Opinion ID: 699594
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Chapman and the Mandatory Minimum Statute

Text: 32 My analysis begins with the initial and undisputed premise that when a statute and a guideline conflict, the statute controls. 8 See, e.g., USSG Sec. 5G1.1(b) (Where a statutorily required minimum sentence is greater than the maximum of the applicable guideline range, the statutorily required minimum sentence shall be the guideline sentence.) Since the Guidelines cannot trump a statute, the inquiry can begin and end with the mandatory minimum statute and its interpretation in Chapman. The issue is not whether the Sentencing Commission intended its approach to over-ride the mandatory minimum statute--it clearly cannot--but whether the mandatory minimum statute, as interpreted in Chapman, prohibits the guideline approach. It clearly does not. 33 At the time of the Chapman decision, neither the mandatory minimum statute nor the Guidelines defined mixture. The Supreme Court therefore resorted to the dictionary definition of the term. 9 Chapman, 500 U.S. at 462, 111 S.Ct. at 1925-26. The Supreme Court said a mixture is defined to include: 34 a portion of matter consisting of two or more components that do not bear a fixed proportion to one another and that however thoroughly commingled are regarded as retaining a separate existence. A mixture may also consist of two substances blended together so that the particles of one are diffused among the particles of the other. 35 Id. (citations omitted) (quoting Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 1449 (1986)). 36 Thus, the Supreme Court's definition of mixture depends on the LSD being commingled with its carrier medium (most commonly paper or sugar cubes) and blended together so that the particles of one are diffused among the particles of the other. Id. The Court dispensed with the nonsense of including the weight of a glass jar containing the LSD or a car in which it is transported. Id. at 462-63, 111 S.Ct. at 1925-26. There, [t]he drug is clearly not mixed with a glass vial or automobile; nor has the drug chemically bonded with the vial or car. Id. at 463, 111 S.Ct. at 1926. 37 Under this definition, only the part of the carrier medium into which the pure drug is commingled, blended or diffused constitutes the mixture. Thus, weighing the entire mixture does not dictate weighing the entire carrier medium. For example, if a drop of LSD were deposited onto one corner of a sheet of paper, the opposite corner would not contain any particles of the pure drug, so would not be part of the mixture. The Supreme Court said only that, to satisfy the market-based approach adopted by the Guidelines, some of the carrier, i.e., the mixture, must be weighed. Id. at 459, 461, 468, 111 S.Ct. at 1924, 1925, 1929. 38 By rejecting the nonsense of weighing packaging materials (such as the vial) and by acknowledging that hypothetical cases can be imagined involving very heavy carriers and very little LSD, the Supreme Court implied that there is a point at which a line must be drawn. Id. at 463, 466, 111 S.Ct. at 1926, 1928. It remains the function of a sentencing judge (aided by the Guidelines) to draw that line and make a factual determination on drug quantity. United States v. Olderbak, 961 F.2d 756, 763 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 422, 121 L.Ed.2d 344 (1992). Inherent in that function is the duty to determine what combination of pure drug and carrier medium constitutes a mixture. 10 39 What Amendment 488 actually does is establish a standard uniform amount of carrier that judges can attribute as mixed with the drug. Sentencing judges are entitled to rely on the expertise of the Sentencing Commission in setting such a uniform weight in much the same way that they rely on other determinations made by the Commission such as the Typical Average Weight Per Unit (Dose, Pill, or Capsule) Table. USSG Sec. 2D1.1, comment. (n.11). Thus, the assignment of a uniform and rational weight to LSD on a carrier medium which is eight times the weight of the pure drug involved does not conflict with Chapman. United States v. Muschik, 49 F.3d 512, 516-17 (9th Cir.1995). The formula set forth in Amendment 488 merely standardizes the amount of carrier medium that can be properly viewed as mixed with the drug. Id. at 516, see also Neal, 46 F.3d at 1411-16 (en banc) (J. Ripple, dissenting) (Amendment 488 is consistent with the mandatory statute).