F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
AUG 3 1998
TENTH CIRCUIT
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. No. 98-6046
(D.C. No. CR-97-47-T)
DUANE CRIPPS, (Western District of Oklahoma)
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
Before PORFILIO, KELLY, and HENRY, Circuit Judges.
Submitted on the Briefs.
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Duane Alan Cripps appeals his sentence of twelve months following his plea of
guilty to the crime of failing to file income tax returns. Mr Cripps claims the district
court improperly calculated his criminal history points by including three state
convictions for passing bad checks. He contends these offenses should not have been
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of
law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. This 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. 36.3.
included because he was placed on unsupervised probation for all three offenses;
therefore, under United States Sentencing Guideline § 4A1.2(c)(1), these offenses should
not have been applied to the criminal history calculation.
The presentence investigation report indicates Mr. Cripps plead guilty to three
offenses falling into the category of “insufficient funds” crimes. He claims all three were
misdemeanors, but the government contends he is mistaken and one of the offenses was a
felony. There is nothing in the record to support that contention except for a case number
the government blandly states connotes the offense as a felony. Mr. Cripps, however,
does not respond to counter that contention. We are nonetheless unsatisfied, and will for
the purposes of this appeal assume all three offenses were misdemeanors as did the
district court. The distinction is not significant, however.
The inclusion of the three offenses in the calculation of the criminal history points
was based on U.S.S.G. § 4A1.1(d) which provides for a two point increase “if the
defendant committed the instant offense while under any criminal justice sentence,
including probation, parole, supervised release . . . .” Note 4 to the commentary on
§ 4A1.1(d) defines “criminal justice sentence” as a sentence “having a custodial or
supervisory component, although active supervision is not required.” The note explains,
“[f]or example, a term of unsupervised probation would be included.”
The presentence investigation report shows that at the time Mr. Cripps committed
the federal offenses to which he pled guilty, he was under a suspended sentence for
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insufficient funds crimes in state court. Although both parties argue there was a
probation component to those state sentences, the record before us indicates only that
sentence was suspended in each case for a period of one year. We will assume, however,
such a sentence is the functional equivalent to unsupervised probation.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, Mr. Cripps argues U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(c), which
excludes sentences for insufficient funds check offenses which provide a period of
probation of less than one year, should apply here. Yet, because the crimes of conviction
in this case were committed while Mr. Cripps was under sentence, § 4A1.1(d) is the
proper guideline to be applied. United States v. Pettit, 938 F.2d 175, 178 (10th Cir.
1991). The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
John C. Porfilio
Circuit Judge
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