Court Opinion

ID: 9480284
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:43:37.837841+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:35.382682
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the court’s holding that the second reason for upward departure — the threat of “crack” to society — is not a proper justification. However, I believe that the district court’s first reason for departure was also improper because the dismissed count of McDowell’s plea agreement did not constitute “relevant conduct” for the district court to consider in sentencing. As such, I respectfully dissent from Part II of the opinion.
Pursuant to the plea agreement, McDowell pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to maintain a crack house and the government dismissed the count for possession of crack within 1,000 feet of a school with intent to distribute. However, the district court upwardly departed from the base offense level to sentence McDowell as if he were convicted of both counts of the indictment. Since possession within 1,000 feet of a school with intent to distribute contains a penalty much higher than that of maintaining a crack house, the district court approximately doubled McDowell’s sentence. This court correctly notes that “the primary error [of the district court] was that it considered an upward departure when it should have considered the conduct in calculating the defendant’s base offense level.” Under section 1B1.3 of the Sentencing Guidelines, in determining the applicable guideline range, the district court may consider “relevant conduct,” which includes “all acts and omissions committed or aided and abetted by the defendant ... that occurred during the commission of the offense of conviction.” On this basis, the court holds that McDowell’s maintaining a crack house within 1,000 feet of a school is relevant conduct that the district court could have properly considered in calculating the base offense level.
The Guidelines explicitly permit the district court to consider dropped counts of a plea agreement in cases where the quantities of drugs are added up for the purpose of calculating the offense level. The Commentary to section 1B1.3 of the Guidelines states that:
[I]n a drug distribution case, quantities and types of drugs not specified in the count of conviction are nonetheless included in determining the offense level if they are part of the same course of conduct or part of a common scheme or plan as the count of conviction.
In United States v. Smith, 887 F.2d 104 (6th Cir.1989), this court held that it is proper to add up quantities of drugs from dropped counts because it was part of the same common scheme or plan as the offense of conviction.
*457In contrast, the instant case involves a different substantive offense specified in count two than in count one. The Guidelines are silent with respect to the nature of “relevant conduct” under these circumstances. Therefore, it is important to examine other sections of the Guidelines. Section 6B1.2 of the Guidelines gives the district court the authority to accept the plea agreement if “the remaining charges adequately reflect the seriousness of the actual offense behavior.” In light of this section, I believe that a proper construction of the Guidelines does not allow the district court judge to sentence a defendant based upon dropped counts to a plea agreement where the dropped count is a substantively different offense with greater penalties attached. To allow sentencing based upon dropped counts would encourage the government to bootstrap charges in indictments, only to be brought up at sentencing, when the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard no longer applies. In addition, there would be a serious disincentive to plea bargain agreements; no defendant would willingly plead guilty if the bargain was that he could not be convicted, yet still be sentenced, on the dropped counts of the indictment. Moreover, it would be fundamentally unfair to allow the district court to double a defendant’s sentence based upon the greater offense which was dismissed, rather than on the lesser offense to which he pled guilty. If the district court believes that the charges remaining under the plea agreement do not adequately reflect the seriousness of the crime, then it should not accept the agreement. I think that this reading reflects the intent of section 6B1.2 of the Guidelines. I note that my construction of the Guidelines does not preclude the use of dropped counts in every circumstance, but only in those cases where the greater substantive offense was dropped as part of the plea agreement accepted by the district court.
Under this construction of the Guidelines, the district court’s upward departure in the instant case was improper because it sentenced McDowell according to the greater offense, which was dropped under the plea agreement. This court correctly states that McDowell received the benefit of his plea bargain because it only specified that he would not be convicted of the dismissed count. However, the effect of the majority’s decision is to allow sentencing for an offense of which McDowell was not convicted. My contention is not that the government did not live up to its end of the plea bargain in this particular case; instead, I submit that under a proper construction of the Guidelines, the district court should determine whether the seriousness of the crime is adequately reflected in the agreement at the plea bargain acceptance stage, not down the road at the sentencing hearing. Finally, I reject the court’s suggestion that the conspiracy count included the dropped count — possession near a school with intent to distribute — as part of the conspiracy. If the government wanted to charge McDowell with such a conspiracy, it need not have agreed to the plea bargain. By dismissing the second count to the indictment, the government decided not to prosecute McDowell for this count. In so doing, it did not decide to then incorporate the dropped count into the conspiracy.