United States of America v. Sixto Marquez

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 22-4372
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
SIXTO MARQUEZ,
Defendant - Appellant.
No. 22-4597
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
FRANCISCO CHANES,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia,
at Clarksburg. Thomas S. Kleeh, Chief District Judge. (1:20-cr-00074-TSK-MJA-8; 1:20-
cr-00074-TSK-MJA-9)
Submitted: June 25, 2024 Decided: July 31, 2024

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Before HARRIS and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges, and KEENAN, Senior Circuit
Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ON BRIEF: Noell P. Tin, TIN FULTON WALKER & OWEN, Charlotte, North Carolina,
for Appellant Sixto Marquez. Troy N. Giatras, THE GIATRAS LAW FIRM, PLLC,
Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant Francisco Chanes. William Ihlenfeld, United
States Attorney, Wheeling, West Virginia, Zelda E. Wesley, Assistant United States
Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Clarksburg, West Virginia,
for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Sixto Marquez and Francisco Chanes pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with
intent to distribute and distribute methamphetamine, cocaine, cocaine base, and fentanyl,
in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C), 846, and use of a communication facility
to facilitate drug distribution, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 843(b), (d)(1). The district court
sentenced both Marquez and Chanes to a total of 188 months of imprisonment, and they
both appealed. On appeal, Marquez and Chanes argue that the district court clearly erred
in calculating the drug weight attributable to them under the Sentencing Guidelines. We
affirm.
We review criminal sentences for reasonableness “under a deferential abuse-of-
discretion standard.” United States v. Williams, 5 F.4th 500, 505 (4th Cir. 2021). In
reviewing for procedural reasonableness, we ensure that the district court “committed no
significant procedural error, such as improperly calculating the Guidelines range, selecting
a sentence based on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately explain the chosen
sentence.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). “In assessing [a] challenge to the district
court’s Guidelines application, we review factual findings for clear error and legal
conclusions de novo.” United States v. Boyd, 55 F.4th 272, 276 (4th Cir. 2022) (internal
quotation marks omitted). “In so doing, we afford great deference to a district judge’s
credibility determinations and how the court may choose to weigh the evidence.” United
States v. Williamson, 953 F.3d 264, 273 (4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted).
“For sentencing purposes, the government must prove the drug quantity attributable
to a particular defendant by a preponderance of the evidence.” United States v. Bell, 667

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F.3d 431, 441 (4th Cir. 2011). “Under the Guidelines, where there is no drug seizure or
the amount seized does not reflect the scale of the offense, the court shall approximate the
quantity of the controlled substance.” Williamson, 953 F.3d at 273 (cleaned up). A district
court has “considerable leeway in crafting this estimate . . . [and] may give weight to any
relevant information before it, including uncorroborated hearsay, provided that the
information has sufficient indicia of reliability to support its accuracy.” Id. (internal
quotation marks omitted). Nonetheless, “[d]istrict courts must still exercise caution in
estimating drug quantity at sentencing, and not attribute speculative or scantily supported
amounts to defendants.” Id.
We discern no clear error in the district court’s factual findings. The district court
considered the information in the presentence reports, the testimony presented by the
Government at both Marquez’s and Chanes’ sentencing hearings, and the recorded phone
calls, text messages, and package shipping receipts before ultimately finding that the
Government’s evidence was credible and provided a reliable estimate of the relevant drug
weight. The court thus reasonably estimated the drug weights based on the Government’s
evidence. Marquez and Chanes fail to show that the district court clearly erred in
calculating the drug weight for sentencing based on a preponderance of the evidence.
We therefore affirm the criminal judgments. 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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