Sentencing; Enhancement under USSG § 2D1.1(b)(12) for maintaining a drug premises; “Double counting”; Applying the enhancement to a sentence for operating a drug premises; Substantive reasonableness of defendant’s below-guidelines sentence; 18 USC § 3553(a); The district court’s attribution of the drugs found in a common area in the house to defendant; Whether the court should exercise its discretion to correct a “forfeited sentencing error”

The court held that the district court’s application of USSG § 2D1.1(b)(12)’s enhancement to defendant-Willis’s sentence for operating a drug premises did not constitute impermissible “double counting.” It also rejected his substantive reasonableness challenge to his below-guidelines sentence. Willis pled guilty to maintaining a drug premises and to two counts of aiding and abetting false statements during the purchase of a firearm. There was no written plea agreement. During his sentencing hearing, he objected to the two-point enhancement under § 2D1.1(b)(12) for maintaining a drug premises as double counting. He also claimed that some of the drugs did not belong to him. The district court varied downward from the range of 168–210 months, sentencing him to concurrent sentences of 135 months for each count. On appeal, Willis again raised his double counting argument. The court held that the enhancement’s text “permits double counting” where Congress “explicitly added an additional increase” to the penalty for maintaining a drug premises. It also rejected Willis’s argument that his below-guidelines sentence was substantively unreasonable. He again relied on the double-counting argument, and an assertion that drugs found in the common area of the premises were not his. But the court held that the district court “didn’t exceed the sentence necessary to achieve § 3553(a)’s purposes when it followed federal law . . . .” In addition, the district court did not abuse its discretion in attributing the drugs to Willis after hearing the testimony and seeing the evidence. Lastly, the government called the court’s attention to a sentencing error where “[t]he district court sentenced Willis to 135 months’ imprisonment and 36 months’ supervised release for each of three counts, running concurrently. But the two gun-related counts carry statutory maximums of 120 months.” Instead of sentencing Willis to three equal and concurrent sentences, it should have sentenced him to “one longer sentence (135 months for the drug-related count) and two shorter ones (120 months for each gun-related count).” But because the mistake had “no effects, let alone serious ones[,]” Willis’s substantial rights were not violated, and the court declined to exercise its “discretion to correct the forfeited error.” Affirmed.