Court Opinion

ID: 9483014
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:07:48.634013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:19.595671
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I agree with the majority on all points except one. I conclude that the district court erred in treating defendants’ single conspiracy conviction as three offenses for purposes of U.S.S.G. § lB1.2(d). Accordingly, I would find that the resulting three level increase in each defendants' offense level is erroneous and remand the case for resentencing based upon a proper application of § lB1.2(d).
Pursuant to U.S.S.G. § lB1.2(d), a conviction on a count charging a conspiracy to commit more than one offense must be treated as if the defendant had been convicted on a separate count of conspiracy for each offense that the defendant conspired to commit. Such treatment, in effect, results in a new count of conviction for purposes of sentencing. Accordingly, as the commentary to § lB1.2(d) makes clear, this guideline must be applied cautiously:
Particular care must be taken in applying subsection (d) because there are cases in which the jury’s verdict does not establish which offense(s) was the object of the conspiracy. In such cases, subsection (d) should only be applied with respect to an object offense alleged in the conspiracy count if the court, were it sitting as a trier of fact, would convict the defendant of conspiring to commit that object offense.1
Thus, this instruction admonishes the district court to exercise “particular care” in determining whether a defendant has conspired to commit more than one offense for purposes of § lB1.2(d). The commentaries to the guidelines also make clear that, in making this determination, the district court must apply a reasonable doubt standard, rather than the preponderance of the evidence standard generally applicable to sentencing issues. The appendix explaining the commentary quoted above provides:
In order to maintain consistency ..., this decision should be governed by a reasonable doubt standard. A higher standard of proof should govern the creation of what is, in effect, a new count of conviction ....2
Thus, application of § lB1.2(d) is appropriate only if the evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed more than one conspiracy.
In this case, the probation officers who drafted defendants’ presentence investigation reports represented that “defendants were involved in monitoring the pickup and delivery practices of three armored car companies: Wells [Fargo], Brinks, and Loomis.”3 Relying solely on this “monitoring” activity, the probation officers applied § lB1.2(d), thereby, in effect, converting defendants’ one conspiracy conviction into three. At the sentencing hearing, the *1013district court overruled defendants’ objections on this point, apparently finding that there was sufficient evidence to conclude that defendants conspired to rob each of the three armored car companies. Applying the guidelines and commentaries quoted above, we may uphold this conclusion only if there was sufficient evidence for the district court to find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendants conspired to rob each of these three companies.
At trial, federal agents testified that defendants observed a Wells Fargo armored ear and a Brinks armored car; there is no evidence that defendants ever took any steps, other than mere observation, toward robbing either of these cars. Indeed, the only testimony regarding a Brinks armored car is that of Agent Schopperle, who observed defendant Small at Las Americas shopping center on June 23, 1989. Agent Schopperle testified:
Q: Let me direct your attention to later on that afternoon approximately 2:40 p.m. Did you observe another armored car enter the vicinity of Las Americas Mall?
A: It’s possible there might have been a Brinks armored car vehicle come in. During the time I was there I noticed several armored car vehicles come through on different dates.
Q: Do you need to check your logs to refresh your memory as to whether or not the Brinks armored car entered the mall that day?
A: To be one hundred percent certain for the exact time.
Q: Do you have the logs handy?
A: No, I don’t.
Q: Let me show you the surveillance log from June 23rd and ask you to review that.
A: Yes, at 2:40 p.m.
Q: Did you observe?
A: I did not, in looking at the log, I did not actually observe, a Brinks armed car did come into the shopping center, but I did not exactly observe its arrival, but I did see it.
Q: When it was in the mall already?
A: After it had gotten there it came to my attention, I do remember seeing it there.
Q: Where did you see it go to or where was it when you saw it?
A: It was west of the Zayre shopping center over here in this area, somewhere west over here.
Q: Did it pull up to a Flagler Federal Savings Bank?
A: Yes, it did.
Q: Is that this bank at the bottom?
A: Yes, I remember the two banks, it was in the general area I observed it.
Q: Where was Mr. Small at that time?
A: I believe he was back over here in the area of the curve, east of that bank.
Q: Did you see what he was doing?
A: He seemed to be observing everything, the activity that was going on in the parking lot. He was watching cars coming and going, vehicles coming and going. Exactly what he was doing other than looking at activity in the shopping center I couldn’t be certain.4
This is the only evidence in the record tending to show any interest on the part of any of the defendants in the Brinks armored car company. This evidence certainly is not sufficient to support a conviction of conspiracy to rob this company.
The majority takes the position that defendants’ observation of the Brinks and Wells Fargo armored cars “amounted to independent overt acts in furtherance of a conspiracy.” To support a conspiracy conviction, however, the government must also prove that the defendants agreed to commit the object offense. Here, there is absolutely no evidence that defendants agreed to rob either the Brinks or the Wells Fargo armored cars. Both of these cars made deliveries in the same vicinity as the Loom-is armored car that defendants eventually attempted to rob. That defendants would plan and agree to rob three different armored cars in the same vicinity defies logic. Indeed, the only logical inference that can *1014be drawn from the evidence is that defendants agreed to rob one armored car, but observed three separate armored cars in an attempt to find the one target. The majority states that defendants “could have chosen to rob one or all of the armored cars_” (Emphasis added.) There is absolutely no evidence, however, that defendants did choose to rob all three of the armored cars. Rather, the evidence indicates that defendants chose to rob one of the armored cars, the Loomis car, and chose not to rob the other two. This simply is not the type of situation that § lBl.2(d) was intended to reach.
Indeed, this case stands in marked contrast to United States v. Johnson,5 in which the Eighth Circuit upheld a proper application of § lB1.2(d). Johnson involved an attempted bank robbery. The evidence at trial showed that the defendants, a group of co-conspirators, selected two banks to be robbed. These two banks were across the street from each other, and the defendants planned to rob them simultaneously. As the court of appeals noted in affirming the district court’s application of § lB1.2(d), the conspiracy “was directed toward the robbery of two banks, not just one.”
Unlike the defendants in Johnson, defendants in this case did not plan to rob more than one armored car. Rather, they planned to rob one car, but they observed several in order to pick out the one. Thus, defendants conspired to commit one offense: the robbery of an armored car. That federal agents observed their activity as they chose the target of this one offense does not turn the one offense into three. I would agree with the majority if the evidence showed that defendants actually agreed to rob the Brinks and Well Fargo cars; it does not. The evidence shows only that the defendants agreed to rob an armored car, and subsequently chose Loomis as their target. Defendants simply cannot logically be said to have conspired to rob each of the cars they observed. Accordingly, I would reverse the district court on this point and remand the case for resentencing in accordance with proper application of § lB1.2(d).

. U.S.S.G. § lB1.2(d), comment, (n. 5)

. U.S.S.G. App. C ¶ 75.

. Presentence investigation reports at 11.

. R6-56 through 57.

. United States v. Johnson, 962 F.2d 1308, 1992 WL 86203 (8th Cir. May 1, 1992).