No. 23-1542 ___________________________

United States of America,

lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee,

v.

James Alan Bennett,

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant. ____________

Appeal from United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa - Central ____________

Submitted: October 20, 2023 Filed: January 26, 2024 ____________ Before SMITH, Chief Judge, LOKEN and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges. ____________ COLLOTON, Circuit Judge.

James Bennett was convicted after a jury trial of conspiring to distribute methamphetamine. The district court* sentenced Bennett to 300 months’

* The Honorable James E. Gritzner, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Iowa. imprisonment. Bennett appeals and challenges both his conviction and sentence. We conclude that there is no reversible error and affirm the judgment.

I.

Based on seized evidence and testimony, prosecutors alleged that Bennett was a partner with Khrista Erdman in a methamphetamine trafficking conspiracy. On October 1, 2021, officers executed a search warrant at Erdman’s house in Des Moines. They seized over six kilograms of methamphetamine from the trunk of Erdman’s car, and 747 grams of the drug from Bennett’s backpack. Erdman later testified that she and Bennett acquired the drugs in Kansas City and returned to Des Moines the night before the search.

A grand jury charged Bennett with conspiring to distribute methamphetamine from March 2021 through October 1, 2021. See 21 U.S.C. § 846. The indictment alleged a drug quantity of 500 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing methamphetamine. See id. § 841(b)(1)(A).

At trial, Erdman testified that Bennett was her partner in a large-scale drug distribution scheme. She testified that Bennett routinely accompanied her on out-of- state trips to acquire methamphetamine. The partners returned to Iowa with between 4.5 and 30 kilograms of methamphetamine per trip. She testified that Bennett distributed some of the methamphetamine to Kenneth Crook. Crook also testified and confirmed Erdman’s account of their activities. The government introduced text messages and location data from Bennett’s cellular telephone that further corroborated the testimony of the co-conspirators. In total, there was evidence suggesting that the conspirators trafficked around 120 kilograms of methamphetamine.

-2- Some evidence also suggested that Bennett had been dealing smaller quantities of methamphetamine to customers in the Des Moines area. Erdman testified that Bennett acquired methamphetamine that he distributed to her from another source before she informed him of a new, larger source in Kansas City. At the close of evidence, Bennett requested that the jury be instructed on the potential for multiple conspiracies. The district court denied the request but said that Bennett was “certainly able to argue that point to the jury.”

The verdict form gave the jury three options on drug quantity and instructed the jury as follows: “Check the drug quantity which the jury unanimously agrees was involved in the offense. If you are unable to agree, check the lowest drug quantity.” The jury did not convict Bennett of the charged quantity of 500 grams or the next option of at least 50 grams. Instead, the jury selected “[s]ome quantity of a mixture or substance containing methamphetamine.” See Id. § 841(b)(1)(C).

At sentencing, however, the district court found that Bennet