United States v. Sanchez

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
• Decided: April 27, 2023
• Docket: 22-50348
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

Case: 22-50348 Document: 00516729703 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/27/2023

United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ____________ United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit No. 22-50348 Summary Calendar FILED ____________ April 27, 2023 Lyle W. Cayce United States of America, Clerk

Plaintiff—Appellee,

versus

Meriah Sanchez,

Defendant—Appellant. ______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas USDC No. 7:21-CR-333-2 ______________________________

Before Jones, Haynes, and Oldham, Circuit Judges. Per Curiam: * Meriah Sanchez pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and distribute, five grams or more of actual methamphetamine. See 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(B). Based in part on the PSR determination that Sanchez was responsible for 54 grams of actual methamphetamine, the district court sentenced her to 150-months’

_____________________ * This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5. Case: 22-50348 Document: 00516729703 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/27/2023

No. 22-50348

imprisonment and 5-years’ supervised release. See USSG § 2D1.1. Sanchez now argues the court below erred in calculating the drug quantity. But because Sanchez waived this exact argument at sentencing, any such error is unreviewable. Waiver is unlike forfeiture. “Whereas forfeiture is the failure to make the timely assertion of a right, waiver is the intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right.” United States v. Rodriguez-De la Fuente, 842 F.3d 371, 374 (5th Cir. 2016) (quoting United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 733 (1993)). We review forfeited claims for plain error. Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b). But “waived errors are entirely unreviewable.” United States v. Arviso- Mata, 442 F.3d 382, 384 (5th Cir. 2006). Sanchez intentionally waived any claim that the district court erroneously calculated the quantity of methamphetamine. The essence of her argument is that the court erred by applying the Guidelines range for pure methamphetamine to all 54 grams that were seized. Instead, she says, the court should have awaited a laboratory report on the concentration of actual methamphetamine in those drugs, or otherwise applied the Guideline for mixtures of controlled substances. See USSG § 2D1.1(c) (setting different guidelines for “actual” methamphetamine and mixtures containing detectable amounts of methamphetamine). Sanchez, however, knowingly abandoned this claim. At sentencing, Sanchez’s counsel noted that he “still ha[d] not received a drug lab” on the purity of the methamphetamine at issue. The district court judge offered to reset the hearing to sort out the drug-quantity issue. Sanchez and her lawyer declined, thus waiving any future challenge to that calculation. Cf. Rodriguez-De la Fuente, 842 F.3d at 374 (similar). AFFIRMED.