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Court Opinions ›› Chapman Et Al. v. United States (1991)
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 90-5744 1991.SCT.3013 , 500 U.S. 453, 111 S. Ct. 1919, 114 L. Ed. 2d 524, 59 U.S.L.W. 4530 May 30, 1991 RICHARD L. CHAPMAN, JOHN M. SCHOENECKER AND PATRICK BRUMM, PETITIONERS v. UNITED STATES CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT. A pure dose of the hallucinogenic drug LSD is so small that it must be sold to retail customers in a "carrier" created by dissolving pure LSD and, inter alia, spraying the resulting solution on paper. That paper is then cut into "one-dose" squares, which users swallow, lick, or drop into a beverage to release the drug. Petitioners were convicted in the District Court of selling 10 sheets (1,000 doses) of blotter paper containing LSD, in violation of 21 U. S. C. § 841(a). Section 841(b)(1)(B) calls for a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence for the offense of distributing more than one gram of "a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount" of LSD. Although petitioners' pure LSD weighed only 50 milligrams, the court included the total weight of the paper and LSD, 5.7 grams, in calculating their sentences, thus requiring the imposition of the mandatory minimum sentence. The 5.7 grams was also used to determine the base offense level under the United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual (Sentencing Guidelines). The Court of Appeals affirmed, rejecting petitioners' arguments that the carrier medium's weight should not be included for sentencing purposes, and, alternatively, that construing the statute and the Sentencing Guidelines to require the carrier medium's inclusion would violate the right to equal protection incorporated in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The statute requires the weight of the carrier medium to be included when determining the appropriate sentencing for trafficking in LSD.
Since the statute refers to a "mixture or substance containing a detectable amount," the entire mixture or substance is to be weighed when calculating the sentence. [...] The blotter paper used here, and blotter paper customarily used to distribute LSD, is a "mixture or substance containing a detectable amount" of LSD. Since neither the statute nor the Sentencing Guidelines define "mixture," and it has no established common-law meaning, it must be given its ordinary meaning, see Moskal v. United States, 498 U.S. 103, 108, which is "a portion of matter consisting of two or more components . . . that however thoroughly commingled are regarded as retaining a separate existence," Webster's Third New International Dictionary. The LSD crystals left behind when the solvent evaporates are inside of the paper, so they are commingled with it, but the LSD does not chemically combine with the paper and, thus, retains a separate existence. Using the dictionary definition would not allow the clause to be interpreted to include LSD in a bottle or in a car, since, unlike blotter paper, those containers are easily distinguished and separated from LSD.
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[Petitioners] argue that including the weight of the carrier leads to anomalous results, viz: a major wholesaler caught with 19,999 doses of pure LSD would not be subject to the 5-year mandatory minimum sentence, while a minor pusher with 200 doses on blotter paper, or even one dose on a sugar cube, would be subject to the mandatory minimum sentence.
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The current penalties for LSD distribution originated in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, Pub. L. 99-570, 100 Stat. 3207. Congress adopted a "market-oriented" approach to punishing drug trafficking, under which the total quantity of what is distributed, rather than the amount of pure drug involved, is used to determine the length of the sentence. [...] It intended the penalties for drug trafficking to be graduated according to the weight of the drugs in whatever form they were found -- cut or uncut, pure or impure, ready for wholesale or ready for distribution at the retail level. Congress did not want to punish retail traffickers less severely, even though they deal in smaller quantities of the pure drug, because such traffickers keep the street markets going. H. R. Rep. No. 99-845, (supra) , at pt. 1, p. 12.
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By measuring the quantity of the drugs according to the "street weight" of the drugs in the diluted form in which they are sold, rather than according to the net weight of the active component, the statute and the Sentencing Guidelines increase the penalty for persons who possess large quantities of drugs, regardless of their purity. [...] This is as true with respect to LSD as it is with respect to other drugs. Although LSD is not sold by weight, but by dose, and a carrier medium is not, strictly speaking, used to "dilute" the drug, that medium is used to facilitate the distribution of the drug.
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Petitioners argue that those selling different numbers of doses, and, therefore, with different degrees of culpability, will be subject to the same minimum sentence because of choosing different carriers. The same objection could be made to a statute that imposed a fixed sentence for distributing any quantity of LSD, in any form, with any carrier. Such a sentencing scheme -- not considering individual degrees of culpability -- would clearly be constitutional. Congress has the power to define criminal punishments without giving the courts any sentencing discretion. Ex parte United States, 242 U.S. 27 (1916).
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...[W]idely divergent sentences may be imposed for the sale of identical amounts of a controlled substance simply because of the nature of the carrier. If 100 doses of LSD were sold on sugar cubes, the sentence would range from 188-235 months, whereas if the same dosage were sold in its pure liquid form, the sentence would range only from 10-16 months.
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Undoubtedly, Congress intended to punish drug traffickers severely, and in particular, Congress intended to punish those who sell large quantities of drugs more severely than those who sell small quantities. [...] Instead of punishing more severely those who sell large quantities of LSD, the Court would punish more severely those who sell small quantities of LSD in weighty carriers, and instead of sentencing in comparable ways those who sell different types of drugs, the Court would sentence those who sell LSD to longer terms than those who sell proportionately equivalent quantities of other equally dangerous drugs.
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