Court Opinion

ID: 9392572
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-05 16:01:04.101869+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:46.730682
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                             For the Eighth Circuit
                         ___________________________

                                 No. 22-3108
                         ___________________________

                              United States of America

                         lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee

                                            v.

                               Ramon Diego Pacheco

                       lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant
                                       ____________

                     Appeal from United States District Court
                          for the District of Minnesota
                                 ____________

                             Submitted: April 26, 2023
                                Filed: May 5, 2023
                                  [Unpublished]
                                  ____________

Before KELLY, ERICKSON, and STRAS, Circuit Judges.
                           ____________

PER CURIAM.

      Ramon Pacheco received a 198-month prison sentence after a jury found him
guilty of conspiring to distribute at least 50 grams of a mixture containing
methamphetamine. See 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(B), 846. He asks us to vacate
his conviction and sentence because the jury should not have been told about a prior
drug conviction, the verdict was against the weight of the evidence, and the district
court1 miscalculated how much actual methamphetamine he distributed.

         We conclude there was no abuse of discretion in admitting the prior conviction
or denying a new trial. See United States v. Monds, 945 F.3d 1049, 1052 (8th Cir.
2019) (explaining that prior drug convictions can show “knowledge” and “intent”);
United States v. Clayton, 787 F.3d 929, 935 (8th Cir. 2015) (emphasizing that the
jury’s verdict should “stand unless the evidence weighs heavily enough against
[it] . . . that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred” (quotation marks omitted)).
Nor did the district court clearly err in calculating the drug quantity. See United
States v. Madison, 863 F.3d 1001, 1006 (8th Cir. 2017) (describing the “well-
established” procedure for determining the purity of unrecovered
methamphetamine). We accordingly affirm the judgment of the district court.
                           ______________________________

      1
        The Honorable Wilhelmina M. Wright, United States District Judge for the
District of Minnesota.
                                    -2-