United States v. Herbert R. Montanye, Also Known as Muscles

996 F.2d 190, 1993 U.S. App. LEXIS 13305, 1993 WL 189754
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedJune 8, 1993
Docket91-1703
StatusPublished
Cited by181 cases

This text of 996 F.2d 190 (United States v. Herbert R. Montanye, Also Known as Muscles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Herbert R. Montanye, Also Known as Muscles, 996 F.2d 190, 1993 U.S. App. LEXIS 13305, 1993 WL 189754 (8th Cir. 1993).

Opinions

FAGG, Circuit Judge.

Herbert R. Montanye joined an ongoing conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine by agreeing to supply laboratory glassware to others knowing they would use it to manufacture the drug. A month after Montanye delivered the glassware to his coconspirators, federal agents found the coconspirators’ methamphetamine laboratory with enough chemicals on hand to make 37.5 kilograms of methamphetamine. At trial, a jury convicted Montanye of conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine and attempt to manufacture methamphetamine. The district court sentenced Montanye to two concurrent thirty-year prison terms.

Montanye appealed, raising several issues separately and collectively with his coconspir-ators. A panel of this court rejected most of Montanye’s arguments, but reversed Monta-nye’s attempt conviction concluding his glassware delivery was insufficient to show he attempted to manufacture methamphetamine. United States v. Montanye, 962 F.2d 1332, 1346, 1348 (8th Cir.1992), reh’g granted and op. vacated, 962 F.2d at 1349 (July 30, 1992 Order). Although Montanye did not appeal his sentence, the panel also remanded Montanye’s case for resentencing after concluding it was a gross miscarriage of justice to hold Montanye responsible for the 37.5 kilograms of methamphetamine producible from the chemicals on hand when the laboratory was discovered. Id. at 1347. We granted rehearing en banc to reconsider these questions, thus vacating the panel’s opinion. Id. at 1349. In seeking en banc review, the Government contends sufficient evidence supported Montanye’s attempt conviction and we should not correct Montanye’s sentence under the plain error standard. In his supplemental en banc brief, Montanye asserts there was insufficient evidence to support his attempt conviction and the district court committed plain error in using the 37.5 kilograms of methamphetamine to calculate his base offense level.

To establish Montanye attempted to manufacture methamphetamine, the Government had to show Montanye’s (1) criminal intent, and (2) conduct constituting a substantial step towards the crime’s commission. See United States v. Wagner, 884 F.2d 1090, 1095 (8th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1088, 110 S.Ct. 1829, 108 L.Ed.2d 958 (1990); United States v. Mazzella, 768 F.2d 235, 239-40 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1006, 106 S.Ct. 528, 88 L.Ed.2d 460 (1985). Montanye contends the mere delivery of glassware for the establishment of a methamphetamine laboratory does not represent a substantial step towards manufacturing methamphetamine. Whether a defendant’s conduct amounts to a substantial step necessarily depends on the facts of each case. Wagner, 884 F.2d at 1096. Although panels of this court have held ordering, receiving, and possessing the equipment and chemicals necessary to manufacture methamphetamine was a substantial step, see id. at 1096-97; United States v. Felix, 867 F.2d 1068, 1071-72 (8th Cir.1989); Mazzella, 768 F.2d at 239-40, [192]*192whether Montanye’s mere delivery of glassware is a substantial step towards manufacturing methamphetamine has evenly divided the en banc court. Thus, Montanye’s jury conviction for attempt to manufacture methamphetamine is affirmed by the equally divided vote of the court en banc.

We now turn to Montanye’s assertion that the district court improperly based his offense level on the 37.5 kilograms of methamphetamine producible from the leftover chemicals found at his coconspirators’ laboratory.

Before Montanye was sentenced, he disputed the production capacity of his eocon-spirators’ laboratory. In his written objections to the presentence report (PSR), Mon-tanye objected that “the amount of methamphetamine reported [in] the [PSR] is inaccurate.” Montanye contended that instead of 37.5 kilograms producible from the unused chemicals using one production method, “the laboratory was] capable of producing closer to 12 kilograms of methamphetamine” using the different production method in place when the laboratory was seized. At the sentencing hearing, Montanye’s counsel told the district court that the objection accurately identified Montanye’s challenge to the PSR, and stated that “whatever [the method in use at the laboratory] could have produced [was] the amount of methamphetamine [Montanye] • should be charged with.” In short, Monta-nye argued that he should be charged with 12 rather than 37.5 kilograms of methamphetamine. After the Government presented evidence to show the laboratory’s production capacity, the district court found 37.5 kilograms could be produced. Having made this finding, the district court adopted the PSR’s statement that the production capacity was reasonably foreseeable to Montanye. Monta-nye did not object to the PSR’s foreseeability statement in the district court.

On appeal, Montanye acknowledges that the district court can estimate drug quantity based on a laboratory’s production capability and that the chemicals found at the laboratory could produce 37.5 kilograms of methamphetamine, but asserts the district court erroneously failed to make findings explaining its foreseeability decision before attributing the laboratory’s entire production capacity to him.

Because Montanye forfeited the foreseeability issue by failing to raise it in the district court, we lack authority to consider the question unless (1) the district court committed an error, i.e., deviated from a legal rule, (2) the error is plain, i.e., clear under current law, and (3) the error affected Montanye’s substantial rights. Fed. R.Crim.P. 52(b); United States v. Olano, — U.S.-,- — , 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1776-78,123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993). When a forfeited error meets these limitations, we have discretionary authority to order correction. Olano, — U.S. at -, -, 113 S.Ct. at 1776, 1778. We should exercise our remedial discretion “if the error ‘seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.’ ” Id., at --, 113 S.Ct. at 1779 (quoting United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. 157, 160, 56 S.Ct. 391, 392, 80 L.Ed. 555 (1936)).

We agree with Montanye that, because “the scope of jointly-undertaken criminal activity ... is not necessarily the same for every participant” in a conspiracy, a conspiracy defendant is only accountable for drug quantities implicated in the conspiracy that are reasonably foreseeable to the defendant. U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3 n. 1 (Nov. 1990). Thus, when a conspiracy defendant objects that the quantity of drugs attributed to the defendant in the PSR are not reasonably foreseeable to the defendant, the district court must make a foreseeability finding about the objecting defendant. See United States v. Rogers, 982 F.2d 1241,1245-46 (8th Cir.1993); United States v. Coleman, 990 F.2d 419, 421 (8th Cir.1993).

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Bluebook (online)
996 F.2d 190, 1993 U.S. App. LEXIS 13305, 1993 WL 189754, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-herbert-r-montanye-also-known-as-muscles-ca8-1993.