Court Opinion

ID: 9930205
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-06 16:02:22.672747+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:08:21.563087
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                            For the Eighth Circuit
                        ___________________________

                                No. 23-1522
                        ___________________________

                            United States of America

                                      Plaintiff - Appellee

                                        v.

       Kaycee Heard, also known as Kaycee Ballhard, also known as Juan

                                    Defendant - Appellant
                                  ____________

                     Appeal from United States District Court
                    for the District of North Dakota - Western
                                   ____________

                         Submitted: December 11, 2023
                            Filed: February 6, 2024
                                ____________

Before GRUENDER, GRASZ, and KOBES, Circuit Judges.
                          ____________

KOBES, Circuit Judge.

       Kaycee Heard was part of a drug-trafficking conspiracy that transported
thousands of oxycodone and fentanyl pills from Michigan to North Dakota for
distribution. After the Government charged him and dozens of others in connection
with the conspiracy, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute and possess with
intent to distribute controlled substances, 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(B), 846.
The district court1 varied up from his Guidelines range of 135 to 168 months in
prison and sentenced him to 180 months. Heard appeals, and we affirm.

                                           I.

       Heard attacks his sentence on several fronts. 2 He claims first that the district
court erred in calculating his criminal history score by giving him one point for the
two-year probation term he served after pleading guilty to Michigan offenses. He
argues next that the court clearly erred by applying a Guidelines enhancement for
his role in the conspiracy. Finally, he says that his sentence is unreasonable. We
address each challenge in turn.

                                          A.

       The district court assessed a criminal history point for the two-year probation
term Heard served under Michigan’s Holmes Youthful Trainee Act. Heard says that
this sentence shouldn’t have counted toward his criminal history score because no
conviction was entered and the underlying charges were dismissed. See Mich.
Comp. Laws § 762.11(1) (stating that the court may assign a young adult the status
of youthful trainee “without entering a judgment of conviction” after he “pleads
guilty to a criminal offense”); id. § 762.14(1) (stating that the proceedings are
dismissed upon successful completion of the program).

       We review the district court’s construction of the criminal history Guidelines
de novo and its application of those Guidelines to the facts for clear error. United
States v. Hamilton, 950 F.3d 567, 569 (8th Cir. 2020).

      1
         The Honorable Daniel M. Traynor, United States District Judge for the
District of North Dakota.
       2
         The Government argues that some of these challenges are barred by Heard’s
appeal waiver, but we affirm on the merits.
                                       -2-
        District courts calculate a defendant’s criminal history score generally by
assessing points for prior sentences. See U.S.S.G. § 4A1.1. A “prior sentence” is
“any sentence previously imposed upon adjudication of guilt, whether by guilty plea,
trial, or plea of nolo contendere, for conduct not part of the instant offense.” Id.
§ 4A1.2(a)(1). A “[d]iversion from the judicial process without a finding of guilt
(e.g., deferred prosecution) is not counted.” Id. § 4A1.2(f). But a “diversionary
disposition resulting from a finding or admission of guilt” is counted “even if a
conviction is not formally entered.” Id.; see also id. § 4A1.1 cmt. n.3 (“A
diversionary disposition is counted only where there is a finding or admission of
guilt in a judicial proceeding.”).

       Although no conviction was entered and Heard’s Michigan case was
ultimately dismissed, what matters is that he admitted guilt by pleading guilty.3 See
id. § 4A1.2(f); id. § 4A1.1 cmt. n.3. Because the Michigan court imposed the
probation term based on his admission of guilt, the district court properly assessed
one point for that “prior sentence.” See United States v. Shor, 549 F.3d 1075, 1076–
78 (6th Cir. 2008) (holding that a sentence of probation imposed after a guilty plea
under the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act counts as a “prior sentence”).

                                         B.

       The district court applied a three-level enhancement for Heard’s role in the
conspiracy. Under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(b), a court adds three offense levels when “the
defendant was a manager or supervisor . . . and the criminal activity involved five or
more participants or was otherwise extensive.” Heard argues that the district court
clearly erred by finding that he was a manager or supervisor. See United States v.
Guzman, 946 F.3d 1004, 1007–08 (8th Cir. 2020) (standard of review).

      3
        The Presentence Report says that Heard pleaded guilty to the Michigan
offenses, and he did not contest that fact below. So he has admitted it. See United
States v. Stowell, 82 F.4th 607, 610 n.2 (8th Cir. 2023) (en banc).
                                          -3-
       We construe the terms “manager” and “supervisor” liberally, affirming the
enhancement even when the defendant managed or supervised only one other
participant during a single transaction. See United States v. Valencia, 829 F.3d 1007,
1012 (8th Cir. 2016). In deciding whether someone exercised managerial or
supervisory authority, we consider the “exercise of decision making authority, the
nature of participation in the commission of the offense, the recruitment of
accomplices, . . . the nature and scope of the illegal activity, and the degree of
control and authority exercised over others.” United States v. Cole, 657 F.3d 685,
687 (8th Cir. 2011) (per curiam) (quoting U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1 cmt. n.4).

       During an evidentiary hearing, a detective testified that Heard recruited a co-
conspirator to help him distribute opiate pills and directed another co-conspirator to
drive someone to Bismarck to get more pills for distribution. One of Heard’s other
co-conspirators testified that Heard had given her pills in exchange for letting him
distribute from her apartment and sold her pills at a discount for resale. Heard would
give her the pills and have her pay him back a set amount later. He also stashed pills
at her apartment. After his arrest, law enforcement overheard a phone call indicating
that they had missed some pills there. So they searched her apartment again and
found almost 900 pills hidden in a vent.

       Heard’s recruitment of a co-conspirator on its own justifies the district court’s
finding that he was a supervisor or manager. See United States v. Erhart, 415 F.3d
965, 973 (8th Cir. 2005) (“[T]he simple fact that a defendant recruits new members
into a conspiracy supports a finding of the defendant being a manager or
supervisor.”). And although Heard insists that he merely distributed pills to his co-
conspirators, the record supports the court’s reasonable yet contrary view that he had
sufficient control over them to support the role enhancement. Among other things,
he used a co-conspirator’s apartment as a stash house, United States v. Denson, 967
F.3d 699, 708 (8th Cir. 2020); directed another to travel to get pills for distribution,
see Cole, 657 F.3d at 687; and received proceeds from the pills’ sale, United States
v. Guel, 184 F.3d 918, 923 (8th Cir. 1999).

                                          -4-
                                           C.

       Finally, Heard challenges his sentence’s procedural and substantive
reasonableness. The district court varied up from a range of 135 to 168 months in
prison to 180 months based in part on his conduct in pretrial detention. The
Presentence Report said that he assaulted two inmates and was disciplined for a
prison riot. During the riot, inmates barricaded the doors to their cell pod, covered
the security cameras, armed themselves with mops and brooms, and started a fire.

       Heard argues first that the district court procedurally erred in sentencing him
by relying on a clearly erroneous fact—that he participated in the riot. At sentencing,
he admitted to being in the cell pod during the riot but denied taking part. He did
not challenge the PSR’s statement that he was disciplined for the riot. Nor did he
contest the probation officer’s representation that an incident report indicated that
the eight inmates disciplined for the riot “were the ones that were noted as being part
of the issue.” Because Heard was disciplined for the riot and the incident report
corroborated that he was part of it, the court did not clearly err in finding that he had
participated in the riot. See United States v. Patterson, 68 F.4th 402, 413 (8th Cir.
2023) (“Under the clearly erroneous standard, we will reverse a finding of fact only
if, despite evidence supporting the finding, the evidence as a whole leaves us with a
definite and firm conviction that the finding is a mistake.” (citation omitted)).

       We review the sentence’s substantive reasonableness for abuse of discretion.
United States v. Levy, 18 F.4th 1019, 1023 (8th Cir. 2021). A district court abuses
its discretion when it “fails to consider a relevant factor that should have received
significant weight, gives significant weight to an improper or irrelevant factor, or
commits a clear error of judgment in weighing the appropriate factors.” Id. (citation
omitted). Our review is “narrow and deferential,” so it is the “unusual case” where
we vacate even an above-Guidelines sentence as substantively unreasonable. United
States v. Feemster, 572 F.3d 455, 464 (8th Cir. 2009) (en banc) (citation omitted).

                                          -5-
       Heard argues that his sentence is greater than necessary. But a 180-month
sentence is well within the universe of reasonableness in this case. As the district
court explained, Heard’s drug trafficking “created a serious risk to th[e] community
and contributed to the opioid epidemic in the [S]tate of North Dakota.” And his
misconduct during pretrial detention was “serious and warrant[ed] correction by
th[e] Court as part of th[e] sentence.” The court carefully considered the § 3553(a)
factors and arrived at a reasonable sentence. See United States v. Stephen, 984 F.3d
625, 633 (8th Cir. 2021) (district courts have “wide latitude to weigh the § 3553(a)
factors in each case” (citation omitted)).

       Heard’s last line of attack is that the district court didn’t appropriately consider
the need to avoid sentencing disparities because he received a much harsher sentence
than many of his co-conspirators. But “the statutory direction to avoid unwarranted
sentence disparities refers to national disparities, not differences among co-
conspirators.” United States v. Merrett, 8 F.4th 743, 753 (8th Cir. 2021) (citations
omitted). Although we have granted relief based on a comparison between co-
conspirators, that is an “unusual” situation where there must be both an “extreme”
sentencing disparity “between similarly situated conspirators” and a “consolidated
appeal” so that we can remand for those conspirators to be resentenced. Id. (citation
omitted). Because Heard does not raise a national disparity claim, stands alone in
this appeal, and received a reasonable sentence, we have no “principled basis” to say
which conspirator got the right sentence. Id. (citation omitted).

                                            II.

      We affirm the district court’s judgment.
                      ______________________________

                                           -6-