In a published opinion, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed with Per that the government failed to prove that his client was responsible for a kilogram or more of heroin in connection with the client’s conviction for a conspiracy to delivery heroin.  United States v. Navarrette-Aguilar, 813 F.3d 785 (9th Cir 2015).  This result lowered the mandatory minimum sentence from 20 years to 10 years for the client who had a prior drug conviction.  The opinion prevents the government from asking the jury to speculate about future drug transactions that it claims would have occurred had law enforcement not thwarted the conspiracy, in order to reach the one kilogram threshold.

Click here for Ninth Circuit Opinion