Opinion ID: 6931638
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: ürug quantities

Text: Avalos, Pedraza, Guadalupe Ber-mea, and Baldemar Bermea contend that the district court erred in calculating the drug quantities attributable to them under the sentencing guidelines. The amount of drugs for which an individual shall be held accountable represents a factual finding that must be upheld unless clearly erroneous. United States v. Maseratti, 1 F.3d 330, 340 (5th Cir.1993), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 1096, 127 L.Ed.2d 409, and cert. denied, — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 1552, 128 L.Ed.2d 201 (1994). A finding of fact is clearly erroneous when, although there is enough evidence to support it, the reviewing court is left with a firm and definite conviction that a mistake has been committed. United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 542, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1948). If the district court’s account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, the court of appeals may not reverse it even though convinced that, had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently. Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573-74, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511-12, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985). Drug conspirators are accountable not only for the quantities of drugs they actually possessed but also for the foreseeable acts of their coconspirators committed in furtherance of the conspiracy. United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual, § lB1.3(a)(l) (Nov. 1991). 5
The sum and substance of the argument made by these two appellants (who share the same counsel on appeal) is as follows: “The Court erred in not granting defendant’s objections to the Presentence Investigation Report and finding that the amount was 3,800 pounds of marihuana instead of 1,800 pounds as shown by the testimony.” The presen-tence investigation reports (PSRs) prepared for Avalos and Pedraza contained the following paragraph: According to the [confidential informant], he learned by conversing with Pepe Villarreal and others, that Manuel Garcia had previously transported two or three other marihuana loads for Honorio Garza. These loads, which were transported within the timespan of the conspiracy cited in Count 1, involved approximately 1,000 pounds of marihuana per load. The defendants who participated in the delivery of the 1,800-pound marihuana load also took part in the transportation of the aforementioned loads. Later, another [confidential informant] corroborated the information concerning the previous loads. Thus, the PSR recommended a base offense level for both Avalos and Pedraza of thirty-two, based on a drug quantity of 3800 pounds (roughly 1720 kilograms) of marihuana. The district court adopted the drug quantities recommended in the PSRs, but it granted both Avalos and Pedraza a two-level reduction for minor participation in the conspiracy against the recommendations of the PSRs. The trial testimony was clearly sufficient to support a finding that 1800 pounds of marijuana should be attributed to Avalos and Pedraza based on the July 1988 shipment of marihuana to Shorty Pedraza’s residence in Giddings. The question is whether the district court clearly erred in “tacking on” an additional 2000 pounds of marijuana based on alleged prior shipments. We recall that a PSR generally bears sufficient indicia of reliability to be considered by the trial court as evidence in making the factual determinations required by the sentencing guidelines. United States v. Gracia, 983 F.2d 625, 629 (5th Cir.1993); United States v. Robins, 978 F.2d 881, 889 (5th Cir.1992). As we noted in the recitation of facts, Part I.A.1 supra, Gomez testified that Garcia used Gomez’s ranch as a loading site ten or twelve times between January and August 1988. Gomez clearly testified that Avalos was present on several of those occasions and that Avalos was Garcia’s “next in command.” Given the fact that the secret compartment used to hold the marijuana was capable of holding at least 1800 pounds of the drug, we conclude that the district court did not clearly err in assigning Avalos 3800 pounds of marijuana for sentencing purposes. The evidence connecting Pedraza with the earlier shipments is more tenuous but still sufficient. Gonzalez testified that he met Pedraza at Garcia’s ranch in “early ’88”; he further testified that Pedraza told him on one occasion that he was the owner of the truck used to transport the marijuana and that Garcia was paying him in installments for the truck. Avalos and Garcia also told Gonzalez that the truck was registered in Pedraza’s name, and Pedraza told Gonzalez that Garcia paid him $25 per pound of marijuana to arrange for storage at Shorty Pedraza’s residence. Gomez testified that the truck was actually registered under Pedraza’s wife’s name and that he saw Pedraza at Shorty Pedraza’s residence “a couple of times.” Taken as a whole, the evidence prevents us from concluding that the district court committed clear error as to the drug quantities ascribed to Avalos and Pedraza.
The PSRs prepared for Guadalupe and Baldemar Bermea recommended a finding that 5496 pounds (roughly 2490 kilograms) of marijuana were attributable to each for sentencing purposes. Such a finding results in a base offense level of thirty-two. The district court accepted this quantity calculation but gave both Guadalupe and Baldemar Bermea a two-level reduction for minor participation. The Bermeas contend that the evidence supporting this quantity calculation was insufficiently rehable to be relied upon by the district court at sentencing. They also contend that the court erred by attributing to each of them the entire amount of drugs involved in the second conspiracy rather than the amount of drugs each agreed to conspire to possess with intent to distribute. At sentencing, the district court “may consider relevant information without regard to its admissibility under the rules of evidence applicable at trial, provided that the information has sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable accuracy.” U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3(a). Reasonable reliability is all that is required by § 6A1.3(a). United States v. Rogers, 1 F.3d 341, 344 (5th Cir.1993). Guadalupe and Baldemar Bermea do not explain why the information relied upon by the district court and the probation officer who prepared the PSRs was unreliable. Law enforcement agents confirmed some 2400 pounds of the 5496-pound total because they seized 2400 pounds of marijuana from the trucks driven by Gonzalez and Solis. The remaining 3000 pounds was based on an interview conducted with Solis after his arrest, in which he told a DEA agent that he had made three successful shipments of over 1000 pounds each before he was arrested during the fourth shipment. This was not far afield from Solis’s testimony at trial, which indicated that one load was actually about 950 pounds, another was about 1300 pounds, and the third was at least 1000 pounds based on the amount Solis was paid by Rogelio Ber-mea. This information satisfies the low threshold of reliability established by § 6A1.3(a). Indeed, that section permits consideration of out-of-court declarations by an unidentified informant if there is good cause for the nondisclosure of the informant’s identity and there is sufficient corroboration of the information by other means. U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3 comment. The Bermeas’ complaint is without merit. The Bermeas’ other argument is based on amendments to § 1B1.3 and its commentary that took effect on November 1, 1992, after their sentencing. Although the revised guidelines are not applicable to defendants sentenced prior to that date, we have nevertheless referred to them for guidance in cases such as the one at bar because they were intended only to clarify what the guidelines already provided. Maseratti, 1 F.3d at 340. The Bermeas particularly rely on illustration (e)(7) to the new § 1B1.3: Defendant R recruits Defendant S to distribute 500 grams of cocaine. Defendant S knows that R is the prime figure in a conspiracy involved in importing much larger quantities of cocaine. As long as Defendant S’s agreement and conduct is limited to the distribution of the 500 grams, Defendant S is accountable only for that 500 gram amount (under subsection (a)(1)(A)), rather than the much larger quantity imported by Defendant R. U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3 comment, (illus. (c)(7)) (Nov. 1992). The government responds that the Ber-meas’ argument is without merit because both Baldemar and Guadalupe Bermea were direct participants in the entire marihuana trafficking conspiracy. Both were implicated in the shipment driven by Gonzalez, and both were substantially implicated by Solis as active participants in the conspiracy throughout Solis’s tenure as a driver for the Bermeas. Guadalupe and Baldemar Bermea do not provide us with sufficient basis in the record to reverse the district court’s findings that both men were accountable for all the drugs possessed during the course of the conspiracy. See U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3 comment, n. 2 (Nov. 1992) (“With respect to offenses involving contraband (including controlled substances), the defendant is accountable for ... all reasonably foreseeable quantities of contraband that were within the scope of the criminal activity that he jointly undertook.”).