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Parties Involved:
Paul Ford
Appellant
United States
Appellee

Document Text:

Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter 

United States Court of Appeals

For the First Circuit 

No. 14-1669 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Appellee, 

v. 

PAUL FORD, 

Defendant, Appellant. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE 

[Hon. John A. Woodcock, Jr., U.S. District Judge] 

Before 

Lynch, Thompson, and Kayatta, 

Circuit Judges. 

 Andrew Levchuk and Bulkley, Richardson & Gelinas on brief for 

appellant. 

 Thomas E. Delahanty, II, United States Attorney, and Margaret 

D. McGaughey, Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for 

appellee. 

August 19, 2015 

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THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. 

Overview 

As part of a plea bargain, Paul Ford pled guilty to two 

felonies: conspiring — from 2006 to November 2011 — with James 

F., Darlene, and James T. Ford (Paul's father, mother, and brother) 

to manufacture 100 or more marijuana plants, and manufacturing — 

in November 2011 — 50 or more marijuana plants on his own. See 21 

U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846.1 The district court sentenced him to 46 

months in prison — at the very bottom of the court-calculated 

guidelines range — and he now appeals, claiming that the term 

imposed is both procedurally and substantively unreasonable. 

Because it is neither, we affirm, with these briefest of comments.2

 

1 "Grow" would be a better word than "manufacture," but the statute 

uses "manufacture." See DeBartolo v. United States, 790 F.3d 775, 

777 (7th Cir. 2015) (Posner, J.) (making that very point). 

2 Four quick heads up: 

 First: Ford agreed to waive his appeal rights, but only if 

the court sentenced him to a prison term "that does not exceed 

twelve months and one day." Because the sentence exceeded that 

limit, the government concedes that Ford's appeal waiver does not 

apply. And so we decide this appeal on the merits. See United 

States v. Serrano-Mercado, 784 F.3d 838, 841 n.1 (1st Cir. 2015) 

(taking that tack in a similar situation). 

 Second: As is customary in cases like this, we pull the facts 

from the plea agreement, the undisputed parts of the pre-sentence 

investigation report, and the transcripts of the change-of-plea 

and sentencing hearings. See, e.g., United States v. RomeroGalindez, 782 F.3d 63, 65 n.1 (1st Cir. 2015). 

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Procedural-Reasonableness Claims 

Paul first complains about the amount of drugs the court 

attributed to him, an amount that helped set the base offense level 

for the guidelines range. The district court held him responsible 

for at least 100 but less than 400 kilograms of marijuana. So 

long as a preponderance of the evidence supports that finding, a 

reasonable estimate will suffice. See, e.g., United States v. 

Mills, 710 F.3d 5, 15 (1st Cir. 2013). And because he attacks the 

court's factfinding, our review is for clear error, id. — i.e., 

meaning we will reverse only if the court was "wrong with the force 

of a 5 week old, unrefrigerated, dead fish," see Toye v. O'Donnell 

(In re O'Donnell), 728 F.3d 41, 46 (1st Cir. 2013) (quoting S 

Indus., Inc. v. Centra 2000, Inc., 249 F.3d 625, 627 (7th Cir. 

2001)). 

Paul basically concedes responsibility for 96.435 

kilograms of marijuana. He gets that number this way: he takes 

28.942 kilograms seized from his parents' house (all the Fords 

 

Third: Because there are four Fords — Paul, James F., 

Darlene, and James T. — we will use first names from here on (we 

intend no disrespect). 

Fourth: We review preserved challenges to both the procedural 

and substantive reasonableness of a sentence for abuse of 

discretion, though we assess the district court's factfinding for 

clear error. See United States v. Razo, 782 F.3d 31, 36 (1st Cir. 

2015). 

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were there when agents executed a search warrant, by the way), 

adds 5.493 kilograms taken during a consented-to search of his 

house, and tacks on 62 kilograms based on drug ledgers — showing 

income from October 2009 to October 2011 — seized from his parents' 

house. As Paul sees things, the evidence left him 3.565 kilograms 

short of the 100 kilogram threshold, which, the argument continues, 

put him in a lower base offense level. 

We see the things differently, and for a simple reason. 

Record evidence shows that James F. told agents two important 

things: first that he grew 11.25-13.5 pounds — or 5.103-6.123 

kilograms — of marijuana about every 9 weeks, and second that he 

was about to complete "harvest" number "38" when the Fords got 

nabbed. Record evidence — James F.'s October 2011 email saying 

Paul has been a "dependable worker" since moving into "Dana 

Skinner's" house (we don't know who "Dana Skinner" is) and Paul's 

November 2011 comments to agents that he had been living at Dana's 

for 3-4 years — supportably shows that Paul was involved with the 

Ford family conspiracy at least as far back as 2007 or 2008. So 

putting all this together, taking, say, just one "harvest" of 5.103 

kilograms (the lower number given by James F.) in 2007 or 2008 

puts the kilogram tally at 101.538 (96.435 — the number Paul says 

the "court could have and should have" stopped at — plus 5.103 

equals 101.538). 

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Seeking a way around this conclusion, Paul principally 

argues that the marijuana amount needed to reach the 100 kilogram 

mark was not reasonably foreseeable to him. But the court held 

him responsible for drugs he helped produce — after all, as the 

court expressly noted, Paul unequivocally admitted at the changeof-plea hearing that he and other coconspirators "planted, tended, 

harvested, processed and packaged the marijuana" at his home and 

his parents' (that concept was contained in the government's 

version of events, to which he agreed). So the "reasonable 

foreseeability" concept holds no sway here, because "[a] defendant 

simply cannot be heard to complain that he could not reasonably 

foresee acts that he himself engineered." United States v. Conley, 

156 F.3d 78, 85 (1st Cir. 1998). 

Paul next blasts the court for not giving him a 2-level 

reduction in his offense level as a (supposed) "minor participant" 

in the conspiracy. See USSG § 3B1.2(b) (2012 version). The 

burden, though, is on him to prove by a preponderance of the 

evidence that he is both less culpable than (a) most of those 

involved in the conspiracy and (b) most of those who have done 

similar crimes. See, e.g., United States v. Meléndez-Rivera, 782 

F.3d 26, 28 (1st Cir. 2015).3 Absent a mistake of law — and we 

 

3 See generally USSG § 3B1.2 cmts. 5 and 4 (explaining that a 

"minor participant" is one who is "less culpable than most other 

participants, but whose role [can]not be described as minimal," 

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see none here — we review for clear error, knowing that, given 

this deferential standard, role-in-the-offense battles "will 

almost always be won or lost in the district court." Id. (quoting 

United States v. Garciani, 61 F.3d 70, 75 (1st Cir. 1995)). 

Hoping to find clear error, Paul accuses the district 

court of not comparing his part in the conspiracy with his 

parents'. The charge falls flat, however. The sentencing 

transcript shows that the court focused (for example) on how the 

parents, and not Paul, sold the marijuana, while Paul — as he 

himself acknowledged — grew and "took care of the marijuana." 

Well, then, says Paul, he should have gotten a minor-role 

adjustment because he was not as critical to the scheme as his 

drug-peddling parents. But that is a false contrast, for as we 

have said many times, one "need not be the key figure" in a criminal 

plan "to be denied a mitigating role-in-the-offense adjustment." 

Meléndez-Rivera, 782 F.3d at 29. Just as devastating to his 

position is the fact that he makes no effort to show how he is 

less culpable than the "mine-run" of wrongdoers "who have committed 

similar crimes" — perhaps that is because we have routinely upheld 

the denial of a minor-participant adjustment for defendants less 

involved in drug conspiracies than Paul. See id. (highlighting 

 

with "minimal" reserved for a "participant" who is "plainly among 

the least culpable of those involved in the conduct of the group"). 

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cases affirming an adjustment denial where a defendant's only role 

in the scheme was driving a truck with drugs, unloading drugs, or 

standing guard). 

Having found no procedural error in what the district 

court did, we now check the sentence for substantive 

reasonableness, keeping in mind that a sentence is substantively 

reasonable if it reflects a plausible rationale and a defensible 

result. United States v. Martin, 520 F.3d 87, 96 (1st Cir. 2008). 

Substantive-Reasonableness Claims 

Paul thinks his 46-month sentence (again, the lowest 

term in the guidelines range) is far too long, for four reasons — 

none of which we accept. 

For starters Paul says that he should have caught a break 

because "marijuana is now legal" in some states. But that argument 

goes nowhere, because manufacturing marijuana is still a crime 

under federal law. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). 

Next Paul faults the district court for considering 

"previously dismissed charges" in perusing his criminal history — 

criminal history is a sentencing factor under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). 

But he does not back up his claim with any authority, nor does he 

give us any meaningful discussion on this issue. So the claim is 

waived. See, e.g., Ahmed v. Holder, 611 F.3d 90, 98 (1st Cir. 

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2010) (stressing that "appellate arguments advanced in a 

perfunctory manner, unaccompanied by citations to relevant 

authority, are deemed waived"); see also United States v. Zannino, 

895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990) (similar). 

Also insubstantial is Paul's claim that the district 

court jacked up his sentence because of firearms found in his 

parents' home. Yes, probation did recommend a firearms enhancement 

in calculating Paul's offense level. But the government did not 

ask for that enhancement. Undaunted, Paul identifies this comment 

from the district court at sentencing as the best indication that 

the firearms still influenced the sentence: 

Although there were firearms at the defendant's parents' 

residence, the court — the government has agreed not to 

press the firearms enhancement as the defendant — the 

court knows the defendant has pleaded guilty and it saves 

the government the expense and turmoil at trial. 

But neither this nor any other statement by the court leaves us 

with "a definite and firm conviction" (the usual abuse-ofdiscretion standard) that the enhancement played any role improper 

in Paul's sentence. See generally United States v. Joubert, 778 

F.3d 247, 253 (1st Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted) 

(defining abuse of discretion). 

Last but not least, we can make quick work of Paul's 

final contention — that "the district court spent entirely too 

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much time" talking about "the Ford family's 'bizarre' dynamic." 

True, the court did spotlight Paul's "unusual family" — mentioning 

(for example) how his "growing up" with marijuana being the family 

business's stock-in-trade makes it "not surprising that [he] 

thought it was normal to follow [his] parents' footsteps." But 

the court made these comments in the context of discussing Paul's 

drug history and what sentence might deter him — both legitimate 

§ 3553(a) factors. See, e.g., United States v. Tavares, 705 F.3d 

4, 32 (1st Cir. 2013). Within wide limits, it is up to the district 

court to decide how much weight to give each relevant § 3553(a) 

factor in a particular case. See United States v. Maguire, 752 

F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2014); United States v. Clogston, 662 F.3d 

588, 592-93 (1st Cir. 2011). And unfortunately for Paul, in 

attacking his within-guidelines sentence he has not offered the 

required "powerful mitigating reasons" needed to convince us that 

the court unreasonably balanced those factors here — which makes 

his ultimate claim a no-go too. See Clogston, 662 F.3d at 592-93 

(internal quotation marks omitted). 

The bottom line then is that Paul's substantivereasonableness arguments — like his procedural-reasonableness ones 

— fail because we find no abuse of discretion. 

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Final Words 

Our work over, we affirm Paul's sentence. 

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