Opinion ID: 765997
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Drug Type and Quantity

Text: 101 At sentencing, the District Court attributed twenty-seven kilograms of powder cocaine and nine ounces of crack to Brown. Relying on Collado, 975 F.2d at 995, Brown contends that his involvement with the conspiracy, if any, was limited to interactions with Gibbs, and that the District Court therefore should not have attributed to him amounts of drugs that were part of other transactions of the conspiracy. We review for clear error the District Court's findings of fact regarding the relevant quantities of cocaine and crack attributable to Brown, as well as the types of drugs at issue. See Miele, 989 F.2d at 663; Roman, 121 F.3d at 140. 102 Brown is correct that, under the Guidelines, a court may not sentence a defendant for the entire amount of drugs in a conspiracy merely because the defendant has been found guilty of the crime of conspiracy. The sentencing court can consider relevant conduct, including the conduct of others that was both in furtherance of, and reasonably foreseeable in connection with, the criminal activity jointly undertaken by the defendant. Price, 13 F.3d at 732. However, courts often have held enforcers for drug conspiracies responsible for the amount of drugs that pass through the conspiracy during the time the person acts as an enforcer. For the most part, courts have based their holdings on the ground that the role of enforcer implies a strong familiarity with the goings-on of the entire conspiracy. See, e.g., United States v. Cortinas, 142 F.3d 242, 250 (5th Cir. 1998) (holding enforcer responsible for all of the drugs handled by the conspiracy during the twenty months he was part of the conspiracy); United States v. Phillips, 37 F.3d 1210, 1214 (7th Cir. 1994) (affirming district court's finding that the defendant, who carried guns and enforced for the conspiracy, had an intimate relationship with the operation and could be held responsible for all the drugs handled by the conspiracy). 103 We think these decisions are correct. In our view, the role of enforcer is often central to the viability of the drug conspiracy, which perforce exists in a dangerous environment, and thus an enforcer who has engaged in more than peripheral enforcement activities ought to be chargeable for any drugs passing through the conspiracy during his enforcership--at least for those deals made within the geographic region in which he operated. We recognize that, just as there are different paradigms of conspiracies, there may be different types of enforcers in a conspiracy. Some enforcers may be close to the center of the conspiracy, while others may work on the periphery. One enforcer may enforce during the entire life of the conspiracy; another may perform one task for the conspiracy and then go his own way. One must therefore be careful to consider the scope of the putative enforcer's role. In this conspiracy, however, during the limited time in question, there was only one leader: Gibbs. As we discuss below, the government proved that Brown served directly as an enforcer for Gibbs, who was widely known to be a major drug dealer, and that Brown's job was to protect Gibbs by hurting or killing someone who Gibbs perceived as a threat, thus facilitating Gibbs's ability to deal drugs. We are therefore comfortable in denominating Brown an enforcer for the conspiracy throughout the time in which Brown worked for Gibbs. 104 We also acknowledge the danger of attributing to an enforcer the entire quantity of drugs that pass through a conspiracy when that enforcer has acted for only a short period time relative to the conspiracy's total length. Here, Brown was involved in the conspiracy for about a month as the enforcer for the head of the conspiracy, and the amount attributed to him at sentencing reflected only the amount of drugs that passed through the conspiracy during that month. We have thus avoided the referenced danger. 105 In sum, in light of the number of conversations between Brown and Gibbs and the District Court's specific finding that Brown was an enforcer for a major drug dealer, we do not think it was clearly erroneous for the District Court to conclude that Brown was sufficiently involved with the conspiracy, as a protector of the leader of a large trafficking organization, so as to be charged with the twenty-seven kilograms of powder cocaine and nine ounces of crack that passed through the conspiracy during the time he served as an enforcer. 17