United States v. Richard Haas

PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 19-4077
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
RICHARD TODD HAAS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at
Richmond. Robert E. Payne, Senior District Judge. (3:16-cr-00139-REP-1)
Argued: October 29, 2020 Decided: January 27, 2021
Before WILKINSON, HARRIS, and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by published opinion. Judge Richardson
wrote the opinion, in which Judge Wilkinson and Judge Harris concurred.
ARGUED: William Jeffrey Dinkin, WILLIAM J. DINKIN, PLC, Richmond, Virginia,
for Appellant. Heather Hart Mansfield, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES
ATTORNEY, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: G. Zachary Terwilliger,
United States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, Brian R. Hood, Assistant United States
Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Richmond, Virginia, for
Appellee.
RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge:
Richard Haas was convicted of attempted sex trafficking of a minor and three child-
pornography offenses. He argues on appeal that the district court erred in denying a Franks
hearing to challenge the veracity of law enforcement’s declarations in two warrant
affidavits. See Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978). He also contends that the district
court wrongly permitted the attempted-trafficking count to go to the jury and incorrectly
applied two Guideline enhancements during his sentencing. We affirm Haas’s convictions.
But we vacate his sentence because one of those enhancements, a four-level increase under
§ 2G2.1, should not have applied.
I. Background
A. The sex-crimes investigation
In 2016, Haas arranged a sexual encounter with Sarah 1 at his home after seeing her
Backpage.com advertisement. This was not the first time that Haas had met Sarah. More
than four years earlier, Haas had paid Sarah for sex several times, but the two had lost
touch. The last time Haas had seen Sarah, he told her that he liked younger women and he
“wanted to talk more about it and see if [Sarah] was interested in that the next time [they]
m[]et.” J.A. 622.
So when Haas met up with Sarah in 2016, he asked if she remembered their last
conversation and was interested in “what he was talking about last time.” J.A. 625. Sarah
told Haas that she was interested. But little did Haas know, Sarah had agreed because she
1
We refrain from providing a surname to protect her privacy.
intended to report Haas to law enforcement. Haas then opened his laptop and showed her
photos of young children performing sexual acts in various stages of undress. Sarah
testified that she saw “probably like 1,500” photos and that the children in the photos
appeared to range from age 4 to 12. J.A. 627.
After meeting with Haas, Sarah reached out to the FBI and was put in contact with
Special Agent Gonzalez. The agent met with Sarah, and she told him about her encounters
with Haas. To corroborate her statement, the FBI asked her to identify a photograph of
Haas and of his residence. The agents also verified that the phone number Sarah provided
was linked to Haas and that he had owned the house that Sarah identified until it was later
sold. Sarah told Agent Gonzalez of her prior prostitution-related conviction, and Agent
Gonzalez knew that she was on probation, although he did not know for what offense.
After meeting with the FBI, Sarah told Haas a made-up “story about a woman [she]
knew in Baltimore” who “had children that she could bring down from Baltimore for
[Haas] to photograph and . . . engage in sexual things with.” J.A. 634. After hearing this
story, Haas texted and called Sarah several times to ask about procuring the young girls to
create child pornography.
Sarah then arranged to meet Haas in person so that he could give her $100 to obtain
nude pictures of the children from Baltimore. But on her way to that meeting, Sarah was
pulled over by Henrico County police officers. When she saw the police car’s flashing
lights, she pulled into the grocery store parking lot where she had planned to meet Haas,
jumped out of her car, and ran to his car. Haas gave her $100, and she promised that she
would get the photos soon.
3
Upon returning to her car, Sarah was met by the police, who asked for her driver’s
license. Sarah’s license had been suspended so she gave the officer her sister’s name
instead of her own. She received three tickets in her sister’s name. A week later, Sarah
met with the FBI agent again. During this meeting, she admitted that she had lied to the
Henrico County police about her identity and “that she wanted to take care of it.” J.A.
143–44. The agent reached out to the Henrico County Police Department and arranged to
drive Sarah to her hearing a few days later so that she could resolve the false-identity issue.
At that hearing, Sarah was charged with providing false information to a law-enforcement
officer and held in jail without bail.
When Sarah was released two weeks later, the FBI gave her a recording device to
record her phone calls with Haas. She recorded two phone calls. During the second call,
the two discussed getting the two young girls from Sarah’s “friend” from Baltimore:
HAAS: You need to f****** hook it up, girl.
[Sarah]: Alright, awesome, we can do that.
HAAS: Need to hook it up, man.
[Sarah]: What’s the um, what’s the range that you like?
HAAS: Um, it ain’t so much me as it is like other, but you know, around
like exactly what you were saying before, you know, give or take a little bit,
you remember what you were talking about before? That is, that is like the
most.
[Sarah]: I remember I said I had a 12 and a 8[.]
HAAS: Yeah that’s, the lower side of that is definitely better.
4
J.A. 371. Shortly after this phone call, the FBI learned that Haas had been accused of
molesting an eleven-year-old girl. The investigation was cut short, and Agent Gonzalez
prepared an application for a search warrant seeking evidence of child-pornography
offenses.
B. The search warrant, search, and proceedings below
The search warrant for Haas’s residence and personal vehicle was approved by a
federal magistrate judge. And the agents executed the warrant at Haas’s home the next
day, seizing two laptops. Haas had left for work, so the agents traveled to his workplace
and found him sitting in his work truck. Haas was arrested on a state warrant for the sexual
battery of the eleven-year-old, and during a protective sweep of the truck, an agent saw a
laptop bag containing a third laptop. Agent Gonzalez then obtained a second search
warrant for the truck and seized the laptop. Neither warrant affidavit included information
about Sarah’s criminal history or recent encounter with the Henrico County police.
After Haas was indicted, he sought to suppress the evidence seized from the truck.
He argued that the second search warrant lacked probable cause and requested a Franks
hearing. The district court held a probable-cause hearing, during which Agent Gonzalez
testified. Based on this hearing, the district court issued an opinion denying both the
suppression motion and the request for a Franks hearing. See United States v. Haas, No.
3:16CR139, 2017 WL 1712521, at *1 (E.D. Va. May 2, 2017). Although the district court
found that the warrant lacked probable cause of a nexus between Haas’s home laptop, on
which Sarah had seen child pornography, and Haas’s work laptop found in the truck, it held
5
that the evidence collected under the warrant should not be suppressed under Leon’s good-
faith exception. Id. at *10.
More than a year later, Haas filed a second motion to suppress and request for a
Franks hearing, this time challenging the first search warrant for his residence and personal
vehicle. The two warrant affidavits were identical, except that the second mentioned the
laptop seen in the truck during Haas’s arrest. Compare J.A. 45–81 (second warrant
affidavit), with J.A. 273–309 (first warrant affidavit). The district court held another
hearing and issued an opinion that again denied suppression and a Franks hearing. United
States v. Haas, No. 3:16CR139, 2018 WL 4040171, at *1 (E.D. Va. Aug. 23, 2018).
After a trial, the jury convicted Haas of attempted sex trafficking of a minor, receipt
of child pornography, and possession of child pornography. Considering Haas’s
Guidelines range, the district court imposed a life sentence. Haas timely appealed, and we
have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a)(2).
II. Discussion
A. Franks hearing
Haas twice moved for a Franks hearing to determine whether facts about Sarah’s
credibility were intentionally or recklessly omitted from the first and second warrant
affidavits. The district court denied both motions, relying on the same analysis for both
warrants. See, e.g., Haas, 2018 WL 4040171, at *1–2 (written denial of second motion).
We assess de novo whether Haas provided enough evidence to be entitled to a Franks
hearing. United States v. Tate, 524 F.3d 449, 455 (4th Cir. 2008).
6
“A Franks hearing provides a criminal defendant with a narrow way to attack the
validity” of a search-warrant affidavit. United States v. Moody, 931 F.3d 366, 370 (4th
Cir. 2019). Along with affirmative false statements, “Franks protects against omissions
that are designed to mislead, or that are made in reckless disregard of whether they would
mislead, the magistrate.” United States v. Colkley, 899 F.2d 297, 301 (4th Cir. 1990)
(emphasis omitted).
To obtain a Franks hearing, a defendant must make a “substantial preliminary
showing” to overcome the “presumption of validity with respect to the affidavit supporting
the search warrant.” Moody, 931 F.3d at 370 (citations and quotation marks omitted); see
also Franks, 438 U.S. at 171 (defendant’s “attack must be more than conclusory and must
be supported by more than a mere desire to cross-examine”). 2 When a defendant relies on
an omission, this heavy burden is even harder to meet. Tate, 524 F.3d at 454–55. In that
situation, a defendant must provide a substantial preliminary showing that (1) law
enforcement made an omission; (2) law enforcement made the omission “knowingly and
intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth,” and (3) the inclusion of the omitted
evidence in the affidavit would have defeated its probable cause. Colkley, 899 F.2d at 300–
01. If the district court finds that a defendant has made this threshold showing, it must hold
a Franks hearing to develop evidence on the affidavit’s veracity. Id. at 301. If after the
2
Both of the district court’s opinions purport to deny Haas’s request for a Franks
hearing, Haas, 2017 WL 1712521, at *1; Haas, 2018 WL 4040171, at *1–2, but they
incorrectly state the burden of persuasion as “preponderance of the evidence,” rather than
“substantial preliminary showing,” Haas, 2017 WL 1712521, at *7; Haas, 2018 WL
4040171, at *2. This error is subject to a harmlessness review under Federal Rule of
Criminal Procedure 52.
7
hearing the defendant establishes “perjury or reckless disregard” by a preponderance of the
evidence and shows that the inclusion of the omitted evidence would defeat the probable
cause in the affidavit, “the search warrant must be voided and the fruits of the search
excluded.” Franks, 438 U.S. at 156; see also Colkley, 899 F.2d at 300–01.
Several of Haas’s claims fail at the outset. Haas contends that the warrant affidavits
omitted three categories of information: (1) information about Sarah’s criminal history,
including that she was on probation during the relevant time, was arrested for providing a
false name to Henrico County police during a traffic stop while working on Haas’s case,
and had previously been arrested for a prostitution-related offense; (2) information about
Sarah’s reliability as a confidential informant, including the (unidentified) outcomes that
resulted from her prior work with the FBI; and (3) corroborating evidence of her claim that
she saw child pornography on Haas’s laptop.
Haas’s second argument about Sarah’s reliability is “conclusory” because he does
not identify specific information, such as the actual outcomes of Sarah’s prior work as an
FBI informant, that was omitted from the affidavits. Franks, 438 U.S. at 171. And
conclusory allegations fail. See Moody, 931 F.3d at 371 (A “defendant must provide
facts—not merely conclusory allegations—indicating that the officer subjectively acted”
improperly.). If these unidentified “outcomes” were known and consistently showed that
Sarah provided misinformation, they could have formed the basis to grant a Franks hearing.
But without that, we conclude that Haas’s second argument did not warrant a Franks
hearing.
8
The third purported omission, additional corroborating evidence, fails for a more
fundamental reason. At its core, this is an argument that the warrant affidavits lacked
probable cause, not that the omitted material was intentionally or recklessly omitted and
would have negated probable cause. There was no additional corroborating evidence that
the affiant could include that would have “defeat[ed] probable cause for arrest,” as
corroborating evidence could have only strengthened the affidavit. Colkley, 899 F.2d at
301. Instead, Haas is arguing that the affidavits did not present enough evidence to meet
the probable-cause standard. But the presence (or absence) of probable cause is not the
proper subject of a Franks hearing.
This leaves us with Haas’s first category of omissions: various aspects of Sarah’s
criminal history, including her encounter with the Henrico County police. 3 But “[a]n
affiant cannot be expected to include in an affidavit every piece of information gathered in
the course of an investigation” so the “mere fact” that the agent did not include every piece
of information known about Sarah in the affidavits “does not taint the[ir] validity.” Id. at
300–01 (quoting United States v. Burnes, 816 F.2d 1354, 1358 (9th Cir. 1987)). Instead,
to satisfy Franks’s intentionality prong, law enforcement must have omitted the
information to mislead the magistrate judge or in reckless disregard of whether it would be
3
Haas tries to argue that the agent omitted the fact that Sarah was on probation for
the commission of a felony offense from the warrant affidavits. But when he swore out the
affidavits, the agent only knew that Sarah was on probation for a prior offense; he did not
know whether it was a misdemeanor or felony because he had not yet conducted a criminal
background check. So the most Haas can claim that the agent should have included in the
affidavits is the fact that Sarah was on probation for an unidentified offense during the time
of the investigation.
9
misleading. Tate, 524 F.3d at 455; Colkley, 899 F.2d at 301. An officer acts with reckless
disregard when she fails to inform the magistrate of facts she subjectively knew would
negate probable cause. Miller v. Prince George’s Cnty., 475 F.3d 621, 627 (4th Cir. 2007).
And the mere fact that information was omitted from an affidavit cannot alone show
recklessness or intentionality. United States v. Shorter, 328 F.3d 167, 171 (4th Cir. 2003).
Haas relies on our decision in United States v. Lull, 824 F.3d 109 (4th Cir. 2016). 4
There law enforcement used an informant to make a controlled buy from the defendant.
Id. at 111–12. At the end of the deal, the informant failed to return $20 of the buy money.
Id. at 112. The officers searched him and found the missing $20, at which time law
enforcement “immediately determined that the informant was not reliable and terminated”
his informant status. Id. Law enforcement did not “think it would be an ethical thing to
do, to use someone as a confidential informant knowing full well [he] had stolen from”
them. Id. (alteration in original). Later that evening, the informant was arrested on a felony
charge of obtaining property under false pretenses. Id. Right after the arrest, the case
investigator submitted an affidavit to get a search warrant for Lull’s residence, relying in
part on the buy, but failed to disclose the informant’s actions. Id. at 112–13.
After Lull challenged the affidavit, the district court held a Franks hearing. Id. at
114. The district court found that the investigator’s omission of the incident did not satisfy
Franks’s intentionality requirement and denied the motion to suppress. Id. We reversed.
4
Although Lull applied the higher preponderance-of-the-evidence standard because
we were addressing a Franks motion to suppress, its principles still guide us.
10
Id. at 120. We determined that the investigator was reckless in omitting the relevant
information about the informant’s credibility, crediting four facts established during the
Franks hearing:
(1) the decisiveness with which the Sheriff’s Office acted in discharging and
arresting the informant;
(2) [the affiant’s] knowledge of the consequences of the informant’s crime;
(3) the temporal proximity of the arrest to the decision to omit the
information from the affidavit; and
(4) the obvious impact of the informant’s misconduct on any assessment of
his reliability.
Id. at 116.
The district court properly found Lull distinguishable. Our case differs in four
important respects. First, although Sarah’s lie to the Henrico County police occurred in
temporal proximity to the Haas investigation, the lie did not concern the investigation itself.
By contrast, in Lull, the informant’s lie about the missing $20 concerned the controlled buy
that his testimony was to establish. See Lull, 824 F.3d at 116 (crediting “the obvious impact
of the informant’s misconduct on any assessment of his reliability”). Second, Lull’s
holding hinged on the informant’s dishonesty to the warrant affiant himself, while here
there is no evidence that Sarah was anything but honest to the agent about the false-identity
incident. In fact, Sarah came clean to the agent the next time she saw him and expressed
that she wished to resolve things with the Henrico County police. Third, Sarah’s
misconduct did not cause the FBI to determine that she was unreliable and discharge her
from her duties as an informant, as the Sheriff’s Office did in Lull. See Lull, 824 F.3d at
112; id. at 116 (crediting “the decisiveness with which the Sheriff’s Office acted in
discharging and arresting the informant”). And last, the agent did not submit the first
11
warrant affidavit to the magistrate judge until a month and a half after Sarah’s encounter
with the Henrico County police, unlike the investigator in Lull who submitted the affidavit
on the same day that the informant was terminated and arrested. Id. at 116 (crediting “the
temporal proximity of the arrest to the decision to omit information from the affidavit”).
This gave the agent more time to evaluate Sarah’s credibility after the incident and before
filing the warrant affidavits.
Haas also argues that we should find that the agent acted at least recklessly in
omitting Sarah’s criminal history from the affidavits because a “reasonable officer” would
have known that the omission of witness credibility information violated clearly
established precedent. But that is not the test for determining whether an officer has acted
recklessly in omitting information from a warrant affidavit, and Haas provides no precedent
to the contrary. The Supreme Court has held that “[a]llegations of negligence . . . are
insufficient” to require a Franks hearing, Franks, 438 U.S. at 171, and our caselaw has
considered the affiant’s subjective state of mind in assessing this prong, see Colkley, 899
F.2d at 301 (“The most that the record here reveals about Moore’s failure to include the
photospread information is that he did not believe it to be relevant to the probable cause
determination.”). Haas presented no evidence that the agent subjectively knew that his
failure to include Sarah’s criminal history in the warrant affidavits would mislead the
magistrate, and indeed, the record itself points to the opposite conclusion. See J.A. 143–
44 (explaining that he did not include Sarah’s encounter with the Henrico County police in
the affidavits because he “didn’t know [he] was obligated to include it”). And nothing
12
about Sarah’s unrelated criminal history so undermined her credibility that we otherwise
question the agent’s subjective intent.
Because Haas failed to make a substantial preliminary showing that the agent acted
with the requisite intent in omitting Sarah’s criminal history from the warrant affidavits,
we affirm the district court’s denial of Haas’s requests for a Franks hearing. 5 As we resolve
this case at the first prong of the Franks analysis, we need not consider whether the
purported omissions were material to the affidavits’ probable cause.
B. Motion for judgment of acquittal
At the close of the evidence at trial, Haas moved for an acquittal on all counts. The
district court denied the motion, noting for the attempted-trafficking count that “there is
clearly a credibility question that stands between conviction and acquittal. If the jury
believes [Sarah], then there’s ample evidence to convict. If they do not believe her, then
they may acquit him.” J.A. 837–38. The jury found him guilty, and Haas now appeals the
denial of his motion for acquittal on the attempted-trafficking count, which we review de
novo. United States v. Wolf, 860 F.3d 175, 194 (4th Cir. 2017).
A jury’s guilty verdict must be upheld if, “viewing the evidence in the light most
favorable to the government, substantial evidence supports it.” Id. (quoting United States
v. Kiza, 855 F.3d 596, 601 (4th Cir. 2017)). “[S]ubstantial evidence is evidence that a
5
We also affirm the district court’s denial of suppression based on the Leon good-
faith exception. The good-faith exception to the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule
does not apply to warrants issued based on deliberately or recklessly false affidavits.
United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 914 (1984). But because we have held that neither
warrant was issued based on a deliberately or recklessly false affidavit, this exception does
not apply, and Haas’s argument to the contrary fails.
13
reasonable finder of fact could accept as adequate and sufficient to support a conclusion of
a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States v. Burgos, 94 F.3d 849, 862
(4th Cir. 1996) (en banc). A defendant contending that there was insufficient evidence to
support his guilty verdict “must overcome a heavy burden.” Wolf, 860 F.3d at 194 (quoting
United States v. Hoyte, 51 F.3d 1239, 1245 (4th Cir. 1995)). So “[r]eversal for insufficient
evidence is reserved for the rare case where the prosecution’s failure is clear.” Id. (quoting
United States v. Ashley, 606 F.3d 135, 138 (4th Cir. 2010)).
Haas was charged with “knowingly attempt[ing] to recruit, entice, solicit and obtain
by any means” a person, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that she was younger
than age eighteen and would “be caused to engage in a commercial sex act” in violation of
18 U.S.C. §§ 1591 and 1594. J.A. 475. To sustain this attempted-sex-trafficking-of-a-
child conviction, the government must have proven that (1) Haas knowingly attempted to
recruit, entice, obtain, or solicit by any means a person, (2) Haas knew or recklessly
disregarded that the person was under the age of eighteen and would be caused to engage
in a commercial sex act, and (3) the defendant’s conduct was in or affected interstate
commerce. Haas only challenges the sufficiency of the evidence on the first element,
attempt.
To convict a defendant of attempt, the government must prove beyond a reasonable
doubt that the defendant (1) had “culpable intent” to commit the substantive crime and (2)
took a “substantial step towards completion of the crime that strongly corroborates that
intent.” United States v. Engle, 676 F.3d 405, 419–20 (4th Cir. 2012). Accepting that he
possessed the “culpable intent,” Haas argues that his conduct did not constitute a
14
“substantial step” in furtherance of sex trafficking a minor. A substantial step “need not
be the last possible act” toward the crime’s commission but must be more than “[m]ere
preparation for the commission of a crime.” United States v. Pratt, 351 F.3d 131, 136 (4th
Cir. 2003). While words and discussions might be considered preparations for most
crimes, the very nature of a sex-trafficking-of-a-minor violation—recruiting, enticing, and
soliciting a minor—depends on the use of words and discussions. Engle, 676 F.3d at 423.
So while the line between attempt and preparation is fact-intensive, speech alone will often
constitute a substantial step in furtherance of a § 1591 violation that is strongly
corroborative of culpable intent. See id.
A jury could conclude that Haas’s words and discussions stepped well over that line.
Through his discussions with Sarah, Haas “recruit[ed],” “entice[d],” and “solicit[ed]”
individuals whom he believed were under the age of eighteen knowing that they would be
caused to engage in a commercial sex act. § 1591; cf. United States v. Clarke, 842 F.3d
288, 297–98 (4th Cir. 2016) (explaining that “communications with an intermediary aimed
at . . . enticing . . . a minor to engage in sexual activity fit within [the] common
understanding of a criminal attempt” (quoting United States v. Roman, 795 F.3d 511, 517
(6th Cir. 2015))). He contacted Sarah multiple times to ask if she knew of any children he
could photograph, and upon hearing of the fictitious Baltimore children, expressed interest
in obtaining photos of them and procuring them to make child pornography. Haas later
gave Sarah $100 to procure nude pictures of the children and, in a recorded phone call,
urged Sarah to “definitely hook [a trip to Baltimore to get the children] up, man, I’m
serious” and “[g]et me some pictures too, man, because I can like set it up to where we can
15
make some money beforehand,” J.A. 371; see also id. (“[T]he lower side of [8 and 12] is
definitely better.”); J.A. 372 (“[H]ook that s*** up, dude, and make some money, man.”).
Haas’s words strongly corroborated his intent to recruit, entice, or solicit children
to engage in commercial sex acts. And so there is no doubt that substantial evidence
supported his attempt conviction.
C. Sentencing Guidelines enhancements
The district court applied two Guideline enhancements that Haas challenges on
appeal. The first was a four-level enhancement under § 2G2.1(b)(1)(A) because one of the
fictitious minors Haas attempted to traffic had “not attained the age of twelve years.” The
second was a five-level enhancement under § 4B1.5(b) for being a repeat and dangerous
sex offender against minors based on his repeated sexual abuse of the eleven-year-old girl.
When evaluating a district court’s Guidelines calculations, we review factual findings for
clear error and legal conclusions de novo. United States v. Strieper, 666 F.3d 288, 292 (4th
Cir. 2012).
1. Definition of “minor” in § 2G2.1
A defendant convicted of attempted sex trafficking receives a four-level
enhancement under the Guidelines if the offense “involved a minor who had [] not attained
the age of twelve years.” U.S.S.G. § 2G2.1(b)(1). The district court applied this
enhancement because one of the fictitious minors Haas solicited Sarah to procure was eight
years old. Haas argues that the enhancement applies only if the minor was real, not
fictitious.
The application note to § 2G2.1(b)(1) defines “minor” to mean:
16
(A) an individual who had not attained the age of 18 years;
(B) an individual, whether fictitious or not, who a law enforcement officer
represented to a participant (i) had not attained the age of 18 years, and (ii)
could be provided for the purposes of engaging in sexually explicit conduct;
or
(C) an undercover law enforcement officer who represented to a participant
that the officer had not attained the age of 18 years.
U.S.S.G. § 2G2.1 cmt. n.1 (paragraph breaks added). The government argues that this case
falls within subparagraph (B), with Sarah standing in the shoes of law enforcement as a de
facto law enforcement agent. In the alternative, the government contends that
subparagraph (A) applies because a fictitious minor can support applying the enhancement
when the offense of conviction is attempted sex trafficking. The district court refused to
apply subparagraph (B) but found that subparagraph (A) applied because Haas was
“attempting to obtain a real child.” J.A. 1007–08.
But the definition of “minor” in subparagraph (A) does not include fictitious
individuals. We interpret the Guidelines “using standard canons of statutory
interpretation,” United States v. Medina-Campo, 714 F.3d 232, 236 (4th Cir. 2013), which
caution against interpreting this provision as the district court did. The canon against
superfluity, see Roberts v. Sea-Land Servs., Inc., 566 U.S. 93, 110–11 (2012), warns
against reading the term “individual” in subparagraph (A) to include both real and fictitious
individuals, as this would render the modifying phrase “fictitious or not” in subparagraph
17
(B) superfluous. 6 And the canon of expressio unius est exclusio alterius (expressing one
item of an associated group excludes another left unmentioned) advises that when language
is used in one part of a Guidelines provision and not in another, the exclusion is presumed
intentional. United States v. Curtis, 934 F.2d 553, 556 (4th Cir. 1991); see also Tarrant
Reg’l Water Dist. v. Herrmann, 569 U.S. 614, 629 (2013). Because the term “individual”
is modified in subparagraph (B) by the phrase “fictitious or not,” while the same modifier
is not present in subparagraph (A), we must presume that the exclusion was intentional.
See United States v. Fulford, 662 F.3d 1174, 1181 (11th Cir. 2011). The government’s
argument that an attempt crime demands a different reading of this provision is not
supported by the Guidelines’ text. Accepting that argument would require us to rewrite
the Guidelines to bring about a certain result. We, like other circuits that have addressed
this issue, decline to do so. See id. at 1178; United States v. Vasquez, 839 F.3d 409, 413
(5th Cir. 2016).
Likewise, the term “law enforcement officer” in subparagraph (B) does not naturally
include private citizens working with law enforcement. If the Guidelines Commission had
wanted this term to be read broadly, it was more than capable of including such language.
But without broadening language, we construe terms in the Sentencing Guidelines
according to their ordinary meaning. Chapman v. United States, 500 U.S. 453, 461–62
6
If the term “individual” unambiguously included fictitious victims, we would
accept that plain meaning. See Kawashima v. Holder, 565 U.S. 478, 486–87 (2012). But
it does not. See Individual, 7 OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY 880 (2d ed. 1989) (“A human
being, a person.”).
18
(1991). The term ‘law-enforcement officer’ means a “person whose duty is to enforce the
laws and preserve the peace.” BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 1058 (11th ed. 2019); id.(defining “law enforcement” as “[p]olice officers and other members of the executive
branch of government charged with carrying out and enforcing the criminal law”); see also
Officer, MERRIAM-WEBSTER 861 (11th ed. 2011). So because the ordinary meaning of the
term ‘law enforcement officer’ does not include private-citizen agents with no semblance
of official authority, we cannot read this provision to encompass Sarah’s conduct.
As a result, because neither subparagraph (A) or (B) of the application note defining
“minor” for § 2G2.1 encompass a situation in which a private citizen represents that a
fictitious child could be provided to engage in sexual conduct, the district court erred in
applying this enhancement.
2. Repeat-offender enhancement in § 4B1.5
A five-level enhancement is applied “[i]n any case in which the defendant’s instant
offense of conviction is a covered sex crime, neither § 4B1.1 nor subsection (a) of this
guideline applies, and the defendant engaged in a pattern of activity involving prohibited
sexual conduct.” U.S.S.G. § 4B1.5(b) (emphasis added). Haas argues that this
enhancement was improperly applied in his case because only one of his convictions was
a “covered sex crime” and the others were not.
Under the definition of “covered sex crime” provided by U.S.S.G. § 4B1.5, Haas’s
attempted-sex-trafficking-of-a-minor conviction, 18 U.S.C. § 1591, is a “covered sex
19
crime,” but his child-pornography offenses are not. 7 But Haas argues that the Guidelines
first fail to identify which offense is the “instant” offense and then fail to address how to
handle multiple offenses of conviction when some are covered and others are not. Because
of this ambiguity, he contends that the rule of lenity should apply.
First, the term “instant offense of conviction” unambiguously encompasses
convictions on multiple counts. Throughout the Guidelines, “[t]he term ‘instant’ is used in
connection with ‘offense,’ ‘federal offense,’ or ‘offense of conviction,’ as the case may be,
to distinguish the violation for which the defendant is being sentenced from a prior or
subsequent offense, or from an offense before another court.” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.1 n.1(I)
(emphasis omitted). By negative inference, this means that the term is not used, as Haas
suggests, to distinguish between a single “offense” of conviction and multiple “offense[s]”
of conviction. Circuit courts, including our own, have applied the term “instant offense,”
used in various parts of Chapter 4, where multiple charges are part of the same trial or
guilty plea. See, e.g., United States v. Summers, 893 F.2d 63, 68 (4th Cir. 1990) (applying
7
The application notes in this section define “covered sex crime”:
(A) an offense, perpetrated against a minor, under (i) chapter 109A of title
18, United States Code; (ii) chapter 110 of such title, not including trafficking
in, receipt of, or possession of, child pornography, or a recordkeeping
offense; (iii) chapter 117 of such title, not including transmitting information
about a minor or filing a factual statement about an alien individual; or (iv)
18 U.S.C. § 1591; or
(B) an attempt or a conspiracy to commit any offense described in
subdivisions (A)(i) through (iv) of this note.
U.S.S.G. § 4B1.5 cmt. n.2.
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enhancement under § 4A1.1, which includes the term “instant offense,” to a case involving
multiple gun and weapons convictions); United States v. Coleman, 964 F.2d 564, 565–66
(6th Cir. 1992) (not questioning that two convictions could constitute “the instant offense”
under § 4B1.1). And an application note to § 4B1.5(a) contemplates that “the instant
offense of conviction” can include “more than one count.” U.S.S.G. § 4B1.5 cmt. n.3(B)
(“In a case in which more than one count of the instant offense of conviction is a felony
that is a covered sex crime, the court shall use the maximum authorized term of
imprisonment for the count that has the greatest offense statutory maximum, for purposes
of determining the offense statutory maximum under subsection (a).”); cf. 1 U.S.C. § 1 (“In
determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise--
words importing the singular include and apply to several persons, parties, or things.”).
We find no reason that the same phrase used in the next subparagraph should be interpreted
differently. Cf. Sorenson v. Sec’y of Treasury, 475 U.S. 851, 860 (1986) (“The normal rule
of statutory construction assumes that ‘identical words used in different parts of the same
act are intended to have the same meaning.’” (quoting Helvering v. Stockholms Enskilda
Bank, 293 U.S. 84, 87 (1934))).
And second, as long as one count is a covered sex crime, the “instant offense of
conviction is a covered sex crime” and the enhancement applies. U.S.S.G. § 4B1.5(b); see
United States v. Buchanan, 59 F.3d 914, 919–20 (9th Cir. 1995) (finding that although one
count met the criteria in § 4A1.1 and one did not, both were part of a single “instant
offense” under the Guideline); cf. United States v. Dowell, 771 F.3d 162, 164, 171 (4th Cir.
2014) (not questioning the application of this enhancement when the defendant was
21
convicted of both covered and non-covered offenses). Conviction of non-covered offenses
in the same trial does not erase the covered sex offense.
Because the structure and context of the Guidelines dispel any ambiguity in the
meaning of this term, there is no need to apply the rule of lenity as Haas suggests. Reno v.
Koray, 515 U.S. 50, 65 (1995) (“The rule of lenity applies only if, ‘after seizing everything
from which aid can be derived,’ we can make ‘no more than a guess as to what Congress
intended.’” (internal citations omitted)). One count of Haas’s “instant offense of
conviction” was a covered sex crime, so the enhancement applies, even though Haas was
convicted of additional non-covered sex offenses. 8
* * *
The district court properly disposed of Haas’s pretrial motions and correctly
permitted the attempted-sex-trafficking-of-a-minor count to go to the jury. So we affirm
Haas’s convictions. But the district court erred in applying the four-level enhancement
under § 2G2.1 during Haas’s Guidelines calculations. So we vacate his sentence and
remand for resentencing. The judgment below is thus
8
The district court properly applied this five-level enhancement to the adjusted
offense level for his receipt-of-child-pornography count, which is not a “covered sex
offense.” The Guidelines are applied sequentially. First, the base offense level and
appropriate adjustments for each count are calculated under Chapter 2. U.S.S.G.
§ 1B1.1(a). Then the adjustments and considerations from Chapters 3 and 4 are applied to
the highest adjusted offense level, and the defendant’s Guideline range is determined by
looking to Chapter 5. Id. Because Haas’s receipt-of-child-pornography count had the
highest adjusted offense level after the Chapter 2 adjustments were applied, the five-level
enhancement was properly added to that number, even though the receipt count itself was
not a “covered sex offense” that triggered application of the enhancement.
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AFFIRMED IN PART, VACATED IN PART,
AND REMANDED.
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