United States v. Shawn Richard Anderson, United States of America v. Mateo Morales

A jury convicted Shawn Richard Anderson and Mateo Morales (“appellants”) of conspiring to manufacture methamphetamine. The district court 2 sentenced both appellants to 360 months imprisonment and five years supervised release under 21 U.S.C. § 846 and 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A). While most of the issues appellants raise before this court lack any merit, we do find it necessary to revisit briefly the application to drug sentencing cases of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000).

In Apprendi, the Court held that any fact, other…