Opinion ID: 4510144
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The District Court’s Attribution of More than

Text: 20 Grams of Heroin Diaz last challenges the District Court’s attribution of 30 grams of heroin to him at sentencing, which caused the Court to increase the base offense level from 14 to 16. The base offense level of 16 applies when a defendant is responsible for at least 20 grams but less than 40 grams of heroin. U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c)(12). Therefore, as long as the evidence demonstrated Diaz’s responsibility for the minimum 20 grams of heroin required for base offense level 16, any error in the Court’s determination that he was responsible for 30 grams did not affect the base offense level or the resulting Guidelines range. A sentencing court must determine by a preponderance of the evidence that a defendant was responsible for a particular weight of a substance before attributing that amount to the defendant. United States v. Collado, 975 F.2d 985, 998 (3d Cir. 1992). District courts may not calculate quantity based on “mere speculation.” Id. However, we 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.” Id.; United States v. Paulino, 996 F.2d 1541, 1545 (3d Cir. 1993). If a district court makes an error in its drug quantity determination that does not affect the base offense level or Guidelines range, the error is harmless. United States v. Woodside, 895 F.3d 894, 901 (6th Cir. 2018) (finding any error harmless where, absent alleged error, defendant “would still have been sentenced according to the same base-offense level under any conceivable estimate”); United States v. Alaniz, 726 18 F.3d 586, 621 (5th Cir. 2013) (finding any error harmless where, absent alleged error, the undisputed drug quantity was “sufficient to surpass the . . . threshold for the maximum Base Offense Level”); see also United States v. Sykes, 854 F.3d 457, 462 (8th Cir. 2017) (noting that, where a change in base offense level would not alter the applicable Guidelines range, any error in drug quantity calculation would be harmless). Any error in attributing 30 grams of heroin to Diaz would therefore be harmless, so long as the evidence supported a finding of at least 20 grams. We review the District Court’s factual determination that Diaz was responsible for at least 20 grams of heroin for clear error. See United States v. Metro, 882 F.3d 431, 437 (3d Cir. 2018). When a district court improperly bases a sentence on clearly erroneous facts, such a procedural error requires reversal. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). We find a sentencing court’s factual findings clearly erroneous if they are “unsupported by substantial evidence, lack adequate evidentiary support in the record, are against the clear weight of the evidence or where the district court has misapprehended the weight of the evidence.” United States v. Johnson, 302 F.3d 139, 153 (3d Cir. 2002). Diaz argues that the Court clearly erred in concluding that Diaz was responsible for 20 or more grams of heroin. We disagree. The Court had ample basis for determining that Diaz was responsible for at least 20 grams of heroin. Guzman testified that Diaz “used to bag up” heroin for him. App. at 327. When asked how much he would “normally pay” Diaz, Guzman responded that he “paid him a hundred dollars each 10 bricks he did. So a brick is 50 bags. So each 50 times 10, 500.” Id. This testimony indicates that payment of $100 in 19 exchange for bagging 500 bags of heroin—approximately 15 grams—constituted a normal transaction for Diaz’s services. The parties agree that at least one such transaction occurred. Guzman testified that a text message in which Diaz said he needed “a hundred” meant that Diaz wanted to “bag up” in exchange for $100 and remarked, “that is what I paid him for the drugs he bagged up.” App. at 334–35. Based on this evidence, Diaz undisputedly bears responsibility for bagging at least 500 bags, or 15 grams, of heroin. But Diaz bagged for Guzman more than once. Alvarez testified that she twice saw Diaz bagging for Guzman, and Guzman testified that he gave Diaz heroin twice. Although only the text message noted above specifically referenced $100, demonstrating a quantity of 500 bags, the evidence indicated that Guzman “normally” paid Diaz $100 for every 500 bags, allowing the inference that a similar exchange of $100 for 500 bags would have occurred on the second occasion. App. at 327. Two like exchanges would have resulted in a total of 30 grams from Diaz bagging 1,000 bags of heroin. If, instead, Diaz bagged only half the amount of heroin—250 bags—the second time, that would still have added 7.5 grams, bringing the total to 22.5 grams. Even assuming Diaz bagged less than half the normal amount of heroin on the second occasion, however, additional evidence supported the conclusion that Diaz bore responsibility for more than 20 grams of heroin. Numerous text messages and calls showed that, beyond the two occasions noted above, Diaz repeatedly worked for or sought work from Guzman. Guzman testified that Diaz sought to bag or distribute heroin at “the barbershop”—where the evidence established members of the conspiracy frequently 20 distributed heroin—in at least one text message and one subsequent call discussed at trial. App. at 333–34, 471–74. In a third communication to Guzman, Diaz texted about the size of bags, and Guzman testified that the message concerned the bags Diaz used while bagging for Guzman. At least five other text messages further supported the inference that, on the dates of those messages, Diaz was completing work or seeking work in furtherance of the conspiracy. Even if each of these incidents involved only one brick—one-tenth of the amount of work for which Diaz was “normally” paid—the total for which Diaz was responsible would exceed 20 grams of heroin. The District Court did not clearly err in attributing at least 20 grams of heroin to Diaz, and to the extent any error occurred in attributing 30 grams specifically, such error was harmless.