US v. Watkins

• Decision Date: 10 January 1996
• Docket Number: No. LR-CR-89-71(2).,LR-CR-89-71(2).
• Citation: 912 F. Supp. 417
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Dwight WATKINS, Defendant-Petitioner.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas

912 F. Supp. 417

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Dwight WATKINS, Defendant-Petitioner.

No. LR-CR-89-71(2).

United States District Court, E.D. Arkansas, Western Division.

January 10, 1996.

Michael Johnson, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Little Rock, AR, for U.S.

Drake Mann, Little Rock, AR, for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION, ORDER AND JUDGMENT

EISELE, District Judge.

Before the Court is petitioner Dwight Watkins' Motion to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct Sentence by a Person in Federal Custody, filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. For the reasons stated below, the relief sought by petitioner will be denied.

I.

On June 13, 1990, petitioner pled guilty to the crime of conspiring to "manufacture, possess with the intent to distribute, and to distribute in excess of 10 grams of methamphetamine, a Schedule II controlled substance, and cocaine, a Schedule II controlled substance,"¹ in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846. At petitioner's plea hearing, the government indicated that "the top end level" for which it would hold the defendant accountable was 1,000 grams of methamphetamine.

On August 30, 1990, petitioner appeared before the Court for sentencing. A different Assistant United States Attorney than the one who attended petitioner's plea hearing appeared on behalf of the government, and was prepared to hold petitioner accountable for 6,290 grams of methamphetamine. The Court, however, held the government to its statement made during petitioner's plea hearing, and accordingly limited the amount for which petitioner could be held accountable to 1,000 grams of methamphetamine.

Petitioner has raised only one argument in support of his § 2255 motion, namely that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge the Court's implicit determination that the illegal substance supporting his conviction contained a measurable quantity of D-methamphetamine (Dextro-methamphetamine), as opposed to only L-methamphetamine (Levo-methamphetamine), a drug which, at the time of petitioner's crime, carried with it a far less severe sentencing exposure under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

II.

In Cheek v. United States, 858 F.2d 1330 (8th Cir.1988), the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit discussed the showing necessary to establish a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel within the context of a § 2255 motion.

A claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under § 2255 must be scrutinized under the two-part test of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Under Strickland, in order to prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a convicted defendant must prove both that his counsel's representation was deficient and that the deficient performance prejudiced the defendant's case. The first part of this test is met when the defendant shows that counsel "failed to exercise the customary skills and diligence that a reasonably competent attorney would have exhibited under similar circumstances." The second part is met when the defendant shows that "there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different."

Id. at 1336 (citations omitted); accord Nazarenus v. United States, 69 F.3d 1391, 1393-94 (8th Cir.1995). In making this assessment, the Court must apply a "strong presumption" that counsel was reasonably effective, thereby requiring petitioner to show that his trial "counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the counsel guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment." Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2064, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).

As discussed above, petitioner was charged with and plead guilty to conspiring to distribute "methamphetamine." The type of methamphetamine was unspecified in the indictment, nor was this ambiguity discussed at sentencing. It appears that those courts that have sought to classify the various types of methamphetamine have adopted at least two (and possibly three) different classification schemes. For example, the Eleventh Circuit has recognized three different types of methamphetamine: "L-methamphetamine, ... an inert form with little or no physiological effects; D-methamphetamine, which has the active physiological effects characteristic of this drug; and DL-methamphetamine, which is composed of 50% L-methamphetamine and 50% D-methamphetamine." United States v. Carroll, 6 F.3d 735, 743 (11th Cir.1993), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 114 S.Ct. 1234, 127 L.Ed.2d 577 (1994). The Tenth Circuit has also recognized DL-methamphetamine as a "stand-alone" substance that is more than a just a mixture of D-methamphetamine and L-methamphetamine (the court concluded that D-methamphetamine, L-methamphetamine and DL-methamphetamine are each separate isomeric forms of the methamphetamine molecule). United States v. Decker, 55 F.3d 1509, 1512 & n. 6 (10th Cir.1995). The Third Circuit, however, has determined that there are only two distinct types of methamphetamine, namely D-methamphetamine and L-methamphetamine, concluding that DL-methamphetamine is not itself a separate compound, but only a mixture of the other two. United States v. Bogusz, 43 F.3d 82, 89 n. 10 (3d Cir.1994), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 115 S.Ct. 1812, 131 L.Ed.2d 736 (1995). The Eighth Circuit has not, as yet, offered its view on how the courts should properly classify methamphetamine (especially DL-methamphetamine) under the Guidelines.² Fortunately, the Court is not, under the circumstances of this case, required to resolve this divergence in methamphetamine typology (nor is the present record sufficiently developed to allow for such an endeavor).

Regardless of how one chooses to classify the various types of methamphetamine (especially DL-methamphetamine), it is clear, under the version of the Guidelines in effect at the time of petitioner's crime,³ that the Guidelines established very different sentencing ranges for both D-methamphetamine and DL-methamphetamine, as opposed to L-methamphetamine. At that time, U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(a)(3) (October, 1987) directed the sentencing court to calculate the base offense level using the Drug Quantity Table found in § 2D1.1, which established that one gram of methamphetamine (type unspecified) was "equivalent" to 2 grams of cocaine or .4 grams of heroin, while one gram of L-methamphetamine was only "equivalent" to .2 grams of cocaine or .04 grams of heroin. See United States v. Koonce, 884 F.2d 349, 352 n. 4 (8th Cir.1989). It thus appears that, in applying the presently applicable Guidelines, there are only two relevant methamphetamine classifications — L-methamphetamine and the rest of the methamphetamine world (namely D-methamphetamine and DL-methamphetamine).⁴ Moreover, even if the Court were to assume that that version of the Guidelines recognized a distinction between D-methamphetamine and DL-methamphetamine, the ultimate result in this case would be the same. Under U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1, n. * (October, 1987), sentencing courts were instructed that "if any mixture of a compound contains any detectable amount of a controlled substance, the entire amount of the mixture or compound shall be considered in measuring the quantity," and that "if a mixture or compound contains a detectable amount of more than one controlled substance e.g., DL-methamphetamine, which by definition contains both D-methamphetamine and L-methamphetamine, the most serious controlled substance e.g., D-methamphetamine shall determine the categorization of the entire quantity."⁵ Further, application note 5 to § 2D1.1 also provided that "a particular controlled substance e.g., methamphetamine includes all ... isomers e.g., D-methamphetamine, DL-methamphetamine and L-methamphetamine." Thus, the Court concludes that, for purposes of this case, it is not necessary to distinguish the quantity of D-methamphetamine from the quantity of DL-methamphetamine seized from petitioner in determining the propriety of petitioner's sentence. United States v. Decker, supra, 55 F.3d at 1512-13; see United States v. Seyfert, 67 F.3d 544, 549 (5th Cir.1995) (Reavley, J., concurring). Under the Guidelines in effect on June 29, 1989, the proper application of § 2D1.1 established that either 1,000 grams of D-methamphetamine or 1,000 grams of DL-methamphetamine constituted 2,000 grams of cocaine equivalent (or 400 grams of heroin equivalent), and provided for a base offense level of 28, while, by contrast, 1,000 grams of L-methamphetamine constituted 200 grams of cocaine equivalent (or 40 grams of heroin equivalent), and provided for a base offense level of only 20. Accordingly, given petitioner's criminal history category (Category II), a conviction involving only L-methamphetamine would have resulted in a sentencing range of only 37-46 months, while a conviction involving D-methamphetamine or DL-methamphetamine would have resulted in a range of 87-108 months.

To justify imposing a higher range of incarceration for an offense involving D-methamphetamine or DL-methamphetamine, the sentencing court must find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the methamphetamine in question contained a measurable quantity of D-methamphetamine. See United States v. Jennings, 12 F.3d 836, 838 (8th Cir.1994). The burden of persuasion and production falls upon the government, United States v. Wessels, 12 F.3d 746, 754 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 115 S.Ct. 105, 130 L.Ed.2d 53 (1994), and this burden may be carried by either direct or circumstantial evidence. See United States v. Koonce, supra, 884 F.2d at 352-53. The Eleventh Circuit has analyzed this issue as follows:

In using the term "Methamphetamine," the sentencing guidelines do not mean to include L-Methamphetamine. The guidelines distinguish between "Methamphetamine" and L-methamphetamine by supplying a different sentence for the involvement of each controlled substance. U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1, Drug

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