UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-4400
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
RICHARD MCDONALD,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern
District of West Virginia, at Clarksburg. Irene M. Keeley,
District Judge. (1:10-cr-00090-IMK-JSK-1)
Submitted: January 29, 2013 Decided: February 11, 2013
Before NIEMEYER, KING, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Stephen D. Herndon, Wheeling, West Virginia, for Appellant.
William J. Ihlenfeld, II, United States Attorney, Zelda E.
Wesley, Assistant United States Attorney, Clarksburg, West
Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
A jury convicted Richard McDonald of conspiracy to
distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine base,
in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 (2006) (Count One), and
distribution of cocaine base and/or cocaine hydrochloride during
four controlled buys, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1)
(2006) (Counts Two through Five). The jury also returned a
special verdict finding beyond a reasonable doubt that the
conspiracy involved less than five grams of cocaine base. The
district court sentenced McDonald to 121 months’ imprisonment
based on an equivalent drug weight of 1202.18 kilograms of
marijuana established primarily by historical information
provided by a Government witness, Tito Bell. On appeal,
McDonald challenges Bell’s credibility and the district court’s
drug-quantity determination. We affirm.
We review a sentence for abuse of discretion. Gall v.
United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). McDonald first argues
that the district court erred when it calculated his Sentencing
Guidelines range without giving substantial, if not controlling
weight, to the jury’s determination that the conspiracy involved
less than five grams of crack cocaine. However, his argument is
foreclosed by United States v. Perry, 560 F.3d 246, 258-59 (4th
Cir. 2009) (citing, among other cases, United States v. Watts,
519 U.S. 148, 155-56 (1997)).
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Apart from the jury’s drug-quantity finding, McDonald
also challenges the district court’s independent assessment of
Bell’s credibility, rendering its drug-quantity determination
erroneous. We review the district court’s drug-quantity
findings for clear error. United States v. Cabrera-Beltran, 660
F.3d 742, 756 (4th Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 1935
(2012). “[W]hen a district court’s factual finding is based
upon assessments of witness credibility, such finding is
deserving of the highest degree of appellate deference.” United
States v. Thompson, 554 F.3d 450, 452 (4th Cir. 2009) (internal
quotation marks omitted). Our review of the record leads us to
conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by
finding Bell to be a credible witness and relying on the
historical weight information he provided. Moreover, we
conclude that the explanation offered by the district court for
its chosen sentence was sufficient for meaningful appellate
review. See United States v. Bell, 667 F.3d 431, 444-48 (4th
Cir. 2011).
Finally, McDonald asserts that the district court was
obligated to sentence him at the low end of the potential drug
quantities established by Bell’s testimony. We have held that
“a district court need not ‘err,’ on the side of caution or
otherwise [in approximating drug quantity]; it must only
determine that it was more likely than not that the defendant
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was responsible for at least the drug quantity attributed to
him.” United States v. Kiulin, 360 F.3d 456, 461 (4th Cir.
2004). Here, the court found that Bell’s credible estimates of
the drug quantities he purchased from McDonald were typical of
drug transactions involving middlemen. We therefore conclude
that McDonald is not entitled to relief on this claim.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment.
We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before
this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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