231542P.pdf   01/26/2024  United States  v.  James Bennett
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  23-1542
   U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa - Central   
   [PUBLISHED] [Colloton, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Loken, Circuit 
   Judge] 
   Criminal case - Criminal law and Sentencing. The evidence was sufficient 
   for a reasonable jury to find defendant conspired with others to 
   distribute methamphetamine; the district court did not err in rejecting 
   defendant's request for an instruction on multiple conspiracies; assuming 
   for the purposes of discussion that the evidence was substantial enough to 
   support a reasonable finding that defendant participated in two 
   conspiracies, he was not prejudiced by the court's refusal to give the 
   multiple conspiracy instruction, as the evidence showed he would be a 
   member of both possible conspiracies; the district court did not err in 
   denying defendant's request for an acceptance-of-responsibility reduction 
   under Guidelines Sec. 3E1.1 as he contested his factual guilt; the 
   district court did not err in calculating drug quantity; the sentence 
   imposed, a downward variance, was not substantively unreasonable.