Court Opinion

ID: 9488592
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:49:33.466361+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:58.574916
License: Public Domain

REAVLEY, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
Seyfert pleaded guilty and admitted culpability for “9.761 grams of actual/pure methamphetamine in furtherance of and as a foreseeable consequence of the conspiracy.” He was therefore sentenced according to § 2Dl.l(c)(10) of the 1991 guidelines.
He complains that his counsel was ineffective for failing to urge a lesser sentence for the reason that some of the 9.761 grams of the controlled substance was not actual methamphetamine. He argues that some of the substance was a mixture of D-methamphetamine and L-methamphetamine, and he says an effective counsel would have insisted that the sentence be based on the content of D-methamphetamine alone.
The Guidelines allow imaginative lawyers and judges room for argument. We can say that “actual methamphetamine” weight is the weight of the methamphetamine itself, whereas a mixture of filler and methamphetamine is described in the table as “methamphetamine.” Or we may consider “actual methamphetamine” as the D-methamphetamine, as distinguished from L-methamphetamine. Whatever meaning is chosen, because D and L methamphetamine are both controlled substances I would not read the footnote on page 82 of the 1991 Guidelines to limit the offense level to the D-methamphetamine component of a mixture of the two.
The simple answer to the appeal is therefore to be found in this sentence of that footnote of the Guidelines:
If a mixture or substance contains more than one controlled substance, the weight of the entire mixture or substance is assigned to the controlled substance that results in the greater offense level.
So I find no issue raised of either the deficiency of the attorney’s performance or prejudice to Seyfert.