Opinion ID: 4564550
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Collective Challenges

Text: Rice, Eatmon, and Kelly challenge the District Court’s drug-quantity attributions pursuant to the Guidelines’ relevantconduct provision.43 See U.S.S.G. §§ 1B1.3(a)(1)(B), 43 Villega also seeks to challenge his offense level on this ground, pointing out that the District Court did not rule on his 89 2D1.1(a). Our review is for clear error. United States v. Perez, 280 F.3d 318, 352 (3d Cir. 2002). “[W]e permit some degree of estimation in drug conspiracy cases because the government usually cannot seize and measure all the drugs that flow through a large drug distribution conspiracy.” United States v. Diaz, 951 F.3d 148, 159 (3d Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). Nevertheless, information used for sentencing “must have ‘sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable accuracy.’” United States v. Miele, 989 F.2d 659, 663 (3d Cir. 1993) (quoting U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3(a)). Rice’s PSR recommended a base offense level of 30, due to a drug-quantity attribution of 280-840 grams of crack. See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c)(5). The District Court adopted this recommendation based upon the findings of the jury. Although the jury’s findings were on a conspiracy-wide basis, the District Court could also, by a preponderance of the evidence, have incorporated those findings consistent with the relevant-conduct standard. See Collado, 975 F.2d at 995. objections regarding drug quantity, a dangerous-weapon enhancement, and relevant conduct for the RICO conspiracy. But there is good reason for that: Villega’s trial counsel and the Government agreed, and represented to the District Court at the sentencing hearing, that the baseline would be an offense level of 37, which, with a criminal history category of VI, resulted in a Guidelines range of 360 months to life imprisonment. Villega’s counsel thereafter raised no objections to the calculation, and the District Court applied no additional enhancements. The ultimate sentence was below the agreed-upon range. Contrary to Villega’s representations on appeal, it is clear that he waived any challenges to his offense level. See, e.g., United States v. Ward, 131 F.3d 335, 342-43 (3d Cir. 1997). 90 As remarked above, Rogers testified that in the conspiracy’s early years, he, Atkinson, Eatmon, and Rice all sold crack they received from Hernandez and Kelly. Rogers agreed that they were “essentially getting the same quantities or similar quantities,” App. 3544-45, and he estimated that in this time he received approximately 1 kilogram of crack from both Hernandez and Kelly. Further, in around 2006-2007, when those suppliers were imprisoned, Rogers said that he, Atkinson, Eatmon, Sistrunk, and Rice continued to sell drugs together, and that they mutually facilitated each other’s drug dealing. Rice does not dispute this testimony, and other evidence indicates his continued involvement in the conspiracy in the years thereafter. The District Court did not clearly err in its attribution. The same goes for Eatmon. He received a base offense level of 38, on an attribution of 28 kilograms or more of crack. Rogers testified that for about a year between 2006 and 2007, he would bring back from New York 500 to 1000 grams of crack “[e]very couple of days.” App. 3573. He agreed that he distributed, and that he saw Eatmon and others distribute, “many kilos of crack” over that time. App. 3575. Further, Darvin Allen testified that around that same time, for approximately one to two years, he received from Eatmon about 14 grams of crack a week. Eatmon indicates nothing in the record to doubt the reliability of this testimony. The attribution of 28 kilograms or more was not clear error. Finally, Kelly’s challenge fails on a similar basis. His base offense level, like Eatmon’s, was 38, thanks to an attribution of 28 kilograms or more of crack. Rogers testified that he received approximately 1 kilogram of crack from each of Hernandez, Cruz, and Kelly in the years after 2002, and, as just noted, he said that Atkinson, Eatmon, and Rice all received a similar amount from at least Hernandez and Kelly. There was also testimony from a high-level South Side supplier, who said 91 that in these years he moved 500 grams to 1 kilogram of crack a week, including deliveries to Cruz and Hernandez. Further, Rogers testified that by 2012, Kelly was present when he paid Hernandez for crack that had been fronted. This indicates Kelly’s continued active participation in the conspiracy. Finally, as mentioned above, there was evidence that Kelly continued to associate with Cruz and Hernandez, and supply crack even up to the time of the initial indictment in March 2014. Given this longitudinal evidence of Kelly’s twelve-year participation in the highest levels of the conspiracy, the indications of persistent drug-dealing activity, and the testimony regarding the amounts involved, we cannot say the District Court clearly erred in its attribution.
During his testimony regarding the early years of the conspiracy, Rogers said that he saw Hernandez and Kelly wearing bulletproof vests on multiple occasions at Maple and Duke Streets. Under the Guidelines, a defendant “convicted of a drug trafficking crime or a crime of violence” may be eligible for a two- or a four-level increase to his offense level based on the use of body armor in the commission of the offense. U.S.S.G. § 3B1.5(1). The two-level increase applies when “the offense involved the use of body armor.” U.S.S.G. § 3B1.5(2)(A). The four-level one applies if “the defendant used body armor during the commission of the offense, in preparation for the offense, or in an attempt to avoid apprehension for the offense.” U.S.S.G. § 3B1.5(2)(B). Kelly received the latter enhancement; Atkinson and Eatmon the former. Kelly asserts that Rogers’s testimony does not provide a sufficient nexus between the wearing of the body armor and the commission of the offense. The commentary to § 3B1.5 de- 92 fines “use” in part as “active employment in a manner to protect the person from gunfire.” U.S.S.G. § 3B1.5 cmt. n.1. Kelly was said to have worn body armor multiple times on Maple and Duke Streets—the eponymous location of the primary crew of drug traffickers on the South Side. Further, Rogers’s testimony was not an offhand remark; it came in the context of a description of the conspiracy’s early years, when Kelly and Hernandez began supplying crack to Rogers, Atkinson, Eatmon, and Rice. Kelly, Hernandez, and Cruz would be “standing there on Duke Street, so you would just buy the drugs from them and then go sell them on your own.” App. 3546. It was also when Kelly and Hernandez helped to introduce guns to the South Side, and the South Side-Parkway rivalry escalated from fistfights to gunfights. There is, therefore, a spatial and temporal nexus between Kelly’s use of the body armor and the commission of the conspiracy offense. Application of the four-level enhancement was not clear error. This same evidence supports the application § 3B1.5(2)(A) to Atkinson and Eatmon. We apply to the Guidelines the ordinary principles of statutory interpretation. See, e.g., United States v. James, 952 F.3d 429, 433, 439 (3d Cir. 2020). The provisions here are notably different: while the four-level enhancement concerns the actions of the defendant, the two-level one concerns the nature of the offense. The latter—which encompasses “the offense of conviction and all relevant conduct,” U.S.S.G. § 3B1.5 cmt. n.1 (citing U.S.S.G. § 1B1.1 cmt. n.1(I))—need only “involve[]” the use of body armor. According to Rogers’s testimony, Kelly and Hernandez’s use of the body armor occurred at the time Atkinson and Eatmon were being supplied by them. Eatmon protests he had not joined the conspiracy by this point, but he presents no evidence to question the District Court’s judgment. 93
Seven Defendants—Cruz, Hernandez, Villega, Kelly, Schueg, Atkinson, Sistrunk, and Eatmon—challenge the District Court’s assessment of a fine to reimburse the City of York for the overtime wages paid to York police officers who testified at trial. The Government concedes the issue. We will, therefore, vacate this aspect of the challengers’ judgments of sentence. VII. CONCLUSION For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the Defendants’ judgments of conviction, and the judgments of sentence of Williams and Rice. We will vacate Hernandez’s judgment of sentence in full, and Schueg’s judgment of sentence as to the assessment of restitution, fines, and costs. We will remand those two cases for resentencing proceedings consistent with this opinion. We will also vacate the judgments of sentence of Cruz, Villega, Kelly, Atkinson, Sistrunk, and Eatmon as to the police overtime costs. 94