United States v. Levi Culps

Appellant Levi Culps (“Culps”) and others sold marijuana from the Culps home in rural Washington State. A jury convicted Culps of three counts of distributing and possessing marijuana and one count of maintaining a drug house. The district court sentenced Culps to 88 months in prison based upon the court’s approximation of how much marijuana was sold at Culps’ house over a three-year period. Culps appeals his sentence. We hold that Culps’ sentence was based on an approximated drug quantity that was not supported by sufficiently reliable information, vacate his sentence and remand for resen-tencing.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

This appeal arises out of a lengthy and intermittent investigation into sales of marijuana at the Culps residence, home of Culps, his brother Roy Culps, their mother and James Scott Lewis. The Culps residence is located on Progressive Road in a rural area of Yakima County lying within the Yakama Nation Reservation. Only two other occupied houses are located on the adjacent stretch of Progressive Road. Progressive Road is intersected by Hin-man Road, on which several other occupied residences are located.

Over a period of three years and four…