Court Opinion

ID: 9494638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:42:57.051084+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:31.802915
License: Public Domain

BARKETT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
For the reasons expressed by Judge Cox in his panel dissent and, as far as I am aware, by every other circuit to have addressed the question,1 I think the panel opinion was incorrectly decided, and continue to believe it deserves reconsideration en banc.
The recent amendment to the sentencing guidelines cited by Judge Carnes cannot, in my view, diminish the precedential importance of this case. Blaylock raised a challenge of constitutional dimension. He argued that it violated due process to sentence him on the basis of a theoretical conversion ratio where the government admitted it had no evidence of his actual production capability. Were this Court to agree, a guideline amendment prescribing the use of a particular theoretical conversion ratio under such circumstances would not cure the constitutional problem. Therefore, I would adhere to this Court’s initial decision to review the case en banc.

. In United States v. Eschman, 227 F.3d 886 (7th Cir.2000), the court found that the sentence lacked an evidentiary basis where it was based solely on the 100% theoretical yield (a one-to-one conversion ratio). "Both parties’ experts testified that a 100% yield is merely theoretical (in other words, unattainable).... While the government must prove the quantity of drugs attributable to [the defendant] only by a preponderance of evidence, ... the record is void of any evidence which would reasonably support the district court's decision to base its methamphetamine quantity calculation on a one-to-one conversion ratio.” Id. at 890. See also United States v. Anderson, 236 F.3d 427, 430 (8th Cir.2001) (evidence must be based not on theoretical yield but on what the particular defendant could produce); United States v. Hamilton 81 F.3d 652, 654-55 (6th Cir. 1996) (finding of drug quantity must be based on at least some facts related to individual capacity of defendant's laboratory); United States v. Havens, 910 F.2d 703, 706 (10th Cir.1990) ("The factual question is what each specific defendant could have actually produced, not the theoretical maximum amount produceable from the chemicals involved.”).