Sentencing; Procedural reasonableness; Drug amount calculation; Reliance on a codefendant’s statement included in the presentence investigation report (PSR); Clear error; “Minimum indicia of reliability” standard; Application of the 18 USC § 3553(a) factors; Substantive reasonableness

In this consolidated appeal, the court reversed defendant-Hawkins’s sentence as procedurally unreasonable, holding that it was clear error for the district court to accept the PSR’s drug amount calculation that relied on defendant-Crafton’s statement to calculate the bulk of the drugs attributable to Hawkins. Both defendants were charged with crimes for participating in a meth distribution conspiracy. Hawkins pled guilty to distribution of a substance containing a detectable amount of meth. The PSR calculated her offense level at 31 and a Guidelines range of 135 to 168 months. The district court lowered her offense level to 28, denied her request for a variance, and sentenced her to 98 months. She argued that her sentence was both procedurally and substantively unreasonable because the district court erred by relying on Crafton’s statement in the PSR to calculate the estimated quantity of meth that she allegedly distributed. To succeed in her challenge, she was required to show that the district court clearly erred in “relying on Crafton’s statement to calculate the drug amount attributable to” her. The court held that Crafton’s statement did not exhibit the required “minimum indicia of reliability” where the government’s evidence and the PSR did not corroborate the statement. “Crafton’s statement is precisely the kind of mere allegation that the district court cannot rely on.” The court noted that it has never “recognized that testimonial evidence in the form of statements merely relayed by the PSR, without any testimony whatsoever and with no other supporting evidence, may be sufficient.” Thus, it reversed Hawkins’s sentence and remanded for resentencing, instructing the district court to limit its review to quantity information in the current record. The court rejected Crafton’s procedural and substantive reasonableness challenges and affirmed his 210-month sentence, holding among other things that the district court properly considered the § 3553(a) factors.