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Criminal Law Keyed to Abrams
Neal v. United States
Citation:
516 U.S. 284, 116 S.Ct. 763, 133 L.Ed.2d 763 (1996)Facts
Neal (Defendant) sold over 11,000 doses of LSD on blotter paper. He was charged with possession of LSD with intent to distribute it, as well as conspiracy to possess LSD with intent to distribute it. He entered a guilty plea. When determining Neal’s sentence, the district court ruled that in order to calculate the weight of the LSD, the blotter paper must be weighed (in addition the drug itself) in determining whether Neal crossed the 10-gram threshold that would lengthen his sentence. The district court ruled that the blotter paper’s weight should be included, even though the United States Sentencing Guidelines had recently been revised with an instruction that the carrier medium should be given a presumed weight of 0.4 milligrams.
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