United States v. Howard , 539 F. App'x 904 ( 2013 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS October 16, 2013
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee, No. 13-7014
v. (E.D. Oklahoma)
DARREN GLEN HOWARD, (D.C. No. 6:12-CR-00064-RAW-1)
Defendant - Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before TYMKOVICH, ANDERSON, and BACHARACH, Circuit Judges.
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination
of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is
therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
Defendant and appellant, Darren Glen Howard, appeals the forty-one month
sentence imposed on him following his plea of guilty to one count of conspiracy
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. The court
generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order
and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
to knowing possession of a stolen firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371.
Finding that the district court did not err in imposing Mr. Howard’s sentence, we
affirm.
BACKGROUND
Mr. Howard had been committing burglaries and concealing stolen property
in the Tahlequah, Oklahoma, area since at least 2006. When a local storage unit
was burglarized, local law enforcement questioned Mr. Howard on December 9,
2011, about the crime. He admitted that he had broken into the storage unit,
where he had found a large gun safe. Mr. Howard persuaded his brother to help
him load the safe into a vehicle. Mr. Howard later broke into the safe and
retrieved six firearms: a Remington Sendero 7mm, a Cooper Firearms 17 Mach 4,
a BAT Machine Company 6 mm Dascher caliber rifle, a Walther .22 caliber bolt
action rifle, a Colt 45, and a Russian Vostok .22 caliber pistol.
Agents from the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Department
(“ATF”) learned on December 15, 2011, that Timothy Hess, Mr. Howard’s father-
in-law, was selling stolen firearms. Mr. Hess sold three of the firearms stolen by
Mr. Howard from the local storage unit to a confidential informant (“CI”) in an
ATF-controlled buy. On December 19, 2011, the CI bought three more firearms
and a computer from Mr. Hess in another ATF-controlled buy. Mr. Hess told the
CI that one of the firearms was stolen by Mr. Howard from a lake house and that
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four additional firearms were lying on the bed when Mr. Howard broke into the
lake home. Mr. Hess further told the CI that the firearms would not be reported
as stolen and that more were available for purchase. Mr. Hess also told the CI
that, although Mr. Howard had been arrested for burglarizing the storage unit, the
police had only located about half of Mr. Howard’s stash of stolen firearms.
Mr. Hess was arrested in August 2012. He told law enforcement authorities
that Mr. Howard had brought stolen weapons to Mr. Hess’s house for storage and
sale since Mr. Howard could not have firearms because of his criminal record.
Mr. Howard specifically informed Mr. Hess that the firearms had been stolen.
Mr. Hess also told a CI that Mr. Howard gave some of the stolen firearms
to Tony Dickson, a convicted felon. Mr. Howard admitted, in a post-arrest and
post-Miranda interview with Tahlequah Police Officer Dale Glory that he had
traded some of the stolen firearms for drugs from a narcotics dealer in Stilwell,
Oklahoma.
Mr. Howard pled guilty, on September 19, 2012, to one count of conspiracy
to knowingly possess a stolen firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371.
Mr. Howard provided the following factual basis for his guilty plea: “I
committed a crime of conspiracy against the United States. I agreed to provide
stolen guns – oh, I did provide stolen guns to Tim Hess, my co-conspirator. I did
this in Cherokee County in the Court’s jurisdiction. This happened around
October to December of 2011.” Tr. of Change of Plea Hr’g at 14, R. Vol. 2 at 20.
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Following Mr. Howard’s guilty plea, and in preparation for sentencing
under the United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual (“USSG”),
the United States Probation Office prepared a presentence report (“PSR”). The
PSR included a four-level increase in Mr. Howard’s offense level pursuant to
USSG §2K2.1(b)(5), because Mr. Howard had “trafficked” in firearms.
Mr. Howard objected to the four-point increase, arguing that there was
insufficient evidence that he knew the firearms were transferred to a person for
whom it was illegal to possess such firearms, or who was going to use them
unlawfully.
The government responded with specific facts demonstrating that Mr.
Howard had stolen numerous firearms which he had disposed of in multiple
locations; that Mr. Howard traded some stolen guns to a drug dealer; that Mr.
Howard had told a CI that he gave some stolen firearms to a convicted felon; and
that he had sold stolen firearms to Mr. Hess, acting as a fence, when Mr. Hess, as
a co-conspirator in possessing the stolen firearms, knew the weapons were stolen.
At Mr. Howard’s sentencing hearing, the district court overruled Mr.
Howard’s objections and imposed the firearms trafficking enhancement provided
by USSG §2K2.1(b)(5). He was accordingly sentenced to forty-one months’
imprisonment. This appeal followed, in which Mr. Howard challenges his
sentence on the sole ground that the district court erred in assessing a four-level
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increase in his base offense level under the advisory Guidelines on the ground
that he had “engaged in the trafficking of firearms.” Id.
DISCUSSION
As indicated, USSG §2K2.1(b)(5) provides for a four-level increase in a
defendant’s base offense level “[i]f the defendant engaged in the trafficking of
firearms. . . .” Application Note 13(A) of § 2K2.1 states:
Subsection (b)(5) applies, regardless of whether anything of
value was exchanged, if the defendant–
(i) Transported, transferred, or otherwise disposed of two or more
firearms to another individual, or received two or more
firearms with the intent to transport, transfer, or otherwise
dispose of firearms to another individual; and
(ii) Knew or had reason to believe that such conduct would result
in the transport, transfer, or disposal of a firearm to an
individual–
(I) Whose possession or receipt of the firearm would be
unlawful; or
(II) Who intended to use or dispose of the firearm
unlawfully.
USSG §2K2.1, comment. (n.13(A)). Application Note 13(B) further states:
“Individual whose possession or receipt of the firearm would be
unlawful” means an individual who (i) has a prior conviction for a
crime of violence, a controlled substance offense, or a misdemeanor
crime of domestic violence; or (ii) at the time of the offense was
under a criminal justice sentence, including probation, parole,
supervised release, imprisonment, work release, or escape status.
Id., comment. (n.13(B)). The district court here found that Mr. Howard disposed
of the firearms to “an individual whose possession and receipt were unlawful.”
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Tr. of Sentencing Hr’g at 11, R. Vol. 2 at 34. As the court stated more fully,
“The defendant . . . transferred six of the firearms to the co-defendant, Timothy
Hess. Therefore, the defendant possessed more than two firearms with the intent
to transfer or dispose of the firearms to another individual. Furthermore, since
the firearms were known to be stolen by the defendant and he chose to transfer
the firearms to the co-defendant, this resulted in the defendant disposing of the
firearms to an individual whose possession and receipt were unlawful.” Id.
At a defendant’s sentencing, “the government must prove facts supporting a
sentencing enhancement by a preponderance of the evidence.” United States v.
Garcia, 635 F.3d 472, 478 (10th Cir. 2011); United States v. Gambino-Zavala,
539 F.3d 1221, 1228 (10th Cir. 2008). “We review the district court’s factual
finding for clear error.” Garcia, 635 F.3d at 478. “To constitute clear error, we
must be convinced that the sentencing court’s finding is simply not plausible or
permissible in light of the entire record on appeal, remembering that we are not
free to substitute our judgment for that of the district judge.” Id. (quoting United
States v. McClatchey, 316 F.3d 1122, 1128 (10th Cir. 2003) (further quotation
omitted)).
As in our Garcia case, Mr. Howard does not dispute that he transferred two
or more firearms to another individual. Thus, the issue is whether Mr. Howard
“knew or had reason to believe” that the firearms he had stolen and transferred to
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Mr. Hess and others constituted the transfer of firearms to an individual whose
possession or receipt of such firearms was (or would be) unlawful.
“In assessing a defendant’s mental state for the purposes of sentencing, a
court may draw ‘common-sense inferences from the circumstantial evidence.”
Garcia, 635 F.3d at 478 (quoting United States v. Juarez, 626 F.3d 246, 256 (5th
Cir. 2010)). Mr. Howard’s primary argument is that the district court seemed to
rely upon the provision of the Application Note referring to the transfer of
firearms to an individual whose possession or receipt of the firearms would be
unlawful, as opposed to the provision referring to transfer to an individual whose
intended use of the firearm is unlawful. He argues that the Application Note
states that an “individual whose possession . . . of the firearm would be unlawful”
means only individuals with prior convictions or those contemporaneously under
a criminal justice sentence, and there is no evidence that Mr. Hess specifically
meets those criteria: “there was no evidence in this case that Timothy Hess was a
prohibited person based on any prior conviction or that he was under a criminal
justice sentence of any kind at the time of the transfer.” Appellant’s Br. at 8.
Thus, the argument goes, the district court erred in finding the trafficking
enhancement satisfied on the ground that Mr. Hess’s possession of the stolen
firearms would be unlawful.
We do not read either the district court’s analysis, the evidence before the
court, or the Application Note that narrowly. We noted in our decision in Garcia
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that our circuit had “not previously addressed the type of circumstantial evidence
necessary to support the firearms trafficking enhancement of §2K2.1(b)(5).” Id.
at 479. Garcia and the case upon which it relied, United States v. Juarez, 626
F.3d 246 (5th Cir. 2010), both involved application of the trafficking
enhancement when the government proved by a preponderance of the evidence
that the transferee of the firearms in question “intended to use or dispose of the
firearm unlawfully.” USSG §2K2.1(b)(5), comment. (n.13(A)(ii)(II)). But, the
analysis employed in each decision did not so narrowly focus solely on the status
of the firearm transferee, as Mr. Howard asks us to do.
The defendant in Juarez had purchased twenty-five firearms, the majority
of which were military-style arms. Some of these firearms were ultimately
recovered from gang members in Mexico. Additionally, the government
presented evidence that the defendant had an ongoing relationship with an arms
buyer, who directed the weapons purchases, telling the defendant which weapons
to purchase, providing cash for those purchases, and then paying the defendant
$200 for each firearm. Given those facts (“[t]he number of weapons, their type,
and the circumstances surrounding [the defendant’s] relationship [with the arms
buyer, including its] clandestine nature”), the Fifth Circuit concluded that the
“trafficking” enhancement applied. Juarez, 626 F.3d at 249-52.
Similarly, in Garcia, we noted that “the government presented evidence at
sentencing that Garcia had purchased or attempted to purchase nineteen firearms,
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all of which are types of weapons Mexican drug cartels actively seek in the
United States.” Garcia, 635 F.3d at 479. Some of the weapons were, in fact,
recovered in Mexico, including some seized from Mexican cartel members.
Furthermore, a government agent testified that, “in his experience, straw
purchasers [like Garcia] were generally aware that firearms they purchased were
intended to be used illegally.” Id. All that evidence supported our conclusion
that the defendant in Garcia knew or had reason to believe that the firearms she
purchased and passed on were intended to be used illegally.
In this case, there was no doubt that the firearms were stolen, and that Mr.
Hess was aware of their status as stolen firearms. Thus, as in Garcia and Juarez,
we, and the district court, may heed the status of the weapons themselves, and the
parties’ awareness of that status. We agree with the government that “anyone
receiving such firearms with any reasonable cause to believe the guns were stolen
would be possessing the weapons illegally.” Appellee’s Br. at 11. We do not ask
the district court “to divorce [itself] from common sense or to ignore what is
perfectly obvious” in determining whether Mr. Howard had transferred stolen
firearms to an individual whose possession of those weapons would be unlawful.
United States v. Molloy, 324 F.3d 35, 40 (1st Cir. 2003). Furthermore, Mr.
Howard had transferred at least one of the stolen firearms to a drug dealer and to
a known felon. Tr. of Sentencing Hr’g at 6-7, R. Vol. 2 at 29-30. We perceive no
clear error in the district court’s determination that the government had
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established by a preponderance of the evidence the applicability of the trafficking
enhancement.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the sentence imposed in this case.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Stephen H. Anderson
Circuit Judge
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