United States v. Ennis

In United States v. Ennis, No. 23-30397 (5th Cir. Aug. 7, 2024) (unpublished), the Fifth Circuit resolved two consolidated appeals from defendants who had both received 120-month mandatory minimum sentences for conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine under 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846. The court affirmed one sentence but vacated the other.

These two defendants were originally charged as codefendants, and both pled guilty to the same crime.

Both defendants agreed to stipulated factual bases for their pleas. Their stipulations were largely the same, but one included an admission that the defendant “knew or reasonably should have known that the scope of the conspiracy involved 500 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine.…” That defendant also stipulated that he was accountable for 350 to less than 500 grams, and the other stipulated to 200 to less than 350 grams.

Before sentencing, both defendants objected to their PSRs and argued that they should not be subject to any mandatory minimum because they had not admitted knowing the overall conspiracy involved 500 grams or more of meth. Instead, they argued, they should each be held responsible for only the quantity of drugs attributed to him personally.

The Law: “For purposes of the Guidelines or for determining statutory minimum and maximum sentences, [the Fifth Circuit’s] cases always have limited [a] defendant’s liability to the quantity of drugs with which he was directly involved or that was reasonably foreseeable to him.” United States v. Haines, 803 F.3d 713 (5th Cir. 2015). And for drug-conspiracy charges, “drug quantity is not a formal element,” United States v. Aguirre-Rivera, 8 F.4th 405, 411 (5th Cir. 2021), so a sentencing court may not attribute a quantity to the defendant unless the defendant admits (or a jury finds beyond a reasonable doubt) to that quantity.

The Issue: Did each of these defendants “admit[] that he knew, or reasonably should have known, that the scope of the conspiracy involved the requisite quantity of drugs” — at least 500 grams?

The Holding: The defendant who had “acknowledged that he knew or reasonably should have known that the scope of the conspiracy involved 500 grams or more of” meth had admitted sufficient facts, so he was subject to the mandatory minimum sentence.

But the other defendant “never admitted to knowing that the conspiracy involved that quantity of drugs. His “acknowledgment [spoke] only to (a) the quantity involved in the overall conspiracy—and not to (b) the quantity that [he] personally knew or should have reasonably foreseen.” Even though that defendant’s PSR contained facts establishing his knowledge of the drug quantity, he “never affirmatively admitted” those facts. See United States v. Huerta-Rodriguez, 64 F.4th 270, 277–78 (5th Cir. 2023) (“[F]ailing to object to a PSR with nothing more is not a concession to the accuracy of its contents.”).

For those reasons, the first defendant’s mandatory-minimum 120-month sentence was affirmed, but the second defendant’s was vacated and remanded for resentencing.