United States v. Beckstead

EBEL, Circuit Judge.

In this direct criminal appeal, Defendant-Appellant Joshua Beckstead challenges four convictions and a twenty-year sentence resulting from his involvement with a methamphetamine lab. Among other things, Beckstead claims that the Government denied him due process because officers seized and immediately disposed of the methamphetamine lab pursuant to standard police department policy. The department’s policy was developed in response to the dangers generally presented by methamphetamine labs and the chemicals associated with them. But Beckstead argues that by destroying this…