Opinion ID: 732424
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Is There Specific Evidence of a Relevant Conduct Drug Quantity?

Text: Though disapproving of our requirement that the relevant conduct quantity of drugs be based on specific evidence, see Shonubi III, 895 F.Supp. at 475-79, the District Court endeavored to apply this requirement. Judge Weinstein acknowledged that we had required specific evidence such as drug records, admissions, or live testimony, and identified evidence that he believed met our standard. Id. at 524. For records he cited a combination of drug records (including DEA and Customs Service records) and the records of Shonubi's trial, sentencing hearing, and presentence report. Id. For admissions he cited Shonubi's admissions at the time of his arrest. Id. For live testimony he cited the statistical analysis introduced on remand as well as testimony on the economics of heroin swallowing. Id. The Judge said he also relied on Shonubi's demeanor at trial and sentencing and the Judge's own acquired knowledge of the drug trade. Id. These items of evidence are not specific evidence of drug quantities carried by Shonubi on his prior seven trips. We required specific evidence of what Shonubi had done. The DEA records informed Judge Weinstein of what 117 other balloon swallowers from Nigeria had done during the same time period as Shonubi's eight trips. Those records of other defendants' crimes arguably provided some basis for an estimate of the quantities that were carried by Shonubi on his seven prior trips, but they are not specific evidence of the quantities he carried. The defendant's distinguished expert on statistics, Michael O. Finkelstein, Esq., correctly informed the District Court that  'statistics relating to others would not usually be characterized as specific evidence relating to Shonubi.'  Id. at 505 (quoting Finkelstein affidavit at 3). The experts on the Court's Rule 706 panel rendered the same advice. Id. at 510 (citing Rule 706 Panel report at 45). Though the records of Shonubi's trial, sentencing hearing, and presentence report, relate specifically to Shonubi, they do not provide specific evidence of the quantities carried on his prior seven trips, any more than they did when these records were before us on the prior appeal. Shonubi's admissions likewise are specific as to him, but contain no specific evidence of the quantities carried on his prior trips. The statistical and economic analyses relate to drug trafficking generally and not to Shonubi specifically. 3 The demeanor evidence relates to Shonubi specifically, but, with all respect to the experienced District Judge's ability to gauge character from a defendant's demeanor, his conclusions about the defendant's extremely low level of risk aversion and an overconfidence in his own powers, id. at 489, are not based on specific evidence of the quantities carried on the prior seven trips. Though we conclude that the extrapolation analyses relied on by the District Court do not yield the specific evidence that our remand required for determination of the relevant conduct quantities carried by Shonubi on his seven prior trips, we are obliged to reckon with the District Court's point that such extrapolation is defensible because it was accepted for use to estimate the quantity carried by Shonubi on his eighth trip. See id. at 470. As Judge Weinstein pointed out, a forensic chemist had selected at random four of the 103 balloons passed by Shonubi after his arrest, determined the average weight of the heroin contained in these four balloons, and then multiplied that average weight by 103 to conclude that the weight of the heroin contained in all 103 balloons was 427.4 grams. This approach rested on the assumption that the four balloons selected were representative of the entire 103 balloons, an assumption that, in turn, rested on subsidiary assumptions that each of the 103 balloons contained heroin, that the average quantity of heroin in each of the four balloons selected was the same as the average quantity in all of the 103 balloons, and that the average purity of the heroin in the four balloons selected was the same as the purity of the heroin in all of the 103 balloons because all the heroin came from the same batch of heroin. The short answer to the District Court's attempt to justify extrapolation to estimate the quantity carried on the seven prior trips because that technique was used to estimate the quantity carried on the eighth trip is that this Court accepted the estimate used for the eighth trip, in the absence of any objection by the appellant, but did not accept an estimate of the quantity for the seven trips, once the appellant specifically raised the issue on the prior appeal. The further answer is that the seeming inconsistency fails to take account of the different purposes for which the two estimates were made. The estimate of the quantity carried on the eighth trip was made to determine the quantity for the counts on which Shonubi was convicted. The estimate for the prior trips was used to punish Shonubi for conduct of which he had not even been charged, much less convicted. The distinction warrants caution in the use of estimates. Furthermore, the extrapolation as to the eighth trip was based on evidence of what Shonubi had done; the extrapolation for the prior seven trips was based on what 117 other people had done. 4