United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ Nos. 22-2994 & 23-1461 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHRISTOPHER ALLEN YATES and SHAWN THOMAS CONNELLY, Defendants-Appellants. ____________________

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. Nos. 4:20-cr-40017-7 & 4:20-cr-40017-4 — Sara Darrow, Chief Judge. ____________________

ARGUED JANUARY 8, 2024 — DECIDED APRIL 11, 2024 ____________________

Before WOOD, SCUDDER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge. Christopher Yates and Shawn Con- nelly appeal their sentences following convictions for conspir- ing to distribute methamphetamine. Both challenge the dis- trict court’s finding that the conspiracy involved at least 737.1 grams of “ice” methamphetamine, meaning methampheta- mine that was at least 80% pure. Yates argues that the govern- ment failed to meet its burden of proving the purity of all that 2 Nos. 22-2994 & 23-1461 methamphetamine, having only tested a small, unrepresenta- tive amount. Connelly asserts that the court should not have relied on his coconspirators’ statements to calculate the total drug weight, and that the full weight was not reasonably fore- seeable to him. We vacate Yates’s sentence and remand. The Guidelines allow district courts to engage in some degree of estimation when determining drug quantity and purity, but the govern- ment must supply reliable evidence making that approxima- tion reasonable. Because we find such evidence lacking here, Yates is entitled to resentencing. We affirm Connelly’s sen- tence. I. Background In December 2020, a grand jury indicted Chistopher Yates and Shawn Connelly, along with six coconspirators, on charges of conspiring to distribute at least 50 grams of actual methamphetamine. See 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(A), 841(b)(1)(C), 846. Connelly also faced a charge of distributing a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine. See 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(C); 18 U.S.C. § 2. Yates and Connelly pleaded guilty without a plea agree- ment. The following facts come from the presentence investi- gation reports (“PSRs”) prepared before their sentencings. The conspiracy operated out of Macomb, Illinois, and lasted thirteen months, from January 2019 to February 2020. Yates supplied its methamphetamine. At first, he purchased the drugs from an unknown source in Joliet, Illinois, with al- leged Mexican cartel connections. But law enforcement Nos. 22-2994 & 23-1461 3 arrested that supplier sometime around December 2019, forc- ing Yates to seek out a new source. Yates would bring the drugs to his home in Macomb and front them to the other members of the conspiracy to distrib- ute. Connelly was among the distributors. A. Controlled Buys The government conducted one seizure and nine con- trolled buys from members of the conspiracy during its inves- tigation. Most of this activity took place over one week in Sep- tember 2019, when the government executed six controlled buys and obtained more than 144 grams of methampheta- mine (out of 158 grams of methamphetamine obtained in to- tal). The government tested five of these samples, amounting to 141.3 grams of methamphetamine, for purity. Each test identified d-methamphetamine hydrochloride with a purity of 99% or above. A table summarizing the seized metham- phetamine appears below. Date Seized Quantity (g) Purity September 19, 2019 3.496 99% September 20, 2019 2.927 99% September 21, 2019 17.9