United States v. Williams, No. 19-2182 (8th Cir. 2020)
Annotate this CaseThe Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute cocaine base. The court rejected defendant's claim that the district court abused its discretion by not addressing defendant's request that the sentence be made concurrent with an anticipated state sentence; the district court did not abuse its discretion or plainly err by deciding not to explain why it did not vary downward when defendant did not request further explanation; the district court did not clearly err in finding that this was jointly undertaken criminal activity and therefore the total quantity of unsold drugs found in the car should be attributed to each participant; and any error in determining drug quantity for sentencing purposes was harmless.
Court Description: [Loken, Author, with Shepherd and Erickson, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Sentencing. The district court did not abuse its discretion by deciding not to address the issue of whether the sentence in this matter should be consecutive or concurrent to a state sentence which had not yet been revoked; the district court did not err in including in its drug quantity calculation drugs held by the co-defendant in this jointly undertaken drug distribution activity; any error in calculating the drug quantity was harmless in light of the district court's explicit statement that it would impose the same sentence without regard to the quantity calculation.
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.