Opinion ID: 166964
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sufficiency of the Evidence: Drug Quantities

Text: 37 The Atencios also challenge the sufficiency of the evidence, under either set of jury instructions, that their conspiracy involved 30,000 kilograms of marijuana or 150 kilograms of cocaine. We review the record for sufficiency of the evidence de novo, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, and determine whether a reasonable jury could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Hamilton, 413 F.3d 1138, 1143 (10th Cir.2005). In doing so, we neither weigh conflicting evidence nor consider the credibility of witnesses. United States v. Darrell, 828 F.2d 644, 647 (10th Cir.1987). The jury may draw reasonable inferences from direct or circumstantial evidence, but may not convict based on mere speculation or conjecture. United States v. Jones, 44 F.3d 860, 865 (10th Cir.1995). We therefore uphold convictions based on inferences that flow[ ] from logical and probabilistic reasoning. Id. 38 In United States v. Arras, 373 F.3d 1071, 1074-75 (10th Cir.2004), the jury returned a verdict of guilty despite the fact that the government had presented no direct evidence that the defendant had transported more than 100 kilograms of marijuana, as required by the relevant statute. This Court upheld the conviction, holding that the jury's inferences of total drug quantities clearly flowed from logical and probabilistic reasoning, based on several factors: the amount of marijuana actually seized from the defendant when she was captured, the number of previous trips she had taken, and expert testimony comparing the amount she was paid for each trip with the going rate for marijuana. See id. Other circuits, applying the slightly less demanding clearly erroneous standard of review, have upheld findings of total drug quantities based on reasonable extrapolations from drug ledgers representing a brief period. See United States v. Young, 39 F.3d 1561, 1572 (11th Cir.1994) (upholding the district court's finding that a conspiracy lasting four years involved more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana, based on drug ledgers that recorded 130 kilograms of sales over a two-month period); United States v. Cagle, 922 F.2d 404, 406-07 (7th Cir.1991) (upholding the district court's finding that a conspiracy involved 3 kilograms of cocaine, based on an expert's extrapolations from a drug ledger listing definite quantities less than that amount). On the other hand, the Eleventh Circuit in United States v. Butler, 41 F.3d 1435, 1444-45, 1447 (11th Cir. 1995), rejected as clearly erroneous an extrapolation, based on quantities of cocaine from a single four-hour period on a payday Friday afternoon videotaped by police, over the 60 to 91 days that the conspiracy lasted, noting that there was no evidence that the four-hour period was a typical or average day or was in any ... way a valid indicator of drug activities on other days. Similarly, the Second Circuit in United States v. Shonubi, 998 F.2d 84, 89-90 (2d Cir.1993), rejected the district court's calculation of the total drug quantity by simply multiplying the amount of heroin found on the defendant when he was arrested by his total number of trips to Nigeria, because the government had failed to provide specific evidence of the total amount of heroin— such as drug records, live testimony, or a conservative estimate of [the] drug sales period and heroin seized— and instead engaged in mere surmise and conjecture. 39 Absent some extrapolation by the finder of fact, the evidence of drug quantities in this case was insufficient to support a jury verdict that the conspiracy involved 30,000 kilograms of marijuana or 150 kilograms of cocaine. The testimony at trial indicated first-hand knowledge of only 15,133 pounds (roughly 6,864 kilograms) of marijuana: 10,000 pounds transported by Ms. Quesada, 893 pounds transported by Mr. Duran, 3,500 pounds transported by Ms. Ramirez, 540 pounds observed by Mr. Gambino Madrid, and 200 pounds observed by Mr. Palma. [ See supra Facts section] The same testimony indicated first-hand knowledge of no more than 45 kilograms of cocaine: 4 or 5 kilograms transported by Ms. Quesada and 35 or 40 kilograms observed by Mr. Palma. 40 The jury nonetheless had sufficient evidence to find the required drug quantities, based on the drug ledgers and reasonable extrapolations from the ledgers and other testimony presented by the government. Agent Medina's method of extrapolation was analytically comparable to the reasoning upheld in Arras: it was based on drug quantities actually seized, the number of trips described by witnesses, and expert analysis of documents whose contents appear, based on the going rate for marijuana and cocaine, to reflect drug transactions. His conclusions did not represent mere speculation or conjecture, as witnesses at trial strongly corroborated the scope of the Atencios' conspiracy, testifying that they knew of at least seven other individuals who worked as drug transporters. [ See supra, Facts section] Viewing the record in the light most favorable to the government, we hold that the jury could have reasonably inferred, based on logical and probabilistic reasoning, that the charged conspiracy involved at least 30,000 kilograms of marijuana or 150 kilograms of cocaine. 41 The Atencios challenge Agent Medina's calculations, arguing that he made various auditing errors that resulted in a 17% overstatement of the quantities reflected in the marijuana ledgers. The largest single error, however, was simply a typo referring to the wrong trial exhibit. To the extent the other purported errors turn on factual disagreements about what the ledgers represent— for example, whether certain pairs of entries double-count the same drugs, coming in and going out—the defense raised that concern on cross-examination, and we are reluctant to substitute our own judgment for that of the jury. Regardless, even accepting all of the Atencios' criticisms at face value, a 17% reduction in Agent Medina's conservative estimate of 40,239 kilograms of marijuana would still yield 33,398 kilograms of marijuana, which is more than the 30,000 required to trigger a mandatory life sentence. Further, the Atencios apparently concede the accuracy of the cocaine ledger, which by itself documents 291 kilograms of cocaine trafficking, more than the 150 kilograms required to convict. 42 Alternatively, the Atencios challenge Agent Medina's extrapolations, making the extravagant claim that [t]he situation at bar in this case is exactly the same as the problem in United States v. Butler.  Aplt. Br. 33. In fact, the cases differ in several obvious ways. First, the cocaine ledger in this case captures nine months of transactions, as opposed to the mere four hours captured on videotape in Butler. The longer the period for which hard data are available, the more reliable any extrapolations over the length of the conspiracy. Second, the ratio between the cocaine ledger period and the duration of the conspiracy in this case is more than 1:6, an order of magnitude better than the 1:60 or 1:90 ratio at issue in Butler, suggesting a more reasonable inference on the part of the expert witness and the jury. Third, in Butler the court had good reason to believe that the Friday captured on videotape was a payday, and thus not a reliable indicator of activities on a typical day. See Butler, 41 F.3d at 1447. In contrast, the Atencios provided no evidence at trial, and have offered no reason on appeal, that the nine months of cocaine transactions documented in the ledger were not representative of their usual cocaine trafficking activities. The Atencios' reliance on Shonubi is also unpersuasive because in this case, the government has provided precisely the kind of evidence it lacked in Shonubi: drug records, live testimony to corroborate the quantities, and estimates of the total quantities based on the drug sales period. See Shonubi, 998 F.2d at 89. 43 At bottom, the Atencios object to the act of extrapolation itself, asking this Court to hold that, as a matter of law, drug ledgers reflecting transactions during a portion of a conspiracy cannot serve as a sufficient basis for projections of drug quantities for the entire conspiracy. We decline to adopt such a rule, and find sufficient evidence in this case from which a reasonable jury, relying on logical and probabilistic reasoning, could infer the required drug quantities. 44