United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 12-1135
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
WILLIAM QUIRION,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. John A. Woodcock, Jr., U.S. District Judge]
Before
Howard, Selya and Thompson,
Circuit Judges.
Richard L. Hartley and Law Office of Richard Hartley on brief
for appellant.
Margaret D. McGaughey, Assistant United States Attorney, and
Thomas E. Delahanty II, United States Attorney, on brief for
appellee.
April 30, 2013
SELYA, Circuit Judge. The district court found that the
defendant had obstructed justice by lying to federal agents (and
others) in order to protect his girlfriend. Using this finding as
a fulcrum, the court applied a two-level sentencing enhancement.
The enhancement contributed to a stiffer sentence, which the
defendant now appeals.
While some may admire the defendant's misplaced
gallantry, shading the truth in the course of a criminal
investigation, whether or not under oath, is a matter of
considerable consequence. Where, as here, the defendant's
mendacity was material and significantly impeded the investigation
and prosecution of his criminal conduct, a sentencing enhancement
for obstruction of justice is a fitting response. Consequently, we
uphold the imposition of the enhancement and affirm the resulting
sentence.
We start with the travel of the case. On June 15, 2011,
a federal grand jury sitting in the District of Maine returned a
three-count indictment against defendant-appellant William Quirion
and his girlfriend, Sherri Mancos. The indictment charged the
defendant with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute
(count 1) and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon (count
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2).1 After some preliminary skirmishing not relevant here, the
defendant pleaded guilty to both counts without any plea agreement.
In due course, the district court convened the
disposition hearing. After taking testimony, the court made a
series of findings. It set the base offense level at 14, see USSG
§2K2.1(a)(6)(A), and then applied three enhancements, see id.
§2K2.1(b)(1)(A) (offense involving three or more firearms); id.
§2K2.1(b)(6)(B) (possession of firearms in connection with another
felony offense); id. §3C1.1 (obstruction of justice). Pairing the
adjusted offense level (22) with the defendant's criminal history
category (V) yielded a guideline sentencing range of 77-96 months.
The court proceeded to impose an 80-month term of immurement. This
timely appeal followed.
The sole issue on appeal is whether the sentencing court
erred in applying the two-level enhancement for obstruction of
justice. To impose such an enhancement, a sentencing court must
supportably find that "the defendant willfully obstructed or
impeded, or attempted to obstruct or impede, the administration of
justice with respect to the investigation, prosecution, or
sentencing of the instant offense of conviction." Id. §3C1.1.
"[M]aking false statements, not under oath, to law enforcement
1
Count 1 charged a violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Count
2 charged a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Count 3 was
directed exclusively at Mancos. Because count 3 has no bearing on
this appeal, we do not elaborate upon it.
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officers," without more, will not trigger the enhancement. Id.
§3C1.1, comment. (n.5(B)). The enhancement is triggered, however,
if a defendant "provid[ed] a materially false statement to a law
enforcement officer that significantly obstructed or impeded the
official investigation or prosecution of the instant offense." Id.
§3C1.1, comment. (n.4(G)).
The government has the burden of proving an obstruction
of justice by a preponderance of the evidence. United States v.
Rodriguez, 336 F.3d 67, 71 (1st Cir. 2003); United States v.
Aymelek, 926 F.2d 64, 67-68 (1st Cir. 1991). We review for clear
error the sentencing court's factbound determination that an
obstruction of justice occurred. Rodriguez, 336 F.3d at 71. In
undertaking this review, we are mindful that a sentencing court may
base its determination on any evidence that it reasonably deems
reliable. See United States v. Gates, 709 F.3d 58, 70 (1st Cir.
2013); United States v. Cintrón-Echautegui, 604 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir.
2010). We will set aside such a determination only if a review of
the record leaves us "with the definite and firm conviction that a
mistake has been committed." United States v. U.S. Gypsum Co., 333
U.S. 364, 395 (1948).
In the case at hand, the lower court found that the
defendant obstructed justice by making materially false statements
to law enforcement officers (and others), which statements
significantly impeded the government's ongoing investigation and
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later prosecution of the defendant's criminal conduct. To put this
finding into perspective, we must rehearse the relevant facts.
The record reflects that on February 25, 2010, federal
agents investigating a marijuana distribution operation executed a
search warrant at a residence shared by the defendant and Mancos in
Caribou, Maine. The search turned up 4.9 kilograms of marijuana,
drug paraphernalia, and four firearms. The firearms included a
Winchester Model 94 .30-30 rifle, a New England Firearms Pardner
Model SB1 .410 single-shot shotgun, and a CBC imported by FIE Miami
FL 20-gauge single-shot Model SB41Y shotgun (the long guns). The
fourth firearm was a Davis Industries Model D-32 .32 Auto Chrome
Derringer handgun.
The agents arrested the defendant on the spot. They
interviewed him on three occasions. We summarize the pertinent
portions of those interviews.
The first interview took place at the time of the search.
This audience focused on the marijuana trafficking, and the
defendant admitted his participation in that enterprise.
The agents conducted the second interview in July of
2010. On that occasion, the defendant made unsolicited statements
about the long guns.2 Among other things, he declared that he had
2
The controversy in this case centers on the provenance of
the long guns. Mancos admitted to her ownership of the handgun,
and the district court's obstruction of justice finding does not
implicate that weapon.
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inherited the three long guns after his father's death some years
earlier. Following a string of burglaries, he retrieved the
inherited firearms from his mother's house.
The third interview took place a month later. The
defendant reiterated that he had inherited the long guns from his
father. He added that, after taking physical possession of them,
he kept them at a friend's home near Monson Pond; he brought them
home, however, roughly a month before his arrest because of
burglaries in the Monson Pond neighborhood.
We fast-forward from the three interviews to the change-
of-plea hearing, held on August 18, 2011. During the plea
colloquy, the defendant affirmed that he had inherited the long
guns from his father.
The defendant's story, relatively straightforward to this
point, changed dramatically after he received and reviewed the
presentence investigation report (the PSI Report). In his
objections to the PSI Report, the defendant asserted for the first
time that he had gotten the three long guns not through inheritance
but, rather, in a pawn transaction that took place in 2009. He
admitted that this account contradicted the statements that he had
repeatedly made to the agents during the serial interviews. He
explained that he had concocted the apocryphal tale about a
fictitious inheritance because he did not want to implicate the
person who had pawned the guns.
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Further details began to emerge. In connection with
defense counsel's preparation of a sentencing memorandum, a defense
investigator (Henry Dusenbery) spoke with the defendant. The
defendant told Dusenbery that, in late 2009, the guns were pawned
by one Dennis Daly. In the pawn transaction, he allegedly received
the three long guns as collateral for a $300 loan.
Dusenbery attempted to confirm this account. He spoke
with the defendant's sister, who verified that the defendant did
not inherit the long guns. Dusenbery also interviewed Daly, who
acknowledged that he had given two of the long guns to Mancos as
collateral for a loan.
At the disposition hearing, the district court heard
testimony from various witnesses, including Dusenbery and Daly.
Dusenbery testified as to what his investigation had disclosed.
Daly testified that he had given Mancos two guns (the .30-30
Winchester and the .410 single-shot shotgun) as collateral for a
$250 loan.3 Daly gave these guns to Mancos at the residence that
she shared with the defendant. Daly made it pellucid that the pawn
transaction was between him and Mancos, but he could not recall
whether the defendant was present when he transferred the
collateral.
3
The record is murky both as to whether the loan to Daly was
for $250 or $300 and as to whether two or three guns were pawned.
The district court sensibly concluded that it was unnecessary to
resolve these uncertainties.
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At the conclusion of the evidentiary presentation, the
district court, lauding Daly's credibility, accepted his version of
the pawn transaction. The court further found that the defendant
"told the government agents twice and erroneously in the summer of
2010 that those were guns that he received from his deceased
father, and that was a flat-out lie." The court noted that the
defendant misled Dusenbery as well, mischaracterizing the pawn
transaction in an apparent attempt to protect Mancos. The court
concluded that the defendant "has, from the outset of this
investigation, deliberately and continually attempted to mislead
the investigation as to the true facts involving the pawning of
those guns" and that the defendant's mendacity significantly
impaired the government's investigation and prosecution of the
case. The court therefore found him "liable for obstruction of
justice."
Credibility determinations made at sentencing are
peculiarly within the province of the district court and will
rarely be disturbed on appeal. See United States v. St. Cyr, 977
F.2d 698, 706 (1st Cir. 1992). This principle is the starting
point for our appraisal of the district court's findings.
The defendant concedes — as he must — that he made
materially false statements to federal agents during the interviews
conducted in the summer of 2010. He argues, however, that whatever
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false statements he made to Dusenbery were not material. He is
wrong.
In the context of the obstruction of justice enhancement,
material information is "evidence, fact, statement, or information
that, if believed, would tend to influence or affect the issue
under determination." USSG §3C1.1, comment. (n.6). As we have
explained, "the test for materiality under the obstruction-of-
justice guideline is not stringent." United States v. Feldman, 83
F.3d 9, 13 (1st Cir. 1996). Where, as here, a sentencing court
makes a finding of materiality, that finding is reviewable only for
clear error. Id.
The defendant contends that his false statements to
Dusenbery were immaterial to his prosecution because they were
designed to protect Mancos and, thus, were material only to her
prosecution, not his. This contention fails for three reasons.
First, the long guns were the centerpiece of count 2 of
the indictment; consequently, statements anent the defendant's
possession of those firearms were material to the prosecution of
the offense. See USSG §3C1.1, comment. (n.6). Second, the timing
of the defendant's receipt of the long guns was material as to
whether he possessed the firearms while serving a term of probation
— a determination that affected the calculation of his criminal
history category. See id. §4A1.1(d). Third, the defendant's
veracity (or lack thereof) about when and how he acquired the
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firearms was material with respect to acceptance of responsibility.
See id. §3E1.1, comment. (n.1(A)).
The short of it is that because the defendant's
statements to Dusenbery tended to affect his prosecution and
sentencing, the district court's finding of materiality was not
clearly erroneous. See, e.g., United States v. Restrepo, 53 F.3d
396, 397 (1st Cir. 1995) (per curiam).
The defendant's position with respect to his materially
false statements to federal agents is more nuanced. He asseverates
that these unsworn statements could not have worked an obstruction
of justice because they were made prior to the commencement of a
criminal prosecution and later corrected. In his view, therefore,
the false statements could not have significantly impeded the
government's investigation. This asseveration is untenable.
We conclude, as did the court below, that the materially
false statements made to federal agents significantly impeded the
investigation, prosecution, and sentencing of the defendant. After
all, those false statements were folded into both the factual basis
for the defendant's guilty plea and the initial PSI Report. They
led, in turn, to a need to amend the PSI Report, a presentence
conference with the court, the expenditure of government funds to
conduct further investigation, and an evidentiary hearing to
resolve contested sentencing issues. These were costly and time-
consuming events that would not have been required but for the
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defendant's persistent prevarication. Hence, the district court
did not err in finding an obstruction of justice. See USSG §3C1.1,
comment. (n.4(G)); see also United States v. Thomas, 86 F.3d 263,
263-64 (1st Cir. 1996) (per curiam).
We need go no further. Sir Walter Scott wrote, long ago,
about the "tangled web we weave, when first we practise to
deceive." W. Scott, Marmion, canto 6, stanza 17 (1808). The web
woven by the defendant's lies concerning the provenance of the long
guns plainly obstructed justice, and the district court acted
appropriately in applying the challenged enhancement. See, e.g.,
United States v. Grigsby, 692 F.3d 778, 785-90 (7th Cir. 2012); St.
Cyr, 977 F.2d at 706.
Affirmed.
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