Court Opinion

ID: 9482432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:50:10.199487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:59.431875
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Although I concur in much of the majority’s well-reasoned opinion, I write separately to voice my concerns over application of the firearm enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2Dl.l(b) to defendant Fullilove.1 Because the district court failed to articulate the factual grounds undergirding its conclusion that Fullilove reasonably should have foreseen that his coconspirator Tis-dale possessed the weapon at issue, I believe we should remand this aspect of Fulli-love’s sentence back to the district court for further consideration.
My review of the record reveals no factual basis for imputing the firearm possession to Fullilove. Tisdale’s .25 caliber pistol was found inside Tisdale’s luggage, hidden in a bedroom closet of the apartment. At Fullilove’s sentencing hearing, Officer Larry Clendinen testified that he was unaware of any evidence suggesting that Ful-lilove knew that Tisdale’s pistol was on the premises. J.A. at 153. Indeed, in its brief to this Court, the United States conceded “that Fullilove was never seen with a gun on his person or in his possession and ... [the] officers had no evidence to show that Fullilove knew the gun was present in the apartment_” Brief for Appellee at 8.
Nevertheless, the majority affirms Fulli-love’s sentence, apparently in deference to the district court’s finding that Tisdale’s possession of the handgun was reasonably foreseeable. This “finding,” however, is not due the deference the majority affords it. Instead of examining the factual circumstances surrounding Fullilove’s participation in the conspiracy, the district court simply assumed, apparently as a matter of law, that “it is reasonably foreseeable that persons who are involved in a drug trafficking conspiracy will carry weapons in order to protect themselves and that activity.” J.A. at 254.
I am deeply troubled by the implications of grafting onto the guidelines a rule establishing what amounts to an irrebuttable presumption that drug traffickers reasonably foresee that their coconspirators will carry firearms. Under this rule, a defendant in Fullilove’s position is legally presumed to have foreseen that his coconspirator would carry a weapon, no matter how preposterous or absurd the claim might prove under the unique facts of the case. The issue of reasonable foreseeability should remain, in my view, sensitive to the factual context surrounding the particular conspiracy at hand. In the related context of aider and abetter liability under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1) (1988), which prohibits the use or carrying of a firearm in the *942commission of a drug offense, the District of Columbia Circuit stated:
[E]ven if guns were shown to be a part of an overwhelming majority of drug operations, not all drug traffickers — or drug trafficking contexts — are alike. We suspect, for example, that many a college dealer gets along without firearms. Without evidence of the prevalence of guns in a particular context, no jury can reasonably infer that someone operating in that context knows that his associates will carry a gun.
United States v. Powell, 929 F.2d 724, 729 (D.C.Cir.1991).
Application of U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(b)(1) must be limited to cases where possession by a coconspirator was reasonably foreseeable as a factual matter in order to keep this provision from becoming a strict liability sentence enhancement for all drug trafficking conspiracies in which any member, no matter how remote, is found to have possessed a weapon. The reasoning adopted by the district court in Fullilove’s case ignored the vital factual component inherent in the “reasonable foreseeability” standard. I would therefore hold that, before applying the firearm enhancement provision to a conspirator, the district court must make a case-specific determination that the defendant knew or reasonably should have foreseen that his coconspirator possessed a weapon in furtherance of the offense. Cf. United States v. Fiala, 929 F.2d 285, 289 (7th Cir.1991) (interpreting pre-November 1989 guidelines to hold that § 2Dl.l(b)(l) should not be applied absent a showing that the coconspirator had knowledge of the weapon in question). Because in my view the district court failed to engage in this factual inquiry, I would remand this aspect of Fullilove’s sentence for further consideration.

. Fullilove was convicted and sentenced under the guidelines prior to their amendment in November, 1989. I therefore leave for another day consideration of whether I would reach the same result under more recent versions of the guidelines.