Here is the US Sentencing Commission staff paper regarding Chapter3 PartD (Multiple Counts): http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research/working-grou

Here is the US Sentencing Commission staff paper regarding Chapter3 PartD (Multiple Counts): http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research/working-group-reports/simplification/MULTIPLE.pdf http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research/working... Excerpt: "The Commission created the multiple count rules upon recognizing two important things. First, the Commission acknowledged that an offender who commits five offenses, for example, deserves more punishment than if he commits one, but not necessarily five times the otherwise applicable penalty. Consequently, the guidelines had to provide a mechanism for calculating incremental increases in punishment for multiple offenses. Second, if the guidelines based punishment on the number of offenses of which an offender was convicted, the Commission realized that formal charging decisions could have a tremendous impact on the resulting sentence. Consequently, the Commission had to create guidelines to limit the significance of formal charging decisions to ensure that similar defendants who engage in similar offense behavior will receive similar sentences." In short, it supports both our positions, that multiple counts are taken into consideration for purposes of sentencing, but that the sentencing is stepped so that enhancement is not a 1 to 1 multiple. That said I did not mean to imply multiple counts enhance sentences, but that where there is discretion, multiple counts would be used as a aggravating factor.