US v. Barnett: Barnett was charged and convicted of conspiring to distribute and possessing with intent to distribute various types of drugs. According to testimony at trial, he did so largely in and around the “Calvary Street house,” in a residential neighborhood. Barnett’s cousin lived there and the two “worked together selling illegal drugs” at the home and at other locations in the neighborhood. When a search warrant was executed at the Calvary Street house, officers noticed “multiple lookups up and down the street,” and, as a result, Barnett ran “from the front yard into the front door of the house and then out of a side door,” but was captured. Drugs and other evidence was found in the house. Then, during an arraignment on state charges, Barnett claimed all responsibility for the drugs in the Calvary Street house, exonerating his cousin. As a result, Barnett was assessed a two-level enhancement for maintaining a premises for the purpose of distributing drugs and sentenced to 276 months in prison.
On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the sentence, including the premises enhancement. Noting that his “lack of a possessory interest in the Calvary Street house is not dispositive,” the court relied on his “control over the premises and the activities occurring there” to support the enhancement. The court noted that he had “claimed ownership of the bulk drugs stored inside the house alongside the accoutrements of drug trafficking,” although he tried to walk that back at sentencing, and that Barnett had “frequented the Calvary Street house, apparently for the primary – if not sole – purpose of accessing the drugs he stored there in order to sell them.” In light of that, there was no clear error in the district court imposing the enhancement.
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