Court Opinion

ID: 9622451
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:17:55.002261+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:39:27.253828
License: Public Domain

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Sergio Martinez-Hernandez was sentenced to 235 months in prison for transporting an eleven-year-old girl in interstate commerce with the intent to engage in sexual activity with her. His guilt is not in dispute, and the sole issue on appeal is the propriety of the district court’s imposition of a sentencing enhancement because Mr. Martinez-Hernandez abducted his victim. The enhancement added upwards of seven years to the sentence, and so its applicability deserves careful and deliberate attention. As the relevant guideline notes, Mr. Martinez-Hernandez is not eligible for this enhancement unless he “forced” his victim to accompany him to another location. See U.S.S.G. §§ 2A3.1(b)(5), 1B1.1, cmt. n. 1(A).
We have held that the government need not prove that a perpetrator used or threatened to use physical force in abducting a victim for the enhancement to apply, and that the use of trickery, deceit, flattery, inveigling, overreaching, and other kinds of enticements can in some circumstances serve as proper predicates for the enhancement. See United States v. Saknikent, 30 F.3d 1012, 1013-15 (8th Cir.1994). But there is no substantial record evidence of any enticement that induced the victim in this case to go to Florida, unless the nature of the relationship itself somehow supplies it; that would mean, however, that the enhancement would apply anytime a perpetrator takes a victim across a state line if the victim is young and in the care of the perpetrator. This seems to me to carry the idea of force well beyond what the words of the relevant guideline provision can justify or support, and the court does not suggest that this is the basis of its holding.
I think that this case is much like United States v. Beith, 407 F.3d 881, 893 (7th Cir.2005), where the court observed that for the enhancement to apply there must be force that is identifiably associated with the victim’s change of location itself. Even though the highly reprehensible way in which Mr. Martinez-Hernandez dealt with his victim might well count as force under our precedents and he would thus be guilty of the offense of which he was convicted if his actions induced her to leave with him, there is no evidence that they did. What is missing from this record is a tenable connection between Mr. Martinez-Hernandez’s activities and his victim’s trip to Florida that would justify a conclusion that he forced her to go there. There is not even any evidence that he asked her to.
The government’s duty to produce proof sufficient to support a sentencing enhancement bears emphasis here. See United States v. Hansel, 524 F.3d 841, 847 (8th Cir.2008). Mr. Martinez-Hernandez testified at the sentencing hearing that his victim begged to go with him and even threatened to harm herself if he did not take her. There is other record evidence that supports his story because the victim wrote him a note imploring him, “Daddy don’t leave me with mommy. Love you so much.” But it is not necessary to believe Mr. Martinez-Hernandez’s testimony to conclude that the enhancement is not applicable because the government failed to show that actions that could count as force induced her to go to Florida. It is telling that the district court noted in its abbreviated findings that Mr. Martinez-Hernandez “could certainly manipulate” his victim into going with him, but that is far from *765finding that he actually did, a conclusion that the record would not in any case support. And though the court here adverts to the fact that the victim was dependent on Mr. Martinez-Hernandez during their trip, it is mere surmise that he resorted to acts that could be construed as force in keeping her with him.
One additional point deserves mention. The court seems to suggest that if there is any error here it is not significant because Mr. Martinez-Hernandez had already been sentenced to a longer term in Florida and the district court made its sentence run concurrent with the state one. But we cannot know how much time Mr. Martinez-Hernandez will actually serve on his state sentence and so any conclusion that the error here is not significant for the reason that the court gives is simple speculation. We review a district court’s interpretation and application of the guidelines de novo, and if we determine that there was error we will remand for resentencing unless the error was harmless. See United States v. Tomac, 567 F.3d 383, 385-86 (8th Cir.2009). Because the appropriate guideline range did not include the sentence that the district court chose, the error here is not harmless.
I would vacate the sentence and remand to the district court for resentencing. I therefore respectfully dissent.