Opinion ID: 1362827
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Insufficient Indicia of Reliability for Alternative Ruling

Text: The district court provided an alternative basis for its sentencing decision. Even if the court had accepted Chase's theory that the 100 empty boxes of pseudoephedrine demonstrated the production of forty grams of methamphetamine, the district court explained that it would have multiplied those forty grams by eight to account for the number of months that he believed Chase had occupied the Twilight location. This calculation would have led to the same sentencing range that resulted from the Rienhardt method. This analysis was unreasonable. The court assumed that Chase cooked once per month, that he cooked 100 boxes of pseudoephedrine on each occasion, and that he did so for eight months. The record contains no reliable evidentiary basis for any of the pivotal assumptions in the drug quantity approximation. Rosacker, 314 F.3d at 429. The only evidence at all relevant to these assumptions was Chase's own testimony that he cooked the contents of the 100 boxes in small batches over a period of time. Under the accepted multiplier method of estimating drug quantity, a court first estimates a daily or weekly quantity, then estimates the period of time over which the activity occurred, and then calculates the total. Culps, 300 F.3d at 1077. But this is permissible only where there are sufficient indicia of reliability for each of the figures included in the equation. Id. [T]his method necessarily fails when any single variable cannot be ascertained by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. at 1082. We insist . . . that in establishing the facts, including approximations[] underlying a sentence, the district court utilize only evidence that possesses sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable accuracy. United States v. Garcia-Sanchez, 189 F.3d 1143, 1148 (9th Cir.1999) (quotation and internal punctuation omitted); see also id. at 1149 ([A] defendant [has a] due process right to ensure the reliability of information used at sentencing.). If given the choice between a more reliable method that may produce a significant underestimate and a different method that lacks a proper evidentiary basis, the court must choose the reliable method, even if a significant underestimate results. Kilby, 443 F.3d at 1142 n. 4. Where, as here, the record contains no evidence that permits the use of the multiplier method, it simply cannot be used. Culps, 300 F.3d at 1077. The court relied on evidence lacking sufficient indicia of reliability. The approximation of drug quantity and resulting sentence were therefore erroneous. [6]