Court Opinion

ID: 9482556
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:54:06.301783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:04.160168
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring separately.
I write separately in concurrence and comment on appropriate sentences for minimal and latecomer participants in a drug conspiracy.
As the opinion of the court observes, here the prosecutor moved for a downward departure from the offense level of 36, as calculated by the probation officer (base level of 38 under Sentencing Guidelines § 2D1.1 (30,000 to 100,000 kilograms of marijuana, less a two-level decrease for acceptance of responsibility)). The offense level related to the whole conspiracy, which covered a period of several years and the growing of marijuana on several separate farm parcels. Federal and state law enforcement officers searched these parcels and seized 48,000 plants, plus 400 pounds of marijuana. The guidelines call for a very heavy sentence of 188 to 235 months (15% years to 19 years, 7 months), even for a first-time offender such as Gail Knapp.
Here, the district court properly granted Gail Knapp a reduction. Ms. Knapp had joined the conspiracy for only about three months, from June 1990 until the conspiracy ended on September 10, 1990. Of the total seizure from all farms of 48,000 plants, the Government seized 794 marijuana plants from the farmland on which she resided. Three other conspirators had participated in the venture for six months, since March 1990, and a fourth for more than three years (since 1986).
The district court, in sentencing Ms. Knapp, reduced her base level from 36 to 29, which called for a guideline sentence of 87 to 108 months, and the district court accepted the low end of the guidelines in sentencing Ms. Knapp to 87 months (7 years and 3 months) without parole.
That sentence still amounts to a stiff penalty for a first-time offender participant, playing a minor role in a conspiracy, who did not personally engage in the overall cultivation of the 48,000 plants found on all the farm parcels.
The district court, however, in the sentencing hearing made this cryptic comment, without elaboration, that the caretakers on each parcel of land, including Knapp, “knew enough about what was going on to be chargeable with the entirety.”
The appellant has not directly challenged this observation by the district court, nor the probation officer’s calculation of the base offense level of 36 by attributing all the marijuana found to each co-conspirator. For this reason, I join the affirmance by this court.
Nevertheless, for guidance to probation officers and district judges who calculate sentences for latecomers or minimal participants in a drug conspiracy, I call attention to United States v. Edwards, 945 F.2d 1387 (7th Cir.1991), which holds that a latecomer or minimal participant will not necessarily be chargeable for drug quantities attributed to other conspirators. In that case, the court remanded for resentencing the cases of some co-conspirators in a large-scale heroin distribution scheme, requiring the sentencing court to give individual consideration to those defendants’ scope of involvement in the conspiracy and the amount of drugs for which they could be held responsible.
*571The court outlined the problem as follows:
We are faced in this case with the conundrum of applying the concept of reasonable foreseeability to a drug conspiracy that spanned approximately three years and that included numerous supplier-wholesalers, middle-managers, and seller-retailers. In particular, the concept of foreseeability (a forward-looking concept) must be turned around 180 degrees and be applied to the conduct of co-conspirators occurring before the entry of a particular defendant into the conspiracy.
Edwards, 945 F.2d at 1393.
The court, based on the guidelines and parallel case law, concluded that “there are two limiting factors on the use of conduct in calculating the sentence of a conspiracy defendant. The conduct must be 1) in furtherance of the conspiracy and 2) reasonably foreseeable to the defendant.” Id. at 1392. Finally, the court observed: “Of particular importance in determining the level of commitment on the part of an individual defendant is the scope of the agreement between that defendant and his co-conspirators.” Id. at 1394.
In remanding, the court held that “[t]he district court erred in not considering the scope of the agreement each defendant here had with his co-conspirators.” Id. at 1395. Its opinion observed further as to some individuals:
The judge may sentence a late entrant on the basis of all the drugs distributed only if the earlier distributions occurred as part of the conspiracy to which the defendant agreed. A defendant who enters the conspiracy in its final stages, who was not linked to the earlier transactions or with the co-conspirators in any substantial way, and who bought or sold an amount of drugs that was minuscule in comparison to the 10 kilograms or more of heroin distributed may not be held responsible for all of the heroin distributed over the three-year period. Furthermore, he may not be sentenced according to all of the heroin distributed after he agreed to join the conspiracy if in agreeing to conspire, he reasonably foresaw a lesser amount. Applying these limiting principles to several of the defendants requires a remand of their cases for re-sentencing so that the base offense level may be recalculated.
Id. at 1397. See also United States v. Matthews, 942 F.2d 779, 784-85 (10th Cir.1991) (conspiracy sentence may only be based upon quantities of drug that late-entering conspirator knew or should have known the conspiracy distributed within scope of late-entrant’s agreement); United States v. North, 900 F.2d 131, 133-34 (8th Cir.1990) (defendant only responsible for activities within scope of limited conspiracy); U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3, comment, (n. 1(e)).
The limiting principles enunciated in Edwards would seem important in the imposition of fair sentences on individuals charged as drug conspirators, but who individually play a relatively minor role in the crime.
The principles of the Edwards case, if called to the attention of the sentencing judge, may have justified a lesser sentence for Gail Knapp than that imposed on any of the other co-conspirators.