No. 22-1332 ___________________________

United States of America

Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Melroy Johnson, Sr.

Defendant - Appellant ____________

Appeal from United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa - Western ____________

Submitted: April 13, 2023 Filed: July 27, 2023 ____________ Before LOKEN, SHEPHERD, and KELLY, Circuit Judges. ____________ KELLY, Circuit Judge.

Melroy Johnson, Sr., was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. On appeal, Johnson argues that the district court1 erred by denying his motion to suppress and his motion for

1 The Honorable Leonard T. Strand, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, adopting the report and recommendations of the judgment of acquittal or a new trial, and in calculating the drug quantity for purposes of sentencing.

I.

Early in 2019, law enforcement began an investigation after it learned of several suspicious mailings between Kimberly Hansen in Sioux City, Iowa, and Felton Fitzgerald in Orange, California. Inspector Ryan Brandt of the United States Postal Service (USPS) reviewed USPS records and discovered that Hansen had received 10 or 11 packages, totaling 40 pounds, from Fitzgerald, and that Hansen had mailed 20 to 24 packages weighing less than a pound to Fitzgerald. Inspector Brandt suspected that Fitzgerald was mailing Hansen drugs and that Hansen was mailing money to Fitzgerald.

On June 6, 2019, Inspector Brandt and Sioux City Police Officer Eric Davis intercepted a package sent by Fitzgerald as it was being delivered to Hansen’s home and performed a “knock-and-talk” with Hansen. Hansen consented to a search of the package, which contained roughly five pounds of methamphetamine. Hansen’s phone records showed multiple communications between herself and Fitzgerald, and she told the officers that the package’s intended recipient was Johnson. Hansen said that Johnson typically gave her money to send back to Fitzgerald to pay for the packages, and she received cocaine and cash from Johnson in exchange for her participation in the arrangement. Hansen later identified Johnson from a three- person lineup.

In the following months, Fitzgerald stopped sending packages to Hansen’s address. But Inspector Brandt and Officer Davis continued to monitor mailings from the Orange, California, area to the Sioux City area. Soon, Inspector Brandt noticed a “money mailing” sent to Fitzgerald’s address from a new location in Sioux City,

Honorable Kelly K.E. Mahoney, Chief United States Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of Iowa. -2- and he suspected that the “drug mailings were continuing.” On August 2, 2019, Inspector Brandt flagged “two sets” of suspicious packages he believed were mailed by Fitzgerald under a fictitious name to an address in Sioux City. The first set had already been delivered, but two other packages were still “in the mail stream” and on their way to Sioux City. Officer Davis and Drug Enforcement Administration agents surveilled the intended destination of these packages for about five hours but were unable to identify the woman who picked up the packages or where she took them.

On August 27, 2019, Inspector Brandt flagged another suspicious package mailed from Fitzgerald to Sioux City. Agents intercepted the package, which contained 4.6 pounds of methamphetamine. Agents repackaged th