United States v. Griffin
United States v. Griffin
Opinion of the Court
Order
Torian Griffin, who pleaded guilty to distributing cocaine, contends on this
Griffin did not present any evidence at sentencing, but his lawyer asserted that the drugs found in the stash house did not belong to Griffin. Instead, according to counsel, they belonged to other offenders (who counsel did not identify), and Griffin’s only role had been to “cook” this crack from powder cocaine. Given the lack of evidence to support this story, the district judge did not commit clear error in rejecting it. What is more, we cannot see how Griffin would have been better off if the judge had believed the tale. It depicts Griffin as a member of a larger conspiracy, and as a conspirator he would be responsible for any reasonably foreseeable quantities of drugs — including, at a minimum, the crack Griffin “cooked” himself. See United States v. Willis, 49 F.3d 1271 (7th Cir. 1995). Griffin was the beneficiary of the district judge’s approach to ascertaining relevant conduct. Had the judge accepted counsel’s story, the court would have been obliged to determine how much cocaine the conspiracy distributed (to Griffin’s knowledge) over its entire existence. Instead the judge imputed to Griffin only the inventory held on a single day. He has no complaint.
AFFIRMED
Reference
- Full Case Name
- United States v. Torian GRIFFIN
- Status
- Published