Court Opinion

ID: 9494009
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:26:16.049867+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:09.806144
License: Public Domain

COX, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent. I disagree with the majority’s application of United States v. Rams-*1304dale, 61 F.3d 825 (11th Cir.1998) to the facts of this case. Ramsdale held that it is not clear error to conclude that estimates of actual yield based on a one hundred percent theoretical yield satisfy the government’s burden of establishing drug quantity by a preponderance when no other evidence relating to actual yield is presented. Ramsdale, 61 F.3d at 831. The logic of Ramsdale is simply that some evidence can establish that a fact is more likely true than not when there is no evidence to the contrary.1
In this case, the Government’s expert, a chemist with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Forensic Laboratory, testified that the theoretical yield calculation does not and cannot account for the many factors that determine actual yield. She also testified that there was no feasible methodology for calculating actual yield from the evidence the laboratory possessed, and that the factors that make actual yield less than theoretical yield, including the competency of the operator and the purity of the reagents, could have affected actual yield here. The defense expert concurred in this assessment. Further, in response to a question from the sentencing judge, the Government’s chemist testified that the actual yield could have been anywhere from one percent to one hundred percent of the theoretical yield.2 Thus, as ample evidence existed to cast doubt upon the theoretical yield figure, Ramsdale does not decide this case. Because both of the chemists who testified refused to express an opinion as to the actual yield, and both rejected the use of the theoretical yield as a basis for estimating the actual yield, I cannot conclude that the Government has met its burden of proving drug quantity by a preponderance of the evidence.

. Of course, questionable or inconclusive evidence standing alone does not meet the preponderance standard. See McCormick’s Handbook of the Law of Evidence § 339 (Edward W. Cleary et al. eds., 3d ed. 1972). For this reason, United States v. Ramsdale, 61 F.3d 825 (11th Cir.1995) did not decide that the government carries its burden of persuasion as to drug quantity merely because the defendant does not come forward with rebuttal evidence. The government’s own uncontra-dicted evidence must itself satisfy the preponderance standard.

. The Government contends that because facts relating to the capacity of the lab are peculiarly within the knowledge of the defendants, once evidence of theoretical yield is presented the burden shifts to the defendant to present rebuttal evidence regarding actual yield. Neither Ramsdale nor other case law supports this contention. In any event, that it is not always the case that defendants will be in sole possession of the relevant proof is apparent from the facts here. The forensic chemist presented by the Government testified that DEA agents discarded evidence that could have provided the sentencing court with an actual yield figure, at least for that particular batch.