Defendant appealed from his conviction for conspiracy to distribute a substance containing methamphetamine, aiding and abetting, and witness tampering. The district court imposed a within-guidelines sentence. On appeal, defendant challenged the substantive reasonableness of his sentence. Where the district court ...

Tagged with: Conspiracy to Distribute Substantive Reasonableness of Sentence Within-Guidelines Sentence

Defendant appealed from his conviction for conspiracy to distribute a mixture and substance containing a detectible amount of cocaine. On appeal, defendant challenged several trial court rulings and argued that the trial court failed to instruct the jury properly. Defendant ...

Tagged with: Conspiracy to Distribute ineffective assistance of counsel Sufficiency Of Evidence

Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. The district court applied a 35 percent reduction to defendant’s sentencing guidelines and further imposed a downward variance from that range. On appeal, defendant argued that his sentence was procedurally flawed and ...

Tagged with: Conspiracy to Distribute Reduced Sentencing Guidelines Substantive Reasonableness of Sentence

Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. At sentencing, defendant conceded that the applicable range under the guidelines was 360 months to life. The district court granted a downward variance from the bottom of the guidelines range. On ...

Tagged with: Conspiracy to Distribute Downward Variance Substantive Reasonableness of Sentence

Defendant was charged with distribution of cocaine base and conspiracy. His indictment contained notice that defendant had a prior Iowa deferred judgment for possession of cocaine base with intent to deliver. The district court used that deferred judgment to enhance ...

Tagged with: Conspiracy to Distribute Sentencing Enhancement State Deferred Judgment

Defendant appealed the denial of his motion alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and conspiracy to launder money. Although the magistrate questioned the factual basis for defendant’s plea to the money-laundering charge, the district ...

Tagged with: Conspiracy to Distribute Failure to Object to Lack of Factual Basis ineffective assistance of counsel

Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and being a felon in possession of a firearm. At sentencing, the district court found defendant was responsible for distributing 17.5 grams of cocaine base and fell into criminal-history category V. The district ...

Tagged with: Base Level of Offense Conspiracy to Distribute Criminal Law Upward Sentence Variance

Defendant appealed from his judgment of sentence of 300 months for conspiracy to distribute narcotics. Defendant entered a plea agreement in which the parties stipulated to guideline calculations resulting in a range of 360 months to life imprisonment. On appeal, ...

Tagged with: Conspiracy to Distribute Criminal plea agreement Unreasonable Sentence

Where defendant’s delivery of large quantities of narcotics would lead to reasonable belief that recipients of the narcotics would further distribute them, out-of-court statements of recipients were not hearsay where otherwise admissible to show defendant was in conspiracy with recipients ...

Tagged with: Conspiracy to Distribute Criminal Law Reasonableness of Sentence Sufficiency Of Evidence