USA v. MARLER
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today released an opinion in USA v. MARLER, No. 07-30181, a criminal appeal. The panel consisted of Andrew J. Kleinfeld, A. Wallace Tashima, and Richard C. Tallman, Circuit Judges.
TASHIMA, Circuit Judge:
Coby James Marler appeals the sentence imposed following his guilty plea to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). We must decide whether the fact that a defendant is on escape status at the time he commits another offense means that the escape and the subsequent offense are “related” for purposes of calculating the defendant’s criminal history score under United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual (”USSG”) § 4A1.2(a)(2), even though the two offenses are not related in any other way. The district court rejected Marler’s argument that his escape offense was related to his subsequent robbery conspiracy offense and sentenced Marler to 57 months’ imprisonment. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3742 and 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We agree with the district court and therefore affirm the sentence. BACKGROUND In April 2002, Marler suffered a state felony conviction in Montana for robbery and received a twelve-year sentence. On January 5, 2005, he escaped from custody. He was arrested on January 11, 2005, by officers of the Great Falls, Montana, Police Department for conspiring with Melissa Wilson to rob the casino where Wilson worked. The scheme was uncovered when Wilson’s father discovered bullet holes, shell casings, and a hand-drawn map of the casino in Wilson’s residence. Wilson told officers that she wanted to “get back at the casino” because she had been unjustly accused of stealing money from the casino, and no one had apologized to her about the situation. In April 2005, Marler pled guilty in state court in Deer Lodge, Montana, to a charge of escape and received a twoyear sentence. In November 2005, he was convicted following . . .