my name is elizabeth johnson and i'm representing the appellant go burn mr goldberg is before this court challenging his conviction of conspired conspiracy to distribute cocaine only to the extent that he's challenging the finding that  conspired to distribute five kilograms or more the trial evidence concerned a substantial number of mailings only a some of which were seized so only for some of which we have an actual weight of the cocaine  are four packages that were directly tied to mr go burn through his text through his phone calls through his fingerprints and where they actually there was an actual seizure that amount is only three point nine kilograms it doesn't get up to five in an effort to get up to five the government talked about two other kinds of packages one was a set that are in fact tied to mr go burn he made phone calls about them he texted they were sent to his address similar to the earlier set but there's absolutely no evidence in the record whatsoever as to what was in those packages and if in fact it were drugs what kind of drugs and if it were cocaine how much there's nothing that would allow the jury to draw any kind of inference or conclusion other than pure conjecture as to what was in those packages so those should not be used to get up to the five kilogram number there the more concerning those packages they were coming from certain people i mean this is not the food of the month club but we still don't know anything about exactly what's inside them there's nothing that lets the lets the jury determine what the weight was within those packages it isn't that they can handle inference juries make all the time i mean well yes your honor but there are limits as to what kind of insurances we allow to be drawn and the cases that talk about this so they're not exactly the same situation the ones that we have are cases where the court is making a finding at sentencing in the reason those are easier to analyze obviously as the judges explain their reasoning but the other thing that's important about those cases is that it's a complete much lower standard of proof so we have cases where sentencing judges under the guidelines are estimating an amount for relevant conduct purposes by a mere preponderance of the evidence and they can use inadmissible evidence that's contra ruction they get which is yes that are both direct and circumstantial but the standard still beyond a reasonable doubt and what i'm saying and what my argument is here is that if a judge had drawn the conclusions that the government is arguing the jury properly did this court would reverse it on the sentencing finding and they have done that on cases that we've cited she knew b and martinez and thompson martinez judge it was on the panel and it's very similar where the defendant his crime was involved in setting up means of transport of contraband and there was specific evidence as to the weight of specific transactions that he was involved in and the those were added up that was fine you were allowed to do that but there are other transactions where they didn't know what had been involved in the transaction or you you focused argument is that they're not actually coconspirators because the we're looking at here is a hub and spoke conspiracy and mr go burn and the packages that were sent to him are a completely different spoke from those other packages the case the law is clear that in order for them to be who conspirators it wasn't enough that they were getting their drugs from the same supplier we don't dispute that the drugs apparently are coming from mr can ya lace in puerto rico his fingerprints are on packages that go to both but there's absolutely nothing that shows that these two separate groups of distributors which is you know mr goban and mr wilburn on one hand and then mr cars are on mr omega on the other are in any way part of the same conspiracy they don't know about each other they don't assist each other they're not interdependent with each other there's absolutely nothing except that they're getting their cocaine from the same source and there are cases in this circuit and many other circuits that say that simply having the same supplier doesn't make you  or tips or other kinds of contraband the two groups have to in fact they don't have to be a we are generally that they exist ok and there's nothing that shows that mr gober knows that mr can ya lease are sending drugs to a separate distribution chain from him and even beyond that even if he knew about that they would have to his sister and also active in in the conspiracy and in puerto rico whence the packages originated but again there's absolutely nothing in the record that supports any inference that mr goban was involved in shipping drugs to anyone other than himself and mr wilburn there is no package that goes to someone other than him or mr wilburn that has his fingerprints on it that he texts about that he challenging that but mr canal is could very easily and in this case the evidence shows pretty clearly did set up separate distribution chains that were not connected to one another were not interdependent and in fact that he probably we have we have your human thank you they please the court my name is alex ross miller and i'm an assistant united states attorney in the southern district of new york in this case there was ample abundant evidence presented in the trouble though for jury properly to infer that the drug conspiracy involved five or more kilograms of cocaine known or reasonably known known or reasonably foreseeable to the defendant specifically as the court has discussed in the amount in four packages seized and directly linked to the defendant was three point nine kilograms and evidence was presented as to five additional packages involved in the conspiracy that were directly linked to the defendant and there were multiple permissible ways to infer a total of five or more kilograms as part of the total conspiracy packages were directly linked to mr canal as who has been discussed previously today and there is evidence that the defendant in this case traveled to puerto rico and was in the conspiracy obviously directly with mr canalis as well as others and that packages sent by mr canal's to other individuals were reasonably observable foreseeable to the defendant here including to another individual who appeared in text messages associated with the defendant here an individual who think was only identified  at the trial as bubu but it's not limited to just mr goh barn and mr will burn with respect to packages coming in and it's not just linked to the defendant here with respect to packages being sent out by mr canalis house i'm sorry you said it's not just like what's the evidence all you need is one so what's the best shipment the best connection with this defendant for any package that has more than one point one so not  those are all mailed on the same date from puerto rico to separate separate new york addresses all three of the packages were tracked by mr goh burns home address ip two of the three in fact had similar weights including one of the one that was seized in the those contents were kept again that's correct your honor and with respect to the the so called olmedo mailings package numbered number ten which is i think just generally identified as one of the  had two kilograms and was packaged not only with a silverware container much as the same as a other package that woods seized package one in our brief package the march third twenty fifteen mailing appellants brief which was also hidden in silverware that package which again was to kilograms had mr canal's fingerprints on it as well and that someone who mr go burn it interacted with directly subject to any other questions of government to package it he decides to put in the silverware he may send it to completely separate distribution chains it doesn't have anything it doesn't do anything at all to show the connection between go burn and bizarre oh and the other question is the weight of the packages in the government argued here is they have in their brief that similarity of weight of the total mailed packages justifies an inference as to the weight of the amount of drugs inside that is a very selective reading of the evidence here because if we look at what's actually been shown the weight of the mailed packages and the weight of the drugs inside from the few the packages where we have both sets of information it's not correlated at all there's three packages here where the amount of package itself the net on the mail package is nine pounds there's another one said appendix one ninety four to one ninety five the drugs it's a very similar amount five hundred four grams the package itself is only three pounds on and then there's another one four hundred six grams the packages two pounds so there's really no legitimate way to infer from the weight of the packages what's inside and again going back to the cases i've talked about earlier in the newbie this is exactly what judge weinstein did on sentencing he said i have one drug transaction and this is how much heroin was involved i don't know how much there was in the other ones but i'm going to assume it's about the same and the second  you cannot do that the second circuit's law is that you have to have evidence directly linking a specific drug amount to this defendant and for the preserved packages there is no direct evidence linking the drugs to mr gober and in any way because it's a completely separate conspiracy and as to the ones that are connected to mr goldman but were not seized there is absolutely nothing that supports a finding of a specific amount of drugs thank you thank you