Court Opinion

ID: 9943286
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-23 05:00:25.411018+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:46:45.943877
License: Public Domain

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
                              FILE NAME: 24A0076N.06

                                       Case No. 23-1171

                         UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                              FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
                                                                                   FILED
                                                                               Feb 22, 2024
  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                         )                  KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk
                                                    )
        Plaintiff-Appellee,                         )
                                                    )     ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
                v.                                  )     STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
                                                    )     THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF
  MICHAEL ANTHONY GRANADO,                          )     MICHIGAN
        Defendant-Appellant.                        )
                                                    )                               OPINION
                                                    )

Before: BATCHELDER, STRANCH, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.

       ALICE M. BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge. The defendant appeals his sentence after

pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. We AFFIRM.

                                               I.

       After conducting three controlled buys, during which a confidential informant purchased

cocaine base from Michael Granado, police obtained a search warrant for Granado’s residence,

car, and cell phone. When the police executed the warrant, they found Granado in his bedroom,

where they also found a loaded handgun and a digital scale with white powdery residue. In

Granado’s car, parked in the driveway, police found two grams of cocaine base and 0.76 grams of

suspected heroin. On Granado’s cell phone, police found photographs of guns and drugs, text

messages about sales of guns and drugs, and videos that Granado had posted to YouTube that

depicted him with at least five different guns, some of which were machine guns.

       A federal grand jury indicted Granado as a felon in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C.

§ 922(g)(1) and § 924(a)(8), and Granado entered a guilty plea without a plea agreement.
No. 23-1171, United States v. Granado

The presentence report (PSR) began with a base offense level of 26 because the guns in the

YouTube videos were semi-automatic firearms capable of accepting large capacity magazines, and

Granado had three prior felony convictions for controlled-substance offenses.            U.S.S.G.

§ 2K2.1(a)(1). The PSR added two levels due to the six total firearms (the one seized and the five

in the YouTube videos), § 2K2.1(b)(1)(A); added one level because the seized firearm had

previously been reported stolen, § 2K2.1(b)(4)(A); and added four levels because Granado

possessed the firearm in connection with the controlled-substance offense, § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B). But

the PSR subtracted three levels for acceptance of responsibility, § 3E1.1(a) & (b), for a total

offense level of 30. Combined with a criminal-history category of V, the advisory guidelines range

was 151 to 188 months. Because the statutory maximum was 180 months, the adjusted range was

151 to 180 months.

       Granado raised several objections to the PSR, including the two challenges he presses in

this appeal: that the YouTube videos did not depict relevant conduct, and that there was no

connection between the gun seized during the search and the felony drug offense that was the basis

for the warrant. At sentencing, the district court found that the YouTube videos depicted the same

course of conduct (possession of firearms) as the charged offense and were sufficiently connected

temporally. And the court found the gun was connected to the drug offense because the gun was

found in the bedroom with the scale (and apparent drug residue), and drugs were found in the car,

which Granado drove to the controlled buys and which was parked in the driveway of the house

where the gun was found. The district court rejected Granado’s objections and accepted the PSR’s

guidelines calculations. But based on its assessment of the § 3553 factors, the court departed

downward, reducing Granado’s criminal history category from V to IV, which resulted in an

advisory range of 135 to 168 months. The court sentenced Granado to 144 months.

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No. 23-1171, United States v. Granado

                                                 II.

       “A sentence is procedurally unreasonable if, among other things, the district court

improperly calculates the Guidelines range. . . .” United States v. Nunley, 29 F.4th 824, 830 (6th

Cir. 2022) (editorial marks, quotation marks, and citations omitted). In this appeal, Granado argues

that the district court miscalculated the advisory guidelines range in two ways.

       First, Granado argues that the district court erred by finding that his brandishing of machine

guns in the YouTube videos was “relevant conduct” in calculating his advisory range. The

government asserts that whether an activity is considered “relevant conduct” is a fact question that

we review for clear error. Granado argues that our review is de novo. We have previously

recognized “conflicting caselaw in this circuit about whether a district court’s determination that

certain activity qualifies as relevant conduct under § 1B1.3(a)(2) constitutes a factual finding or a

legal conclusion.” United States v. Caballero-Lazo, 788 F. App’x 1014, 1015 (6th Cir. 2019)

(quoting United States v. Shafer, 199 F.3d 826, 830 (6th Cir. 1999)) (quotation marks omitted).

But because we find that the activity here is relevant conduct even under de novo review, we need

not decide the issue today.

       Granado argues that his possession of the handgun seized from his bedroom, which is the

basis of the felony charge, was a different modus operandi or course of conduct from his possession

of the guns in the YouTube videos because the former was for self-defense whereas the latter was

for entertainment. To this end, Granado relies on U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1, Application Note 14(E)(ii),

which explains that if “two unlawful possession offenses were not ‘part of the same course of

conduct or common scheme or plan,’ then the [prior, uncharged] possession offense is not relevant

conduct to the [charged] possession offense and subsection (b)(6)(B) does not apply.”

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No. 23-1171, United States v. Granado

       The government responds that Granado’s separate gun-possession offenses are “part of the

same course of conduct if they are sufficiently connected or related to each other as to warrant the

conclusion that they are part of . . . [an] ongoing series of offenses,” based on “the degree of

similarity of the offenses, the regularity (repetitions) of the offenses, and the time interval between

the offenses.” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3, App. Note 5(B)(ii). Granado was shown to have possessed

firearms on five occasions over a three-year span: December 2019, December 2020, July 2021,

and June 2022 (the four dates he posted the YouTube videos), as well as September 2022, when

the police seized the handgun from his bedroom. On each occasion, Granado was a convicted

felon prohibited from possessing a firearm, so these were identical offenses. See United States v.

Phillips, 516 F.3d 479, 485 (6th Cir. 2008) (“The relevant conduct—illegally possessing firearms

as a felon—is identical to the offense of conviction.”). And five times over three years constitutes

an “ongoing series of offenses.” See id. at 482-83 (finding uncharged gun possession in August

2002 and March 2006 relevant conduct to the charged gun possession offense in May 2004).

       As for Granado’s claim that his YouTube videos—in which music plays while he poses

with guns and cigars—were purely for entertainment, unrelated to drug trafficking or self-

protection, certain additional context is warranted. Granado is an admitted gang member and a

convicted drug trafficker. And the videos depict Granado showing drugs and cash as well as

brandishing the guns. We have previously found it reasonable to surmise that a defendant’s

“possessing numerous firearms” in photographs or videos was to “demonstrate his power and

intent to exercise control over said firearms,” United States v. Lunato, 763 F. App’x 483, 487 (6th

Cir. 2019), for the apparent purpose of “protection, intimidation, and conceit,” United States v.

Harrison, No. 19-6122, 2020 WL 8921413, at *5 (6th Cir. Oct. 28, 2020). Granado cannot explain

this away by representing it as simply entertainment. The district court properly determined that

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No. 23-1171, United States v. Granado

Granado’s illegal possession of the firearms in the YouTube videos was relevant conduct to his

illegal possession of the seized handgun.

       Next, Granado argues that the district court erred by applying the four-level enhancement

for use or possession of a firearm in connection with another felony, § 2K2.1(b)(6), namely his

trafficking of cocaine. “In the specific context of the § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) firearm enhancement, we

review the district court’s factual findings for clear error and accord due deference to the []

determination that the firearm was used or possessed in connection with the other felony, thus

warranting the application of the enhancement.” United States v. Seymore, 739 F.3d 923, 929 (6th

Cir. 2014) (editorial marks, quotation marks, and citations omitted; emphasis added). Under this

standard, “when a defendant challenges the district court’s determination that the firearm was used

or possessed ‘in connection with’ the other felony offense—i.e., that there was a nexus between

the firearm and the felony—that inquiry is necessarily fact-specific and thus better examined by

the district court.” United States v. Shanklin, 924 F.3d 905, 919 (6th Cir. 2019) (editorial marks,

quotation marks, and citations omitted).

       To justify the § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) firearm enhancement, the government must show “a nexus

between the firearm and an independent felony, meaning that the possession of the firearm cannot

be merely coincidental.” United States v. Henry, 819 F.3d 856, 868 (6th Cir. 2016) (quotation

marks and citations omitted). But “demonstrating this nexus is not a particularly onerous burden.”

United States v. Davis, 372 F. App’x 628, 629 (6th Cir. 2010). The enhancement applies “in the

case of a drug trafficking offense in which a firearm is found in close proximity to drugs, drug-

manufacturing materials, or drug paraphernalia.” U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1, App. Note 14(B). Based on

the drugs seized from his car in the driveway and that he drove his car to the three controlled buys

at a store approximately two blocks away, the district court determined that Granado was selling

                                                 5
No. 23-1171, United States v. Granado

drugs from his home where the gun was seized. But the court found a nexus based on the digital

scale (i.e., evidence of drug dealing) located in the bedroom, thus in proximity to the gun.

       Granado argues that his possession of the handgun in the bedroom was merely coincidental

to his drug dealing in the controlled buys, because a digital scale alone does not establish the

requisite nexus. But we have long held that scales are instruments of the drug trade. United States

v. Stewart, 306 F.3d 295, 327 (6th Cir. 2002). See also United States v. McCoy, 905 F.3d 409, 419

(6th Cir. 2018) (“electronic scales” are “hallmarks of drug trafficking”); United States v. Orozco,

716 F. App’x 390, 398 (6th Cir. 2017) (police “seized drug distribution paraphernalia such as

digital scales”); United States v. Felix, 711 F. App’x 259, 263 (6th Cir. 2017) (“Police found a

myriad of drug crime instruments at the house, including . . . a set of digital scales.” (quotation

marks omitted)); United States v. Fudge, 175 F. App’x. 694, 698 (6th Cir. 2006) (digital scales are

“classic trappings of drug dealing”).

       Given the deference due to the district court and its determination that the gun was found

in close proximity to drug trafficking equipment, we affirm the court’s application of the

enhancement based on Granado’s possession of a firearm in connection with another felony.

                                                III.

       For the forgoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

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