US v. Williams: Williams and his three codefendants were involved in a methamphetamine trafficking conspiracy (which included at least 24 others) and pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy. At sentencing, the main issue was whether they could be properly attributed “actual” methamphetamine (also known as “ice”) as relevant conduct, rather than a more favorably treated methamphetamine mixture, and whether the district court should rejected the advisory Guideline range related to ice. The district court attributed ice to Williams and the other and rejected their policy-based arguments for a variance, sentencing them to terms of imprisonment ranging from 151 to 360 months.
On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the sentences of Williams and the others. The court first briefly addressed the policy-based ice/mixture disparity, noting that while the district court had the discretion to disregard the Guidelines due to that disparity, it was not required to and there was no abuse of discretion in rejecting that argument. Turning to relevant conduct, the court noted differing approaches of other Circuits when determining whether to attribute coconspirators ice or mixture for relevant conduct, ultimately agreeing with the Seventh Circuit that the 80%-threshold for separating mixture from ice “must have meaning” and thus the Government must prove that the methamphetamine involved met that standard, although laboratory tests of purity are not necessarily required. An individualized assessment of whether “it was reasonably foreseeable to each individual defendant that the conspiracy involved methamphetamine of at least 80% purity” was needed. The court then walked through the evidence for each defendant, as well as the general observation that nearly all of the samples tested from the conspiracy were ice, and concluded that the district court did not clearly err in attributing ice to Williams and his codefendants.
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