Court Opinion

ID: 9484082
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:40:00.631748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:00.510086
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the majority that the district court acted well within the bounds of its *941discretion in enhancing the defendant’s sentence for obstruction of justice. I also agree that the crime committed by the defendant was particularly vicious and deserves an additional enhancement of the punishment. My only disagreement with my brothers is with respect to their approval of the methodology employed by the district court in imposing this enhancement. In my view, rather than distort the vulnerability enhancement in a way that can only pose significant difficulties in future cases for the district courts, we should hold that the applicable guideline does not take adequately into consideration the harm caused by this case and that the district court could have departed upward. See U.S.S.G. § 5K2.0 (Policy Statement). Such an approach would leave the vulnerability enhancement intact and permit its principled application in future cases. It would also permit the sentencing process in this case to reflect more accurately the damage inflicted by the defendant’s actions.
A blackmail victim may, of course, be vulnerable in ways that would warrant an enhancement for vulnerability — age, mental infirmity, or other handicap that would prevent the normal resistance to blackmail activity. Here, however, the enhancement is justified by the majority on the type of secret and on the degree of potential harm because of the nature of the secret. As the majority quite frankly points out, blackmail requires vulnerability because the victim must have a secret that, if generally disclosed, would be of significant detriment to him. Unless the victim is vulnerable in that sense, the crime cannot succeed. Therefore, as the majority concedes, an enhancement for vulnerability is not generally appropriate in blackmail cases. In its view, however, this ease warrants different treatment because the nature of the secret here produces a greater harm than that suffered by other blackmail victims.
The difficulty in dealing with the problem in such general terms is not hard to discern. While the allegation made against the victim certainly produces a stigma that cannot be, and should not be, understated, it is somewhat more debatable as to whether such an allegation ought to be placed in a category by itself. The pattern of conduct of the victim, while clearly sanctiona-ble under the law, see Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 106 S.Ct. 2841, 92 L.Ed.2d 140 (1986), is still a condition that we understand very dimly. Certainly, there are other allegations involving moral turpitude that many would consider equally damaging. Moreover, it is really a sweeping generalization to suggest, as my brothers do, that all men who are married and who are accused of this conduct would experience a trauma of a magnitude very much more severe than other victims. Certainly, the trauma experienced by those in public life or in clerical roles or in education (or, indeed, anyone aspiring to such responsibility) would be similar to that of the majority’s stereotypical “married man.” On the other hand, there may well be those who are married in name but not in fact who could not be able to claim the injury that the majority attributes to them. In short, the majority, in its effort to isolate those who would suffer particularly grievously from such an allegation, paints with a stroke that is both over and underinclusive. It deals in stereotypes, not individuals. Consequently, we are left with a holding that is without any principled limitation.
The majority finds itself in this dilemma because of its starting point. It attempts to justify the increase in the sentence by putting the vulnerability enhancement of § 3A1.1 to a use for which it was not intended. The correct methodology would be to acknowledge that the guideline section for blackmail, § 2B3.3, as presently written, does not provide adequately for situations in which the harm to the victim or to others is especially severe or in which the degree of planning suggests a criminal propensity that requires close attention. Unlike many other offense conduct guidelines, the guideline for blackmail does not provide for such contingencies by the inclusion of specific offense characteristics. Therefore, it would have been appropriate, on the facts of this case, for the district court to depart upwardly within the framework of the guidelines. Using this method*942ology, the district court could have taken into consideration not the stereotypes suggested by the majority but the real harm to the real human beings touched by this situation. It would have been appropriate to consider the great deal of planning that went into this particular blackmail, the harm to persons other than the primary victim, and the particularly severe psychological damage suffered by the primary victim.1 Had the district court followed this approach, or had the majority of this court adopted it, we would have a vulnerability enhancement still capable of principled application. The district courts of this circuit would also realize that the present blackmail guideline is inadequate to meet the needs of law enforcement and that, until the Sentencing Commission amends the provision to reflect the realities of criminal practice, upward departures will often be required.
I cannot join what I believe to be an erroneous and short-sighted approach to this aggravated blackmail situation. In most situations, the erroneous application of the guidelines requires that we remand the ease for resentencing. However, because, under the approach I believe to be correct, the district court would have imposed at least the sentence it did, I also would affirm the judgment of the district court. See Williams v. United States, — U.S.-,-, 112 S.Ct. 1112, 1120-21, 117 L.Ed.2d 341 (1992) (“[Ojnce the court of appeals has decided that the district court misapplied the Guidelines, a remand is appropriate unless the reviewing court concludes, on the record as a whole, that the error was harmless[.]”).

. "[A] factor may be listed as a specific offense characteristic under one guideline but not under all guidelines. Simply because it is not listed does not mean that there may not be circumstances when that factor would be relevant to sentencing.” § 5K2.0 Grounds for Departure (Policy Statement).