Meirl Gilbert Neal v. United States (516 U.S. 284)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 22, 1996 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 516 U.S. 284 · 116 S. Ct. 763
- Decided
- January 22, 1996
- Term
- October Term 1995
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court. The policy of sentencing drug offenders based on the amount of drugs involved, straightforward enough in its simplest formulation, gives rise to complexities, requiring us again to address the methods for calculating the weight of LSD sold by a drug trafficker. We reject petitioner’s contention that the revised system for determining LSD amounts under the United States Sentencing Guidelines requires reconsideration of the method used to determine statutory minimum sentences, and we adhere to our former decision on the subject. I LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is such a powerful narcotic that the average dose contains only 0.05 milligrams of the pure drug. The per-dose amount is so minute that in most instances LSD is transferred to a carrier medium and sold at retail by the dose, not by weight. In the typical case, pure LSD is dissolved in alcohol or other solvent, and the resulting solution is applied to paper or gelatin. The solvent evaporates; the LSD remains. The dealer cuts the paper or gel into single-dose squares for sale on the street. Users ingest the LSD by swallowing or licking the squares or drinking a beverage into which the squares have been mixed. In 1988, petitioner Meirl Neal was arrested for selling 11,456 doses of LSD on blotter paper. The combined weight of the LSD and the paper was 109.51 grams.…
Excerpt of a 21,702-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.