Suicide Is Not “Willfully Caused” Relevant Conduct for § 2B3.2 Firearm-Discharge and Bodily-Injury Enhancements in Extortion Sentencing

I. Introduction

In United States v. Glenn Daeward Boyd (6th Cir. Sept. 2, 2026), the Sixth Circuit reviewed the sentence of Glenn Daeward Boyd, who—while incarcerated in South Carolina—used a contraband phone to impersonate a young girl on a dating app, obtain sexually explicit exchanges from a Michigan adult (“B.G.”), and then threaten exposure unless paid. Boyd escalated the threats by contacting B.G.’s family members and posting allegations online. B.G. committed suicide the same day. A jury convicted Boyd of attempted extortion under the Hobbs Act (18 U.S.C. § 1951), stalking (18 U.S.C. §§ 2261A(2)(b), 2261(b)(5)), and five counts of wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343).

On appeal, Boyd challenged the reasonableness of his 272-month sentence, focusing on (1) the district court’s choice of the applicable extortion guideline and (2) two guideline enhancements premised on B.G.’s suicide (firearm discharge and life-threatening injury). The Sixth Circuit affirmed the guideline choice, reversed the enhancements, and remanded for resentencing.

II. Summary of the Opinion

• Guideline selection affirmed: The court held the district court correctly used U.S.S.G. § 2B3.2 (“Extortion by Force or Threat of Injury or Serious Damage”), not U.S.S.G. § 2B3.3 (“Blackmail and Similar Forms of Extortion”).
• Enhancements reversed: The court held the district court procedurally erred by applying U.S.S.G. § 2B3.2(b)(3)(A)(i) (7-level increase “if a firearm was discharged”) and U.S.S.G. § 2B3.2(b)(4)(C) (bodily injury enhancement) based on B.G.’s suicide because Boyd did not “willfully cause” the discharge or injury under U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A), as required by United States v. Hill.
• Substantive reasonableness not decided as to the exact term: Because resentencing was required, the panel did not rule on whether the 272-month sentence should stand, but it rejected Boyd’s core substantive theories (arbitrariness and undue weight) as arguments likely to succeed.
• Concurrence (Murphy, J.): Agreed remand was required; emphasized that a different “relevant conduct” route—U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(3) (considering “all harm that resulted from” the defendant’s acts)—might have supported the bodily-injury enhancement, but the government forfeited that argument.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1. Guideline selection: distinguishing “blackmail” from “extortion”

• United States v. Douglas, 634 F.3d 852 (6th Cir. 2011):
  This case supplied the governing framework when both § 2B3.2 and § 2B3.3 are listed in the Statutory Index for a Hobbs Act conviction. Douglas drew a functional line: § 2B3.3 “blackmail” typically involves threats to reveal an “established fact” that exists independently of the extortion demand; § 2B3.2 “extortion” targets threats of injury or “serious damage,” including comparably serious non-physical harms (e.g., driving an enterprise out of business). Boyd relied on the “expose sexual messages” theory to argue blackmail; the panel treated the case as § 2B3.2 extortion because Boyd manufactured the “fact pattern” through deception and entrapment, rather than threatening to reveal an independently existing violation.
• United States v. Hochschild, 442 F.3d 974 (6th Cir. 2006):
  Cited for the mechanics of guideline selection—district courts start with the Statutory Index and, when multiple guidelines apply, choose the one “most appropriate” to the offense conduct charged.
• United States v. Williams, 952 F.2d 1504 (6th Cir. 1991):
  Reinforced that § 2B3.2 can apply absent threats of physical violence. The court analogized Boyd’s threats of reputational, familial, and employment damage to the “project is ‘dead’” threat in Williams—serious damage sufficient for § 2B3.2.
• United States v. Wolfe, 309 F.3d 932 (6th Cir. 2002):
  Cited for grouping principles and the use of the highest offense level among grouped counts.

2. Procedural reasonableness and enhancement error

• Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38 (2007) and United States v. Shields, 664 F.3d 1040 (6th Cir. 2011):
  Established that miscalculating the Guidelines range—including misapplying enhancements—is a “significant procedural error.”
• United States v. Adams, 124 F.4th 432 (6th Cir. 2024) and United States v. Washington, 584 F.3d 693 (6th Cir. 2009):
  Set the standard of review (abuse of discretion where objections were preserved) and the principle that misapplying law is an abuse of discretion.
• United States v. Hill, 381 F.3d 560 (6th Cir. 2004):
  The controlling precedent. Hill rejected applying a firearm-discharge enhancement where a security guard—not the defendant—fired the gun during a bank robbery, absent evidence the defendant “willfully caused” the discharge under § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A). Boyd extends Hill’s logic to a suicide: absent evidence Boyd intended or “willfully caused” the victim to shoot himself, the enhancements could not apply.
• United States v. Gordon, 64 F.3d 281 (7th Cir. 1995):
  Cited in Hill and again here for the proposition that committing the underlying crime alone does not show intent regarding another’s firearm discharge.
• United States v. Roberts, 203 F.3d 867 (5th Cir. 2000):
  The government’s out-of-circuit comparator where the defendant’s conduct “induced and willfully caused” an officer to fire (in direct response to immediate danger). The Sixth Circuit found it inapposite because Boyd’s conduct did not create an immediate physical-danger scenario of that type.
• United States v. Alvarado, 95 F.4th 1047 (6th Cir. 2024) and United States v. McCarty, 628 F.3d 284 (6th Cir. 2010):
  Governed harmless-error review; the panel found the enhancement error not harmless given the 11-level effect and lack of indication the same sentence would have been imposed.

3. Substantive reasonableness guidance (despite remand)

• United States v. Rayyan, 885 F.3d 436 (6th Cir. 2018) and United States v. Conatser, 514 F.3d 508 (6th Cir. 2008):
  Provided the substantive-unreasonableness framework: arbitrariness, impermissible factors, failure to consider relevant factors, or unreasonable weight.
• Jenkins v. United States, 394 F.3d 407 (6th Cir. 2005) (quoting United States v. Chase, 296 F.3d 247 (4th Cir. 2002)) and United States v. Garcia- Torres, 341 F.3d 61 (1st Cir. 2003):
  Used to reject the idea that grouping precludes consecutive sentences; “no obstacle to stacking a defendant’s sentences for grouped offenses.”
• Setser v. United States, 566 U.S. 231 (2012) and United States v. Johnson, 553 F.3d 990 (6th Cir. 2009):
  Supported the district court’s discretion to impose concurrent or consecutive sentences so long as its rationale is made “generally clear.”
• United States v. Lee, 974 F.3d 670 (6th Cir. 2020) and United States v. Mitchell, 107 F.4th 534 (6th Cir. 2024):
  Confirmed that criminal history, public protection, and deterrence may justify an upward variance.
• United States v. Williams, 436 F.3d 706 (6th Cir. 2006), overruled on other grounds by Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338 (2007):
  Cited for the general requirement to weigh § 3553(a) factors (with the caveat about partial overruling).

4. Concurrence: causation and forfeiture

• Burrage v. United States, 571 U.S. 204 (2014) and Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 570 U.S. 338 (2013):
  Used to explain that “resulted from” in § 1B1.3(a)(3) likely includes an actual-causation (but-for) requirement.
• Paroline v. United States, 572 U.S. 434 (2014) and United States v. Jeffries, 958 F.3d 517 (6th Cir. 2020):
  Cited for the possibility that “resulted from” could also require proximate cause (a “sufficient connection”), potentially including foreseeability.
• United States v. Bellis, 2024 WL 1212859 (6th Cir. Mar. 21, 2024) and United States v. Fitzwater, 896 F.2d 1009 (6th Cir. 1990):
  Invoked to support foreseeability analysis as relevant to proximate causation concepts (in other contexts).
• Blick v. Ann Arbor Pub. Sch. Dist., 105 F.4th 868 (6th Cir. 2024) and Bannister v. Knox Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 49 F.4th 1000 (6th Cir. 2022):
  Grounded the concurrence’s conclusion that the government forfeited reliance on § 1B1.3(a)(3) by inadequate briefing.
• United States v. Herrera-Zuniga, 571 F.3d 568 (6th Cir. 2009) and Spears v. United States, 555 U.S. 261 (2009):
  Cited to note a district court’s ability to vary based on policy disagreements with guideline rules.
• 18 U.S.C. § 3661:
  Highlighted for the broad information a sentencing court may consider, even if the Guidelines do not treat the fact as “relevant conduct.”

B. Legal Reasoning

1. Why § 2B3.2 (not § 2B3.3) governed Boyd’s Hobbs Act attempt

The panel treated the guideline dispute as a classification problem governed by the Statutory Index and United States v. Douglas. Because Appendix A lists both § 2B3.2 and § 2B3.3 for § 1951, the sentencing judge must choose the guideline “most appropriate” for the charged conduct.

Douglas’s core distinction—threatening to reveal an “established fact” (blackmail) versus threatening serious damage to an “innocent” victim (extortion)—did not turn on whether the threatened disclosure related to sex, crime, or shame. It turned on whether the threatened “fact” existed independent of the defendant’s coercive scheme. Boyd’s disclosure threat was “only possible because [he] created and entrapped B.G. in a sexual extortion scheme entirely of [his] own making.” That pushed the conduct into § 2B3.2’s domain: a threat of “comparably serious” harm (here, reputational and familial ruin and employment jeopardy), even absent physical violence.

2. Why the firearm-discharge and bodily-injury enhancements could not be based on the victim’s suicide

The district court applied two enhancements because B.G. discharged a firearm and sustained life-threatening (indeed fatal) bodily injury. The Sixth Circuit rejected that approach as a matter of “relevant conduct” under U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A), applying United States v. Hill.

Hill read § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A) narrowly: the enhancement-triggering act (here, the discharge; the injury) must be an act the defendant “committed” or “aided,” “abetted,” “counseled,” “commanded,” “induced,” “procured,” or “willfully caused.” “Willfully caused” requires intent regarding the act itself—not merely creating circumstances where the act is foreseeable. Thus, the panel found dispositive that (as the PSR said) Boyd did not direct self-harm, there was no suicide discussion, Boyd was not present to perceive risk cues, and he did not know B.G. had a gun. Indeed, suicide undermined Boyd’s extortion objective (extracting money), making it inconsistent with willful causation.

The government’s attempt to rely on the passive voice (“if a firearm was discharged”) failed under Hill’s rejection of a purely grammatical reading. So did the argument that Boyd’s pressure made suicide a “natural continuation” of the coercion: Hill held foreseeability alone is not enough for § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A)’s “willfully caused” requirement.

3. The concurrence’s caution: a different “relevant conduct” theory might exist (but was forfeited)

Judge Murphy emphasized that § 1B1.3 contains another path: § 1B1.3(a)(3) allows consideration of “all harm that resulted from” the defendant’s qualifying acts. Under that provision, the inquiry can shift from intent (“willfully caused”) to causation (“resulted from”), potentially implicating but-for causation (Burrage v. United States; Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar) and possibly proximate causation (Paroline v. United States; United States v. Jeffries). But because the government did not properly raise and brief § 1B1.3(a)(3), the panel did not decide whether it could support the bodily-injury enhancement here.

4. Sentencing discretion on remand: suicide as a § 3553(a) fact (distinct from guideline “relevant conduct”)

Although the majority reversed the enhancements, it signaled that the district court’s broader § 3553(a) discussion—criminal history, public protection, specific and general deterrence—was robust, and it did not view the single suicide reference as dominating the analysis. The concurrence went further, noting that 18 U.S.C. § 3661 broadly permits consideration of background and conduct information, and that suicide may be part of the “circumstances of the offense” under § 3553(a)(1), even if the Guidelines do not treat it as “relevant conduct” for a specific enhancement.

C. Impact

1. A clearer Sixth Circuit limit on “victim-fired” firearm discharge and “victim self-harm” enhancements

The practical holding is that, in the Sixth Circuit, a district court may not apply § 2B3.2’s firearm-discharge enhancement (and, on the majority’s reasoning, the bodily-injury enhancement as applied here) based on a victim’s suicide absent evidence the defendant intended or “willfully caused” the discharge/injury within § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A). This rule matters most in coercion-driven crimes—extortion, stalking, harassment—where victims may engage in desperate conduct.

2. But a litigation roadmap remains open under § 1B1.3(a)(3)

The concurrence invites future cases to litigate whether self-harm “resulted from” a defendant’s acts under § 1B1.3(a)(3). If properly preserved, that theory could support bodily-injury enhancements (and perhaps others) via but-for and proximate-causation principles—even absent “willful causation.” The opinion thus creates both a defense shield (against intent-based relevant conduct) and a prosecutorial prompt (to plead and prove causation-based relevant conduct).

3. Sextortion and reputational-harm extortion: continued breadth of § 2B3.2

By reaffirming Douglas and applying it to a “sextortion”-style scheme, the court confirmed that § 2B3.2 covers threats of severe non-physical harm (public humiliation, family destruction, employment jeopardy), and that defendants cannot recharacterize such cases as § 2B3.3 “blackmail” merely because the threat involves disclosure of communications—especially where the defendant engineered the compromising situation.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

• § 2B3.2 vs. § 2B3.3:
  Think “extortion causing serious damage” (§ 2B3.2) versus “pay me or I’ll reveal a preexisting secret” (§ 2B3.3). Boyd fell into § 2B3.2 because he created the compromising scenario and then threatened catastrophic harm.
• “Relevant conduct” (U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3):
  Guidelines sometimes punish not only what the defendant was convicted of, but also closely related acts/harm. But § 1B1.3 sets boundaries on what can be counted.
• “Willfully caused” (§ 1B1.3(a)(1)(A)):
  Requires intent regarding the specific act (here, a gunshot discharge or injury), not merely that the defendant’s conduct made the act possible or foreseeable.
• “Resulted from” (§ 1B1.3(a)(3)):
  Focuses on causation (did the harm happen because of the defendant’s acts?). This can involve:
  • But-for causation: would the harm have happened anyway?
  • Proximate causation: is the connection close enough, often considering foreseeability?
• Procedural vs. substantive reasonableness:
  Procedural errors include miscalculating Guidelines; substantive errors concern whether the final sentence is justified under § 3553(a).

V. Conclusion

United States v. Glenn Daeward Boyd makes two core contributions to Sixth Circuit sentencing law. First, it applies United States v. Douglas to confirm that reputational and relational ruin can qualify as “serious damage” supporting § 2B3.2 in modern sextortion-like schemes, even without threats of physical violence. Second, and more notably, it extends United States v. Hill to hold that a victim’s suicide cannot trigger § 2B3.2’s firearm-discharge and bodily-injury enhancements through § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A) unless the defendant “willfully caused” the discharge or injury—an intent-based limitation that constrains enhancement-driven sentence inflation in psychologically coercive cases.

At the same time, Judge Murphy’s concurrence preserves a live doctrinal question: whether § 1B1.3(a)(3)’s “resulted from” language—if properly raised—could treat suicide as enhancement-relevant harm on a causation theory. The remand thus arrives with a clarified boundary for intent-based relevant conduct, and an explicit warning that causation-based theories remain for future, fully briefed cases.