United States v. Ramon Pacheco

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
• Decided: May 5, 2023
• Docket: 22-3108
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________

No. 22-3108 ___________________________

United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee

v.

Ramon Diego Pacheco

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant ____________

Appeal from United States District Court for the District of Minnesota ____________

Submitted: April 26, 2023 Filed: May 5, 2023 [Unpublished] ____________

Before KELLY, ERICKSON, and STRAS, Circuit Judges. ____________

PER CURIAM.

Ramon Pacheco received a 198-month prison sentence after a jury found him guilty of conspiring to distribute at least 50 grams of a mixture containing methamphetamine. See 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(B), 846. He asks us to vacate his conviction and sentence because the jury should not have been told about a prior drug conviction, the verdict was against the weight of the evidence, and the district court1 miscalculated how much actual methamphetamine he distributed.

We conclude there was no abuse of discretion in admitting the prior conviction or denying a new trial. See United States v. Monds, 945 F.3d 1049, 1052 (8th Cir. 2019) (explaining that prior drug convictions can show “knowledge” and “intent”); United States v. Clayton, 787 F.3d 929, 935 (8th Cir. 2015) (emphasizing that the jury’s verdict should “stand unless the evidence weighs heavily enough against [it] . . . that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred” (quotation marks omitted)). Nor did the district court clearly err in calculating the drug quantity. See United States v. Madison, 863 F.3d 1001, 1006 (8th Cir. 2017) (describing the “well- established” procedure for determining the purity of unrecovered methamphetamine). We accordingly affirm the judgment of the district court. ______________________________

1 The Honorable Wilhelmina M. Wright, United States District Judge for the District of Minnesota. -2-