United States v. Martez Deangelo Wright

── United States v. Martez Deangelo Wright ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Date: April 21, 2026 Category: General NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 26a0182n.06 No. 24-5300 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Apr 21, 2026 KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk ) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) Plaintiff-Appellee, ) ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED ) STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR v. ) THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF ) TENNESSEE MARTEZ DEANGELO WRIGHT, ) Defendant-Appellant. ) OPINION ) Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; CLAY and MURPHY, Circuit Judges. MURPHY, Circuit Judge. Confidential informants repeatedly recorded Martez Wright while he engaged in drug and firearm transactions. After a jury convicted him for these crimes, the district court imposed a sentence at the bottom of his guidelines range: 360 months’ imprisonment. Wright now claims that the admission at trial of out-of-court statements in the recordings violated the Confrontation Clause. He also claims that the district court did not adequately explain why it rejected his request for a variance from his guidelines range. But he preserved neither argument, so we must review both for plain error. And the district court did not commit an obvious error by concluding that the government introduced the challenged out-of- court statements for a purpose that did not implicate the Confrontation Clause. It likewise did not commit an obvious error by concluding that its general explanation for its sentence adequately responded to Wright’s arguments in favor of a variance. We thus affirm. No. 24-5300, United States v. Wright I In 2017, officers began to investigate Wright for distributing drugs in Memphis, Tennessee. After Wright moved to a new home in Memphis the next year, the investigation centered on this location. Officers repeatedly coordinated with confidential informants to buy drugs from Wright at his home between March and August 2018. The first informant participated in buys on March 15, March 28, April 12, April 25, June 7, and July 19. He secretly recorded each drug deal. Erica Roberts and her boyfriend, Russell House, also transacted with Wright around the same time. During one exchange on August 17, they bought a couple grams of heroin and a pistol from Wright. Roberts and House secretly recorded this encounter too. Ultimately, the government obtained an 11-count indictment against Wright. The indictment alleged that Wright conspired to distribute heroin from July 2017 to December 2018. It also charged him with seven distribution offenses for the controlled buys from March 15 to August 17, 2018. And it charged Wright with one felon-in-possession count and one count of carrying a firearm during a drug-trafficking crime for his sale of the pistol on August 17. Lastly, it alleged that Wright unlawfully possessed other firearms several months later. Wright stood trial. A jury convicted him of all eight drug counts and the two gun counts tied to the August 17 transaction with Roberts and House. But it acquitted him of the final gun count. At sentencing, the district court rejected Wright’s claim that he did not qualify as a career offender under the Sentencing Guideline