Court Opinion

ID: 9487420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:16:03.836827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:15.510100
License: Public Domain

RYMER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Because I believe the added danger inherent in a fraudulent drag sale is an aggravating circumstance “of a kind or to a degree the Commission did not adequately take into account when formulating the guidelines,” United States v. Lira-Barraza, 941 F.2d 745, 746 (9th Cir.1991) (en banc), I respectfully dissent.
The Guidelines determine sentences for drag offenses,.except for situations not present here, based on drag quantity. U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1. A “rip-off’ is not factored into the equation. Nor is there any indication that fraud occurs so frequently or in so many cases that the drag Guidelines must have taken such circumstances into account. By the same token, the fact that Zamora was subject to a mandatory minimum sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1) for possession of a gun during the drag-trafficking offense says nothing about whether the Sentencing Commission considered the circumstance of an ordinary transaction with guns and a full deck to be the same as an extraordinary transaction with guns and a stacked deck. Possession of a gun is dangerous for lots of reasons not having to do with one drag dealer’s trying to cheat another — unloading on an innocent bystander who happens by at the wrong moment, protecting the contraband in transit, or shooting it out with a law enforcement officer, among them. Even so, I can’t say with the majority that fraud adds little to the risk already reflected in § 924’s manda*535tory provisions: Zamora was the one who tried to perpetrate the fraud and because he had a gun, he got hit with the mandatory minimum; the defrauded party (had it not been an undercover agent) might well also have had a gun, been a little upset at being taken, and let go on Zamora or others. Neither the Guidelines nor § 924 speaks to this risk at all. Therefore in my view, the district court did not lack authority to depart.
That being so, I cannot say the degree of departure was unreasonable. Zamora knowingly intended to gain, and correspondingly to cause loss, of $67,500. A 25-gram cocaine transaction would have gone down for $1,000-$1,500. The fraud Guidelines, relied on by the sentencing judge, are directly analogous. Accordingly, I would affirm.