Opinion ID: 621201
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Longstreet

Text: At sentencing the government must prove the quantity of drugs attributable to a defendant by a preponderance of the evidence. United States v. Krasinski, 545 F.3d 546, 551 (7th Cir.2008). In addition, the district court must base its sentence on information with sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable accuracy. United States v. Bautista, 532 F.3d 667, 672 (7th Cir.2008) (quotation marks omitted). We review the court's factual findings regarding drug quantity only for clear error. Id. Because drug dealers ordinarily do not use invoices and bills of lading, . . . sentencing courts may make reasonable estimates as to drug quantities. United States v. Rodriguez, 67 F.3d 1312, 1325 (7th Cir.1995). But an estimate not based on reliable information must be overturned, even if it is conservative to the point of generosity. United States v. Howard, 80 F.3d 1194, 1205 (7th Cir.1996). Determining witness credibility is especially within the province of the district court and can virtually never be clear error. United States v. Clark, 538 F.3d 803, 813 (7th Cir.2008) (quotation marks omitted). Longstreet first attacks Sutton's testimony as generally unreliable because he wavered about whether he began selling crack on the corner in 2002 or 2003. The district court, having heard the testimony at trial, found Sutton generally reliable. We see no reason to second-guess that determination. See id. Moreover, once the court decided to attribute to Longstreet only Sutton's sales between July 2004 and May 2005, whether Sutton sold drugs prior to July 2004 became irrelevant, at least for purposes of the mathematical calculation. Longstreet next challenges Sutton's daily sales average as unreliable. Basically, Longstreet contends that Sutton's sales rate from July 2004 to May 2005 might have been different than the one from his entire time on the corner, which Sutton testified was 1.5 ounces of crack per day. Longstreet therefore argues that the district court committed clear error by using an unreliable estimate. Of course, Longstreet is technically correct. For example, and simplifying the dates slightly, Sutton might have sold 2 ounces per day from September 2003 to July 2004 and 1 ounce per day from July 2004 to May 2005. This still produces an average of 1.5 ounces per day over the twenty-month period, despite a lower average over the period the court attributed to Longstreet. But a much more plausible interpretation of Sutton's testimony is that he sold roughly 1.5 ounces every day with slight variations that become irrelevant once a large number of days is considered. Longstreet offers only speculation that Sutton's sales were unevenly distributed. Longstreet relies heavily on United States v. Lawrence, 915 F.2d 402 (8th Cir. 1990). There, the defendant admitted selling 16 ounces of cocaine during an eight-year period, but the drug conspiracy at issue covered only four of those years. Id. at 408. To estimate the amount of cocaine to be included, the district court assumed the 16 ounces were evenly distributed and simply halved the total amount to arrive at 8 ounces. Id. The Eighth Circuit reversed, finding no evidence that the sales were evenly distributed throughout the eight-year period, or even that the defendant sold any drugs during the relevant four years. Id. at 409. By contrast, here, Sutton's average is itself evidence of how the sales were distributed; namely, 1.5 ounces per day. If Sutton had testified that he sold 36 kilograms over three years, we could not assume that he sold 10 kilograms in a given ten-month period. The total quantity and the total time period do not, without more, indicate the distribution. But that's not what happened. Sutton testified that he sold an average of 1.5 ounces per day over two or three years. This evidence does not raise the problem at issue in Lawrence. Sutton's testimony about a daily amount indicates that the sales were relatively evenly distributed, allowing the district court to extrapolate the per-day amount to a larger period of time. Accordingly, the court's drug calculations were supported by reliable evidence.