Thursday, June 16, 2016

Conspiracy to Distribute Cannot be Implied Without Agreement to Sell

Without an agreement that a drug buyer would resell them to others, a conspiracy to distribute cannot be implied, even when large quantities of the drugs were being purchased

United States v. Loveland, 2016 BL 177122, 9th Cir., No. 13-30162, 6/3/16.

    The Ninth Circuit found that there can be no conspiracy to distribute without an agreement between the seller and buyer that the buyer will resell the drugs. The court rejected the government’s argument that “a prolonged relationship of the parties in which the success of one depends on the success of the other,” where the seller “had to know” that there was an implied agreement between him and buyer were enough to establish a conspiracy to distribute. Additionally, the court acknowledged that an agreement can be implied from the surrounding circumstances of a relationship between a buyer and seller, but there must be a showing of a “shared stake.” Without evidence of the seller “fronting” the drugs, the buyer taking the drugs on consignment, or some other special discount, the circumstances are not sufficient to establish a conspiracy to distribute. Here, however, the buyer was only a long-time and high-quantity customer who may have likely resold the drugs, but as the court determined, this was not enough to imply a conspiracy to distribute.

http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/United_States_v_Loveland_No_1330162_2016_BL_177122_9th_Cir_June_0.

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