How Drug Quantities Are Measured in a Drug Conspiracy
WHAT IS A DRUG CONSPIRACY?
A federal drug conspiracy charge differs from your typical federal criminal conspiracy. A federal drug conspiracy basically requires a prosecutor to prove that there was an agreement between two or more people to violate a federal drug law. A charge under the typical federal criminal conspiracy statute also requires an overt act by someone in furtherance of the conspiracy as an additional element that prosecutors must prove. Drug conspiracy charges are designed to be easier to prove and tougher on sentencing than typical federal conspiracy charges. Federal drug conspiracy charges are tougher on sentencing than many federal conspiracy charges because many drug conspiracy convictions carry mandatory minimums in terms of sentence. A mandatory minimum means that no matter what, you will serve a specified minimum amount of time in federal prison if you are convicted of a particular crime. The penalties for drug conspiracies typically depend on the type and weight of drugs being trafficked. Drug conspiracies involving marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin all carry five-year minimum sentences depending on the weight being trafficked of each drug. These minimums can also be bumped to ten-year minimums as the weight being trafficked goes up. The often-tricky question in drug conspiracies is how to determine drug quantity as it applies to individual co-conspirators. Is one conspirator responsible only for the drugs they personally trafficked, or is that person responsible for what the entire group trafficked? The answer depends on where you live.
SIXTH CIRCUIT STANDARD
Federal Courts are divided into sections called circuits, which are set up according to location. Each circuit court serves as an appellate court for the district courts that are underneath it. The state of Michigan resides within the 6th federal Circuit. In 2016, the 6th Circuit Court decided the case of United States v. Gibson, which held the defendant, Ray Gibson, accountable for the amount of drugs involved in the entire conspiracy. Even though he was involved in only three small sales, Gibson’s conviction of conspiring to distribute fifty grams or more of methamphetamine resulted in a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years in federal prison. The 6th Circuit Court is the only federal circuit court to approach drug conspiracy cases in this way. Other Circuit Courts use a standard which is much more favorable to defendants in terms of how they measure drug quantities.
OTHER CIRCUIT COURT STANDARDS
The 6th Circuit Court is the only court to hold every co-conspirator responsible for the entire amount of drugs trafficked by the drug conspiracy. All other federal circuit courts use what is called a reasonably foreseeable standard. In these courts, a defendant is held accountable for the quantities of drugs he or she was involved in trafficking as well as all the reasonably foreseeable quantities that are within the scope of the criminal activity as part of the criminal drug conspiracy. The standard that the other eleven federal circuit courts have adopted is much more proportional to the criminal activity of each of the co-conspirators involved. Ray Gibson was sentenced to a mandatory minimum of ten years only because he was involved in a conspiracy to sell drugs. If he had sold the same amount of drugs on his own, he would have likely avoided a mandatory minimum altogether and probably would have simply been sentenced to probation.
HOW DOES THIS AFFECT ME?
As stated above, the state of Michigan resides in the 6th federal circuit. The 6th federal circuit is the harshest circuit nationwide in how drug quantities are measured in a drug conspiracy case. If you are facing a federal drug conspiracy charge, or being investigated for one, then it is important to seek the advice of an experienced federal criminal defense attorney immediately.
