Court Opinion

ID: 9492948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:53:59.195623+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:34.021939
License: Public Domain

HARRY W. WELLFORD, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I reluctantly concur in my colleague’s opinion in this case. Were I writing on a clean slate, my view would be contrary to that of the majority. It seems to me that the guideline in question, § 3A1.2(a), goes far beyond the import of 18 U.S.C. § 1114, which deals with “protection of officers and employees of the United States(Emphasis added.) Why the federal guidelines should have special concern about threats to local or county officials and employees and enhance federal penalties by reason of such factor escapes me, particularly in the absence of specific language that a “government officer or employee” includes a non-federal government official or employee.1 Should the federal sentencing guidelines bring about a particular enhancement to a federal sentence for threats to a municipal secretary or a sanitation worker or his or her immediate family? I think not as a matter of logic and federalism.
The Stewart case, cited in support by the majority, involved threats made to an Arkansas Department of Corrections official in a federal courthouse. One can see a federal connection in such a case with 18 U.S.C. § 1114. United States v. Aman, 31 F.3d 550, 556 (7th Cir.1994), does describe the 1992 amendment to the guideline in question as “greatly” expanding those who could be an “official victim” and cause a federal sentence enhancement. It does not appear, however, that the defendant in Aman made the direct challenge made by Hudspeth in this case.
United States v. Garcia, 34 F.3d 6 (1st Cir.1994); United States v. Alexander, 48 F.3d 1477 (9th Cir.1995), and United States v. Stanley, 24 F.3d 1314 (11th Cir.1994), cited by the government in its brief, all involved law enforcement officials and did not involve the guideline in question. United States v. Muhammad, 948 F.2d 1449 (6th Cir.1991), involved the former version of § 3A1.2, and the defendant assaulted a law employment official in the course of attempted bank robbery of a federally insured bank in that case. It is not pertinent to the circumstances of this case, in my view.
Strangely, neither the statute under which defendant was convicted nor the indictment itself presented under 18 U.S.C. § 876 makes mention of the threat being caused, motivated, or engendered by reason of the victim’s official status. The applicable part of the statute refers to a “threat” addressed to “any other person to injure the person” through the use of the mail. The indictment tracks the statute and makes no mention of the language contained in guideline § 3A1.2, which re*541fers to the threat’s being “motivated by such [official] status.”
Under the circumstances, it is with trepidation and some uncertainty that I join the majority opinion.

. Before the amendment, I could see more reason for enhancement when the threatened party was a "law enforcement or corrections officer” of a state agency.