United States of America v. Jose Luis Torres

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 23-3313
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Jose Luis Torres
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Southern District of Iowa - Eastern
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Submitted: September 23, 2024
Filed: December 5, 2024
[Unpublished]
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Before SMITH, ERICKSON, and STRAS, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
Jose Torres, who pleaded guilty to two counts of cocaine distribution, see 21
U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C), argues that the district court1 miscalculated the drug
weight at sentencing. Any error, however, was harmless, so we affirm.
1 The Honorable Stephen H. Locher, United States District Judge for the
Southern District of Iowa.

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-2-
The presentence investigation report, which the district court adopted,
estimated that the combined drug weight from multiple deliveries of cocaine was
just over 35 kilograms. See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c). Torres challenged almost all of it,
except for the 112 grams that supported his guilty plea. Concluding that the
remaining drugs were part of the “same course of conduct or common scheme or
plan” as the deliveries he admitted to making, the court overruled his objections.
U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(2).
It then went a step further by explaining why it would have imposed a 200-
month sentence “either way.” It made clear that, even if the disputed drug
transactions had been excluded, it still would have “varied upward” and ended up in
the same place. In its view, “the sentence” it ultimately selected was “sufficient but
not greater than necessary to satisfy [the statutory sentencing factors].” Given these
statements, we can safely conclude that a lower drug weight would not have resulted
in a lower sentence. See United States v. Holmes, 87 F.4th 910, 914 (8th Cir. 2023)
(explaining when an error is harmless). We accordingly affirm the judgment of the
district court.
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