Folks from Detroit are permitted to visit WV

US v. McCall:  In this appeal, Willie McCall appealed his sentence for distributing 1.2 grams of methamphetamine, on the grounds that the district court used improper bases to determine his sentence.  The district court varied upwards at sentencing, based upon McCall’s criminal history, as well as his out-of-state residence.  McCall hails from Detroit. 

McCall’s guidelines range was 30-37 months, and the district court imposed a sentence of 10 years, reasoning that the interstate aspect of McCall’s crime made it more serious.  McCall objected that, although he is from Detroit, nothing in the record reflected that the drugs involved in this case came from Detroit.  Without some support for the proposition that McCall bought his drugs in Detroit and brought them to West Virginia to sell at a profit, the Fourth Circuit found that the district court erred in relying upon it.   The Fourth Circuit notes that it held in 1977 that a court may not enhance a sentence based upon bias against out-of-state defendants.

While the interstate nature of criminal conduct may be a factor at sentencing, if it revealed something about the scope, organization, or dangerousness of the crime, but the mere fact of a defendant’s out of state residence alone failed to establish here that McCall had imported the drugs to West Virginia to sell.  McCall’s status as an outsider is not a valid basis for enhancing his sentence.