Opinion ID: 177231
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: How the Sentence Worked Out

Text: Acting under the now-advisory federal sentencing guidelines, Judge Woodcock set out to compute the relevant guideline sentencing range. Defense counsel and the prosecutor started sparring over whether each OxyContin pill contained 75 or 80 milligrams of oxycodone. Testing a randomly selected sample of 25 OxyContin tablets taken from Kinsella, a DEA chemist had put the number at 75 milligrams. Believing that that issue might not matter depending on what other findings he made, Judge Woodcock decided to focus first on the length of the conspiracy and the amount of drugs involved. The probation office's presentence investigation report had noted that the conspiracy spanned 2003-2005. And, after commenting that Hitchcock had peddled Kinsella's drugs for 12-18 months, the report pegged the conspiracy's length at 18 months. Kinsella asked Judge Woodcock to find a 12-month conspiracy. But he never asked the Judge to sayand the Judge never saidwhere the 12-month period fit on the 2003-2005 time-line. Finding Hitchcock completely credible, Judge Woodcock put the conspiracy's length at 12 months because he thought that Hitchcock's good faith estimate about a 12-18 month conspiracy was somewhat sketchy. Zeroing in on Hitchcock's drug-quantity testimonythat Kinsella had handed him 90-180 pills every 3-6 weeks, though sometimes they went more than 6 weeks between deals and 1 deal involved 270-300 pillsJudge Woodcock settled on numbers favorable to Kinsella: 7 total transactions during the year, 6 involving 90 pills each and 1 involving 270, which netted 810 tablets. But he quickly added that he easily could have picked less defendant-friendly numbersa 135-pill transaction every 4 weeks or so, for example, with a 300-pill deal added to the mix. In any event, if each pill weighed 80 milligrams, Judge Woodcock said, then Kinsella was responsible for 64.8 grams of oxycodone (810 x 80 = 64,800 milligrams or 64.8 grams), which converted into a marijuana equivalent of 434.160 kilograms, which resulted in a base offense level of 28. See USSG § 2D1.1(c)(6), cmt. n. 10(B) (directing courts to convert quantities of certain drugs into equivalent units of marijuana for sentencing purposes), and cmt. n. 10(E) (laying out the drug equivalency tables). Even if the pills weighed 75 milligrams apiece, Kinsella's base offense level would still be 28, defense counsel conceded after re-checking the Judge's mathso that issue dropped out of consideration. Judge Woodcock then added 2 levels for obstruction of justice, resulting in a total offense level of 30. Given the lack of any meaningful criminal history, Judge Woodcock's calculations produced a guideline sentencing range of 97-121 months. The Judge then sentenced him to 97 months in prison plus three years of supervised release. Further details will be noted as needed.