By: Derek Hawkins//December 19, 2016//
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: 15-3547
Case No.: United States of America v. Shaft Jones
Officials: 15-3547
Focus: Sentencing
A federal jury found the defendant guilty of conspiring to possess, with intent to distribute, five or more kilograms of cocaine, and of related crimes including carrying a gun in connection with drug trafficking. The district judge sentenced him to 270 months in prison.
“. . . Jones challenges his sentence, arguing that he wasn’t responsible for more than 50 kilograms of cocaine. But the district judge had two good reasons to think he was: calculating backward from the money the government seized, and relying on testimony that Jones had purchased 90 kilograms through one of the brokers. The government 6 No. 15‐3547 had the defendant cold, and the district judge was on solid footing in saying that a sentence above the guideline range would be reasonable given the magnitude of Jones’s criminal activity, though ultimately the judge sentenced Jones within the guidelines range.”
Affirmed