U.S. v. Hopper

Record contained sufficient evidence to support jury’s guilty verdict on drug conspiracy charge, even though defendant argued that evidence only established existence of series of methamphetamine sales between defendant and certain buyers, where record showed that defendant sold drugs on credit or fronted large quantities of drugs to certain buyers, and that defendant engaged in pooling arrangements with other co-conspirators to purchase large quantities of methamphetamine that demonstrated existence of common goal to distribute said drug. Ct. further rejected defendant’s contention that there was fatal variance between proof of conspiracy at trial and conspiracy alleged in indictment. Also, govt. was not required to disclose proffer letters from its cooperating witnesses, where: (1) defense counsel made no formal request for said letters under Rule 16 and failed to explain why counsel failed to make said request; and (2) govt. produced plea agreements from said witnesses, which superseded proffer letters and outlined terms of witnesses’ cooperation. However, defendant was entitled to new sentencing hearing, where Dist. Ct. miscalculated quantity of drugs that qualified for relevant conduct, and where Dist. Ct. double-counted two quantities of drugs that actually concerned single quantity of drugs involved in single pooling arrangement.