In U.S. v. Grant, No. 03-13406 (Jan. 27, 2005), the Court (Carnes, Hull, Hill) held that the weight of LSD, for which the pure LSD weight was 0.1263 grams, and the weight with the water in which it was contained was 103.7 grams (or the equivalent of 2526 dosage units or "hits"), must, for sentencing computation purposes, include the water within which it is contained. The Court rejected the argument that the defendant should have been sentenced on the basis of the pure weight of the LSD.
Citing Chapman v. U.S., 111 S.Ct. 1919 (1991), the Court held that the weight of the mixture is the applicable weight for calcuting LSD quantities under the drug statutes. Accordingly, Grant, who admitted at his plea colloquy to possessing 10 grams of LSD, was subject to the mandatory minimum penalty of 120 months for LSD possession. The Court found no meaningful difference between the blotter paper carrier at issue in Chapman and the water used by Grant.
The Court rejected Grant’s argument that, at a resentencing after a successful appeal of a sentence in which he received a downward departure below the otherwise applicable mandatory minimum, the mandatory minimum could no longer be a relevant consideration for his sentence. The Court held that the resentencing "wiped the slate clean." The Court noted that Grant’s new sentence was half the mandatory minimum, and that the district court was free to reconstruct the sentence as it did, based on the mandatory minimum and a new downward departure.
