United States v. Gould, No. 21-1991 (7th Cir. 2022)
Annotate this Case
Walton supplied crack cocaine to the people who ran three Gary, Indiana drug houses. Gould dealt drugs out of a different drug house. Eventually, more than 20 people were indicted for the drug conspiracy. Many pled guilty. Walton and Gould were convicted of conspiracy to distribute powder and crack cocaine (21 U.S.C. 841, 846). A jury found them guilty of conspiring to distribute more than 280 grams of crack cocaine but did not find them culpable for any quantity of powder cocaine. The court sentenced Walton to 360 months and Gould to 168 months.
The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting a claim that the district court erred by holding a trial in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The court also rejected challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence and to Walton's sentence. There was no evidence that the jurors rushed to verdict in order to go home.
Harris, who pled guilty, argued that his written judgment contradicted the district judge’s oral pronouncement of his sentence. The court rejected that argument, noting that it was not barred by Harris’s appeal waiver. An argument that a written judgment conflicts with a sentencing judge’s oral pronouncement is not a challenge to the sentence—it is a request for imposition of the actual sentence the judge intended.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.