United States of America v. Cristobal Sanchez-Chavez

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
CRISTOBAL SANCHEZ-CHAVEZ,
Defendant - Appellant.
No. 14-30251
D.C. No. 1:13-cr-00090-SPW-1
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Montana
Susan P. Watters, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted November 3, 2015**
Portland, Oregon
Before: FISHER, BERZON, and WATFORD, Circuit Judges.
1. The government introduced sufficient evidence at trial to support
Cristobal Sanchez-Chavez’s conviction under 21 U.S.C. § 846 for conspiracy to
possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). A
FILED
DEC 23 2015
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

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reasonable jury could have credited Officer Wethington’s testimony that Sanchez-
Chavez’s voice matched that of an individual recorded on a series of telephone
calls during the course of a DEA wiretap investigation. Officer Wethington
conducted the voice identification by comparing Sanchez-Chavez’s voice on a
telephone call recorded from jail to the voice associated with a particular individual
on one of the wiretap calls. Officer Wethington determined that the voice recorded
on the wiretap call belonged to Sanchez-Chavez. Officer Wethington then
compared the voice known to be Sanchez-Chavez’s to the voices on the other
recorded wiretap calls the government introduced at trial and identified for the jury
each instance in which Sanchez-Chavez spoke. Additional evidence confirmed
that the individual speaking on the recorded wiretap calls was indeed Sanchez-
Chavez.
The recorded wiretap calls provided sufficient evidence to sustain the
conspiracy conviction. The transcripts of the recorded conversations established
that Sanchez-Chavez assisted others in arranging to transport methamphetamine
and in deciding what to do after the car transporting the methamphetamine was
stopped and seized by law enforcement. A reasonable jury could infer from this
evidence that Sanchez-Chavez had joined an illegal agreement and intended to

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commit the underlying offense of possession with intent to distribute. See United
States v. Suarez, 682 F.3d 1214, 1219 (9th Cir. 2012).
2. The district court did not clearly err by declining to apply the “minor
participant” reduction under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2(b). See United States v. Hurtado,
760 F.3d 1065, 1067–69 (9th Cir. 2014). The court properly found that Sanchez-
Chavez was not less culpable than most of the other participants, given his role in
procuring the methamphetamine and helping to arrange for its transport. See
United States v. Rodriguez-Castro, 641 F.3d 1189, 1192–93 (9th Cir. 2011);
U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2 cmt. n.3(A), (C).
AFFIRMED.

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