Court Opinion

ID: 9490310
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:40:10.847977+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:02.029957
License: Public Domain

KLEINFELD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. I would defer to the district judge’s exercise of discretion regarding the express threat of death enhancement.
I do not see much of a distinction between this case and the quoted language in Application Note 2, U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3. The Applica*873tion Note says that where two defendants agree to commit a robbery, it is foreseeable to the person being sentenced that his accomplice will injure a victim, even though the person being sentenced had cautioned his accomplice not to hurt anyone. The reason is that hurting someone “was reasonably foreseeable in connection with that criminal activity (given the nature of the offense).” The language, “given the nature of the offense,” suggests that the nature of the offense is enough to support foreseeability.
In the case at bar, the district judge’s reasoning was parallel to the Commissioners’ reasoning. He reasoned that if a person agrees with another to rob a bank, it is reasonably foreseeable in connection with that particular kind of criminal activity, bank robbery, that the other robber may threaten to kill someone.
It is not as though the enhancement applies to any bank robbery. It applies only where there is an “express threat of death.” U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b)(2)(F). An implied threat, which perhaps is present in any robbery, will not suffice. Without an express threat of death, neither the robber who goes inside nor the getaway car driver is subject to the enhancement. But if the robber who goes inside expressly threatens to kill someone, the getaway driver is in no better position to say he did not foresee what took place than the hypothetical robber in the Application Note.
There is no question here that an express threat of death was made. The robber who went inside said “if you push the alarm, I’m going to kill you.” A threat was more foreseeable in this ease than in the hypothetical case presented in the Application Note. In the hypothetical, the criminals discuss injury to victims in advance and the defendant says not to do it. But in the case at bar, they did not discuss death threats and Zelaya did not tell Motz not to do it. Also, Zelaya said he and Motz had been on a methamphetamine toot for several days, and snorted more shortly before the robbery. If a person drives his friend to a bank, and minds the getaway car as his hopped up friend goes into the bank to rob it, I do not think it is unforeseeable that his hopped up friend will go a bit overboard and say something rash.
The case at bar is not distinguishable from United States v. Shaw, 91 F.3d 86, 89 (9th Cir.1996). There we followed the Application Note and imposed an enhancement, even though the criminal being sentenced did not know what his accomplices were going to do. Likewise, the Tenth Circuit affirmed an express threat of death enhancement with nothing to support foreseeability of the accomplice’s conduct beyond the bank robbery itself, in United States v. Lambert, 995 F.2d 1006 (10th Cir.1993). In addition to the Application Note already discussed, the Tenth Circuit points to one of the illustrations in the Application Notes: a getaway driver is accountable for an injury by the robber who went inside, because it is “reasonably foreseeable in connection with that criminal activity (given the nature of the offense).” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3, illustration (b)(1).
I am sympathetic to the view that an express threat of death should enhance the sentence only of the person who made it, and those accomplices who planned on its being made. Though a threat of death may be the implied inducement to give up money in any robbery, most people would have a sense of crossing the Rubicon when they voiced the words, “I am going to kill you.” But I do not think this view is the law. The law appears to be clear, under the “given the nature of the offense” language in the Application Note, the hypothetical eases in the Application Notes, Shaw, and Lambert, that a person who joins in robbing a bank has to foresee the risk that his accomplices may threaten to kill someone, just from the nature of the crime. If, and only if, the express threat is made, then the enhancement applies to all the robbers.