the Bangor Mall.
         As the boy watched, Morganstern spread the cash out on a
sibling's bed in denominated piles and split the proceeds equally. 
The boy learned that LaFortune was the armed robber that had "held
the gun, cocked, at the head of a female at the bank."  It was
Morganstern who had jumped over the teller counter and gathered
cash.
         The two men left the woman's house, taking the revolver
and duffle bag with them.  Within the next five days, LaFortune and
Morganstern would both be arrested and a two-count indictment
returned against them by a federal grand jury.
                               II.
         LaFortune pleaded guilty to bank robbery by force in
violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2113(a) and (d), and conspiracy to commit
armed bank robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371.  On the record,
at sentencing, the parties stipulated as to the factual statement
set forth in the PSR.
         At the sentencing hearing, the district court heard
testimony from the bank's human resources director as to the trauma
inflicted upon bank employees, customers and their families by
LaFortune's conduct.  According to the bank representative,
LaFortune's use of the silver revolver "gave the victims no reason
to expect that they would emerge from this robbery without becoming
another statistic on the nightly news."
         The PSR recommended a six-level weapons enhancement of
LaFortune's sentence, U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b)(2), warranted as he had
"otherwise used" a firearm during the bank robbery, rather than a
five-level weapons enhancement, U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b)(3), for
"brandishing" it.  The district court agreed with the
recommendation, finding itself particularly struck by the statement
of the one victim that "all she remembered of the robbery was
staring down the barrel of a gun and wondering when she would be
shot."  Based upon a total offense level of twenty-eight, and a
Criminal History Category I, with a Sentencing Guideline range of
78 to 97 months' imprisonment, the district court sentenced
LaFortune to the maximum 97 months.  He now appeals.
                               III.
                                A.
         LaFortune's appeal presents an issue of first impression
to this circuit.  Here we must draw the line as to whether a weapon
was "otherwise used" or "brandished, displayed, or possessed"
during a robbery in the context of the Sentencing Guidelines.  We
review de novo the interpretation by the district court of the
language and meaning of words used in the Sentencing Guidelines. 
See United States v. Núñez-Rodríguez, 92 F.3d 14, 19 (1st Cir.
1996).  Its findings of fact are reviewable for clear error.  Id.
                                B.
         The crime of robbery garners a base offense of 20 under
U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(a).  Subsection (b)(2) of U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1
outlines varying enhancements to the base offense of 20 depending
on the type of weapon used in the robbery and the degree of its
involvement:
                  (A) if a firearm was discharged, increase by 7
         levels; (B) if a firearm was otherwise used,
         increase by 6 levels; (C) if a firearm was
         brandished, displayed, or possessed, increase
         by 5 levels; (D) if a dangerous weapon was
         otherwise used, increase by 4 levels; (E) if a
         dangerous weapon was brandished, displayed, or
         possessed, increase by 3 levels; or (F) if a
         threat of death was made, increase by 2
         levels.

U.S.S.G. §§ 2B3.1(b)(2)(A)-(F).
         The terms "otherwise used" and "brandished" are defined
in the Commentary to U.S.S.G. § 1B1.1.  See U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1,
comment.  (n.1).  The application notes provide that
"'[b]randished' with reference to a dangerous weapon (including a
firearm) means that the weapon was pointed or waved about, or
displayed in a threatening manner."  U.S.S.G. § 1B1.1, comment.
(n.1(c)).  They further explain that "'[o]therwise used' with
reference to a dangerous weapon (including a firearm) means that
the conduct did not amount to the discharge of a firearm but was
more than brandishing, displaying, or possessing a firearm or other
dangerous weapon."  U.S.S.G. § 1B1.1, comment. (n.1(g)).
                                C.
         While the circuits are split on this issue, they are not
evenly divided.  Our decision falls in line with the weight of the
majority.
         In United States v. Wooden, 169 F.3d 674 (11th Cir.
1999), the Eleventh Circuit held that, during the course of a
robbery at a Miami automatic teller machine, when the defendant
pointed a .9 millimeter semi-automatic handgun approximately one-
half inch from the victim's forehead, this constituted "otherwise
used" and not "brandishing."  The Eleventh Circuit held that
although the case did not involve an explicit threat, Wooden's
conduct was equally coercive and threatening.  Id. at 676.
         In United States v. Gilkey, 118 F.3d 702 (10th Cir.
1997), the defendant robbed a diner at gunpoint.  The Tenth Circuit
held that, although the district court's findings did not
specifically reveal whether there was any physical contact between
the gun and the victims, or that the defendant explicitly
verbalized a threat to kill, his use of the gun to directly
threaten the victims and to force them to move according to his
directions was more culpable than brandishing.  Id. at 705.  They
found that it was the specific rather than the general pointing of
the gun that elevated its use from mere "brandishment" to
"otherwise used."  Id. at 706; see also United States v. Roberts,
898 F.2d 1465 (10th Cir. 1990) (where "otherwise used" obtained
when the defendant walked up behind the victim, put his arm around
her, held a knife next to her face and neck, and demanded money);
United States v. Elkins, 16 F.3d 952 (8th Cir. 1994) (where
"otherwise used" obtained when defendant, after receiving money
from a bank teller, forced a bank customer at knife-point out of
the bank and into the parking lot where he demanded keys to the
customer's car).
         By contrast, the Second Circuit in United States v.
Matthews, 20 F.3d 538 (2d Cir. 1994), held that bank robbers who
ordered employees and customers to lie on the floor, pointed their
weapons at these victims, and threatened to kill anyone who
disobeyed ("Get down or I will blow your head off."; "Move and you
are dead."; "If you don't keep your head down, you are going to get
shot."), id. at 554, were merely brandishing their firearms.  We
decline to follow this rationale.
                                D.
         In this case, LaFortune contends that his waving and
pointing of the silver revolver at bank tellers and customers,
together with his instruction that persons in the bank "get down,"
without an explicit threat to any person, constitute brandishing,
and that therefore the district court holding must be reversed. 
Matthews, 20 F.3d at 553; United States v. González, 40 F.3d 735,
740 (5th Cir. 1994), cert. denied, 115 S. Ct. 1716 (1995).  He
claims that to hold otherwise would render the definition of
brandishing superfluous.  See U.S.S.G. § 1B1.1, comment. (n.1(c)),
supra.
         The government contends, and the district court held,
that when LaFortune pointed a cocked gun at the head of female
teller, held the gun in his hand while shoving a customer to the
floor, ordering (by yelling at) her to get down, don't talk, and
aimed the weapon directly at another bank employee while giving
orders, it constituted "otherwise used."  Wooden, 169 F.3d at 676;
Gilkey, 118 F.3d at 705.
         We agree.  LaFortune's conduct amounted to more than
brandishing, the general pointing or waving the weapon about in a
threatening manner.  As we view it, a person may "brandish" a
weapon to "advise" those concerned that he possesses the general
ability to do violence, and that violence is imminently and
immediately available.  A general, or even pompous, showing of
weapons, involving what one would consider an arrogant
demonstration of their presence, constitutes the generalized
warning that these weapons may be, in the future, used and not
merely brandished.  Altering this general display of weaponry by
specifically leveling a cocked firearm at the head or body of a
bank teller or customer, ordering them to move or be quiet
according to one's direction, is a cessation of "brandishing" and
the commencement of "otherwise used."  Gilkey, 118 F.3d at 706.
                               IV.
         The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.