Opinion ID: 196984
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sentencing Challenge: Relevant Conduct

Text: 35 Rivera-DeCelis also challenges his sentence on the ground that the drug quantity attributed to him was incorrectly inflated and did not reflect his limited participation in the conspiracy. The error is based, the appellant argues, on the district court's failure to make individualized findings. The government disagrees, stating that the sentencing court's findings were sufficiently precise and based solidly on the evidence presented. 36 We review the district judge's quantity determinations at sentencing for clear error. United States v. Jimenez Martnez, 83 F.3d 488, 492 (1st Cir.1996); 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e). 37 The appellant's argument is wholly without merit. 38 Under U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3, where a defendant engaged in jointly undertaken criminal activity, he or she may be sentenced for his or her own acts and all reasonably foreseeable acts and omissions of others in furtherance of [that] ... activity. U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(B) & comment n. 1. In the context of drug trafficking offenses, where sentences are driven largely by the amount of drugs for which a defendant is held accountable, the base offense level of a co-conspirator ... should reflect only the quantity of drugs he reasonably foresees is the object of the conspiracy to distribute after he joins the conspiracy. United States v. O'Campo, 973 F.2d 1015, 1026 (1st Cir.1992); see also United States v. Campbell, 61 F.3d 976, 982 (1st Cir.1995), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 1556, 134 L.Ed.2d 657 (1996); U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c) (drug quantity table). 39 It is well settled that defendants in a drug conspiracy are not only responsible for drug quantities which they themselves sold, transported or negotiated; they are also responsible for drug amounts which, from their particular vantage points in the conspiracy, it was reasonably foreseeable would be involved, and which were in fact involved, in the offense. See, e.g., United States v. Lombard, 72 F.3d 170, 176 (1st Cir.1995); United States v. Carrozza, 4 F.3d 70, 80 (1st Cir.1993), cert. denied, 511 U.S. 1069, 114 S.Ct. 1644, 128 L.Ed.2d 365 (1994); U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3 & commentary. It is the project of the sentencing court to determine what a particular defendant could reasonably have foreseen. Carrozza, 4 F.3d at 76. 40 In this case, the sentencing judge carried out this responsibility without error. 41 It is undisputed that Rivera-DeCelis pled guilty to engaging in jointly undertaken criminal activity triggering the application of section 1B1.3(a)(1)(B). At his plea hearing, Rivera-DeCelis accepted the factual recitation of the indictment, indicating an involvement in the conspiracy from January 1993 through March of 1994. He also acknowledged knowing of trafficking in crack cocaine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana over that period of time. His plea, indeed, situated him in the center of the conspiracy's activities, aware of its use of firearms as well as the extent of the drug dealing. 42 The district judge was not persuaded by defense counsel's explanation that he had urged his client to accept the plea because he was unsure he could confirm the circumscribed scope of the defendant's involvement. 13 The defendant did little else to confirm that his vantage point was so distant from the main activity and he stood in that place for such a fleeting moment that he could not reasonably have foreseen that not less than 15 but not more than 50 kilograms of cocaine would be involved in the offense. Notably, he never suggested--much less proved--a precise amount for which he should be held accountable. 43 Against this shaky challenge, the government offered sturdy support for attributing the defendant with at least 15 to 50 kilograms of cocaine. It reminded the sentencing court of the testimony of a co-conspirator, which had indicated that daily drug sales of which Rivera-DeCelis would have been aware amounted to well over 50 kilograms of cocaine in a matter of months. 14 It also cast doubt on the allegedly limited nature of Rivera-DeCelis' involvement by focusing the court's attention on a photograph in which Rivera-DeCelis is pictured, holding a firearm, as a bodyguard to the leader of the conspiracy. 15 44 On this record, the district judge did not clearly err in adopting the government's reasoning, noting that the defendant reaped a benefit from the plea agreement and deciding that Rivera-DeCelis' base offense level should be 34. 45 We therefore affirm the district court's sentencing determination.