Opinion ID: 677382
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Marijuana Quantity Calculation

Text: 21 Mr. Young argues that, as in Young I, the record fails to support the district court's finding concerning the quantity of marijuana he could have reasonably foreseen to have been involved in the conspiracy. 3 He contends that the district court had no basis to find that he could have reasonably foreseen any quantity of marijuana beyond the 700 pounds he brokered. This is clear, Mr. Young states, from the fact that no evidence was presented at his resentencing hearing about which this court was not already aware when it reached the same conclusion. More important, he argues that, with the exception of Atkinson's testimony concerning the marijuana production ratio, no evidence was presented demonstrating that Mr. Young had any reason to foresee the number of marijuana plants that was involved in the conspiracy. 22 As to Atkinson's estimated production ratio (one plant equals .25 pounds), Mr. Young submits that the district court's use of it in converting the number of pounds he brokered into a quantity of plants directly contravened the conversion equation the Sentencing Guidelines set forth in the equivalency provision of U.S.S.G. Sec. 2D1.1(c) n.. 4 The equivalency provision states that, in an offense involving fifty or more marijuana plants, each marijuana plant should be treated as equivalent to one kilogram of marijuana for sentencing purposes. Mr. Young therefore argues that, if the district court deemed it appropriate to convert the 700 pounds of marijuana he brokered into a quantity of plants, it should have employed the equivalency provision. If the court had done so, Mr. Young contends, it would have concluded that the 700 pounds--or approximately 320 kilograms--was the equivalent of 320 plants, which in turn should have been treated as equivalent to 320 kilograms for sentencing purposes. Instead, the district court converted the 700 pounds into 2800 plants by utilizing Atkinson's real production formula of one plant equals .25 pounds (or four plants equal one pound). Mr. Young argues that the district court's use for sentencing purposes of Atkinson's production estimation is precisely the type of real production formula that this court has rejected in previous defense challenges to the equivalency provision of U.S.S.G. Sec. 2D1.1(c) n.. See, e.g., United States v. Atkinson, 15 F.3d 715, 720 (7th Cir.1994); United States v. Montgomery, 990 F.2d 266, 269 (7th Cir.1993); United States v. Haynes, 969 F.2d 569, 570-71 (7th Cir.1992). In any event, Mr. Young argues, the district court had no basis to find that he knew or had reason to know this real production ratio. Moreover, he contends, because the yield of marijuana plants varies greatly, the production ratio the district court relied upon was unreliable. As pointed out by this court in Haynes, 969 F.2d at 571, for instance, one plant can yield as much as one pound of marijuana. 23 In response, the government submits that, to the extent that Mr. Young argues that he should be sentenced on the basis of the number of pounds he brokered and not on a quantity of marijuana plants, his argument is foreclosed by this court's decision in Young I, 997 F.2d at 1209 (stating that, because Mr. Young was charged with a manufacturing conspiracy, the government could rely on the number of marijuana plants involved). To the extent that Mr. Young challenges the district court's finding that he could have reasonably foreseen that the conspiracy involved 2800 marijuana plants, the government argues that the court's finding was not clearly erroneous. Atkinson testified at the resentencing hearing that Mr. Young was informed that there were others buying marijuana produced at the farm; the government states that Mr. Young therefore had reason to know that the amount of marijuana involved in the conspiracy was greater than the 700 pounds he brokered. Moreover, as the district court found, Atkinson's knowledge of how many plants it took to produce a pound of marijuana can be imputed to Mr. Young because he was part of the conspiracy. He need not have had actual knowledge of that ratio. After all, the government urges, the standard for conspiratorial liability is reasonable foreseeability, not actual knowledge. Under Atkinson's production ratio, the government contends that the district court had sufficient evidence to find that Mr. Young was responsible for 2,800 marijuana plants, which rendered him eligible for the mandatory provision of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(b)(1)(A)(vii).
24 In assessing these contentions, it is important to note at the outset that, in basing its determination of the number of plants for which Mr. Young was responsible on the number of pounds he brokered, the district court on remand agreed with our assessment in Young I that Mr. Young had no reason to know that the conspiracy involved more marijuana than the 700 pounds of marijuana he brokered. 5 The issue on appeal from resentencing, therefore, involves only the question of how to characterize that 700 pounds for sentencing purposes. The district court believed that, based on our opinion in Young I, Mr. Young's conviction on a manufacturing offense mandated that his sentence be based on the number of plants equivalent to 700 pounds of marijuana. The government agrees; Mr. Young does not. As we stated above, he believes the district court should have used the equivalency provision of U.S.S.G. Sec. 2D1.1(c) n. to convert the weight of marijuana he brokered into a number of plants, and then back again to the equivalent number of kilograms for sentencing purposes. We, however, cannot accept either the government's or Mr. Young's approach. 25 On remand, the district court correctly followed our decision in Young I, which relied on our decision in Edwards, in determining that it could base Mr. Young's sentence only on the quantity of marijuana he could have reasonably foreseen the conspiracy to have involved. That quantity was 700 pounds, the amount he brokered for the defendants. Because the offense at issue was a manufacturing offense--that is, one involving marijuana plants, U.S.S.G. Sec. 2D1.1(c) n.; Atkinson, 15 F.3d at 720; Haynes, 969 F.2d at 572--the district court determined the quantity of marijuana plants on which Mr. Young's sentence could be based. It did so based on Atkinson's testimony that one plant on his farm yielded approximately .25 pounds, a ratio that the district court imputed to the defendant. The district court, however, made no determination concerning whether Mr. Young knew this ratio or, more importantly, whether he had any reason to know it. The court stated that it was not required to make a determination on foreseeability with respect to Atkinson's production ratio. 26 In this latter regard, the district court erred in failing to follow the full extent of our holdings in Young I and Edwards. In those cases, we made clear that conspiratorial liability is based on foreseeability, regardless of whether the sentence is based on the Sentencing Guidelines, as in Edwards, 945 F.2d at 1387, or on a statutory mandatory minimum, as in Young I, 997 F.2d at 1210. Although such foreseeability does not, of course, require Mr. Young to have had actual knowledge of the production ratio, it does require the government to demonstrate, and the district court to find, that Mr. Young at least have had reason to know the number of marijuana plants for which he was held responsible. The district court made no such finding in this case; indeed, it expressly stated that it was not required to do so. 27 But the district court's decision to convert the 700 pounds of marijuana it found that Mr. Young could have reasonably foreseen into a quantity of marijuana plants involves a further fundamental misapprehension of Young I and Edwards. In Young I, we applied Edwards' guidelines approach to the context of mandatory statutory minimums. In doing so, we stressed that statutory sentencing provisions and the Sentencing Guidelines must be read consistently with one another, that they must be read as a whole. Congress did not intend to employ under the [mandatory sentencing] statute a sentencing scheme that is so completely at odds with the measured approach clearly required by the guidelines. Young I, 997 F.2d at 1210 (relying on United States v. Martinez, 987 F.2d 920, 925 (2d Cir.1993)). In a case such as this one, the guidelines make clear that any quantity of marijuana will ultimately be reduced to a weight for sentencing purposes. When the offense is one of growing or manufacturing marijuana plants, the sentence may be based on the number of plants involved, which is then converted into a weight pursuant to the equivalency provision. However, even in such an offense involving marijuana plants, U.S.S.G. Sec. 2D1.1(c) n., the number of plants on which the ultimate weight will be based must have been reasonably foreseeable to the defendant. This approach, as we made clear in Young I and Edwards, controls regardless of whether a statutory mandatory minimum applies or the Sentencing Guidelines apply. Because the government failed to demonstrate how many plants the defendant could have reasonably foreseen, the district court should have sentenced Mr. Young based on the weight for which it found him responsible in the first place, 700 pounds. See supra note 5 and accompanying text. 28 By virtue of our discussion, it is apparent that we also reject Mr. Young's argument that he be sentenced on the basis of a reverse application of the equivalency provision of U.S.S.G. Sec. 2D1.1(c) n.. Although in this case the end result is the same, our disagreement with Mr. Young stems from the nature of the equivalency provision. The provision allows a court to convert a given number of plants into a weight for sentencing purposes. It reflects Congress' judgment that an individual who grows 150 plants is just as culpable as one who has distributed 150 kilograms of marijuana. Haynes, 969 F.2d at 571. A court may thus use the equivalency provision to convert plants to kilograms. The table was not designed, however, to permit the conversion of kilograms to plants to kilograms. Here, although the government was entitled to cast its initial charge in terms of plants, it failed to meet its burden of showing the plants that Mr. Young could reasonably foresee. If no number of plants can be attributed as having been reasonably foreseeable by the defendant, then the defendant must be sentenced on the weight of the marijuana--regardless of the nature of the underlying marijuana conviction. In Mr. Young's case, that weight is 700 pounds, or approximately 320 kilograms. We therefore vacate the district court's sentence and remand the case for resentencing consistent with this opinion. 29