Mitchell v. United States

The defendant pled guilty to one count of conspiring to distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine. The quantity of drugs involved was crucial, because this amount would be used by the court in sentencing. The defendant reserved the right to contest the drug quantity attributable to her under the conspiracy count. The trial court advised the defendant the drug quantity would be determined at her sentencing hearing. During the sentencing proceeding, the government offered testimony from others involved in the conspiracy to establish both the number of transactions in which the defendant had participated, as well as the amount of cocaine she sold. The defendant did not testify at the sentencing proceedings, relying instead on her attorney’s attacks on the credibility of the government witnesses. The judge expressly stated that he was drawing an adverse inference from the defendant’s failure to testify at her sentencing hearing.