"Context is the key to meaning," says the Sixth Circuit and this drove its decision in United States v. Hill, where it decided that a district court erred in applying a sentencing enhancement requiring that robbery victims be taken to a different place than the robbery when all that happened was they were moved from the front of a store to its back store room.
The defendant and another man robbed a Universal Wireless store of cash and cellphones. To facilitate the robbery the two led the store employees at gun-point from the sales floor to store room in back of the store's building, where they bound their wrists and ankles with zip ties and duct-taped their mouths. Hill pleaded guilty. Over Hill's objection, the district court, Hon. Gordon J. Quist of the Western District of Michigan at Grand Rapids, applied a four-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b)(4)(A) on the notion that the "victims were 'abducted to facilitate commission of the offense or to facilitate escape.'" Hill argued that only the two-level enhancement under § 2B3.1(b)(4)(B) should be applied, since it requires only that victims be "physically restrained to facilitate commission of the offense or to facilitate escape."
The key to the argument was the guidelines' commentary definition of "abducted" as meaning "that a victim was forced to accompany an offender to a different location." So, is a different location the back room of the store being robbed or some different place all together?
"Different location," the Sixth Circuit concluded, refers to a place other than the store being robbed, not to a separate area or spot within that store and drew that conclusion from the following five rationales. First, in the context of the sentencing enhancement, the "common sense meaning of 'different location' ... is anywhere in the world that is not the place being robbed." Second, "different location" must be interpreted to comport with the rest of the guidelines' "abducted" definition and give the phrase independent meaning, which could only be done by interpreting it to mean movement from one place to another. Third, interpreting "different location" to mean a different place is consistent with the guidelines' commentary. Fourth, "abducted" most usually means that "a victim has been taken away," which would most naturally indicate to a different place. Fifth, the guidelines' structure also supports the conclusion that "different location" means "different place." Accordingly, the sentence was vacated, and the case remanded for resentencing for application of a two-level but not a four-level enhancement.
Senior Circuit Judge Eugene Siler dissented from the majority opinion by Judge Eric Murphy that was joined by Chief Judge Guy Cole.
The opinion is a well-reasoned and well-written work, but one might question why so much effort to decide an issue that is merely advisory? The guidelines are not binding, and the district judge would be almost completely free to impose the exact same sentence by reciting that it was justified by the factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). So what's been accomplished? Good question. On other hand, sentencing guidelines appeals -- the judicial calibration of two or four or some other level enhancement or reduction -- are the lifeblood of the federal appellate courts. That's a lot of talent put to not much use.
