Opinion ID: 998603
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Clay

Text: Clay was first charged with conspiracy and six substantive crack and cocaine offenses in a February 1997 indictment (the Hammack conspiracy). Clay pled guilty in September 1997 to all seven counts under a plea agreement which provided that the government would consider moving for a substantial assistance departure if Clay's information led to the prosecution of others. Clay received a substantial assistance departure in the Hammack case and was sentenced to 40 months imprisonment. Clay was subsequently charged with conspiracy and use of a firearm in a drug trafficking crime in a second indictment involving different co-defendants (the Traynham conspiracy). The basis for the § 924(c) charge was that Clay traded two guns she had stolen from her father to conspirator Phillip Parker for crack in January 1997 (within the time frame of the Hammack conspiracy). The same day, 3 Parker sold one of the guns to an undercover officer. Clay pled guilty to the § 924(c) count in June 1998. At sentencing, she maintained that her substantial assistance in the Hammack case should be considered and that the court should depart downward by making her mandatory five-year consecutive sentence for the § 924(c) conviction concurrent with the sentence imposed in the prior case. The district court decided that it had no authority to depart based on the substantial assistance motion made at Clay's prior sentencing. Clay now contends that the government breached her first plea agreement by charging her with the § 924(c) offense and failing to request a substantial assistance departure. We find that the government did not breach the first plea agreement and that the district court had no authority to depart on the arguments advanced at sentencing. Accordingly, we affirm both sentences. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process. AFFIRMED 4