Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Morales fired six shots toward a parked car, resulting in the death of his pregnant acquaintance who stood near the car. The jury convicted Morales of two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder, one count of shooting at an occupied vehicle, and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon, finding true four firearm use enhancements under Penal Code 12022.53(d) and a multiple murder special circumstance allegation (section 190.2(a)(3)).The court of appeal affirmed, modifying the sentence. The court rejected Morales’s arguments that the prosecutor committed prejudicial misconduct in closing argument and that counsel was ineffective for failing to object; that there was insufficient evidence to support a kill zone jury instruction; and with respect to the firearm use enhancement on count 1, that Morales was deprived of due process by the court’s failure to instruct that the requisite great bodily injury or death under section 12022.53(d) must be to a person other than an accomplice. The judgment was modified by striking the sentences of 25 years to life on counts 1 and 2, and the term of life without the possibility of parole imposed for the multiple-murder special circumstance finding. The superior court is to impose a term of life without the possibility of parole on counts 1 and 2. For count 1, the jury’s true finding under section 12022.53(d) was reversed; the 25-years-to-life enhancement imposed upon that finding was vacated. View "People v. Morales" on Justia Law

Dingwall was charged with three counts of robbery and three counts of brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. She admits the robberies but claims she committed them under duress, in fear of brutal violence by her abusive boyfriend, Stanley. Dingwall sought a ruling on evidence to support her duress defense, including expert evidence on battering and its effects. The duress defense has two elements: reasonable fear of imminent death or serious injury, and the absence of reasonable, legal alternatives to committing the crime. The district court denied Dingwall’s motion. Dingwall then pleaded guilty, reserving her right to appeal the decision on the motion in limine. The Seventh Circuit reversed, noting that the cases are close and difficult, often dividing appellate panels. “Dingwall surely faces challenges” Stanley was not physically present for any of the robberies, Dingwall actually held a gun, and there is a dispute about whether Stanley threatened harm if she did not commit these specific offenses. Those facts present questions for a jury; the immediate physical presence of the threat is not always essential to a duress defense. Expert evidence of battering and its effects may inform the jury how an objectively reasonable person under the defendant’s circumstances might behave. View "United States v. Dingwall" on Justia Law

San Mateo County Deputy Tapia was dispatched to a Millbrae apartment about 2:00 a.m. on September 21, 2020, based on a 911 call. Tapia learned that Ayala had accused his stepfather, Abner, of molesting Ayala’s daughter and had made threats. After arresting Ayala for criminal threats and reading him his Miranda rights Tapia interviewed Ayala, who acknowledged having said “some violent shit.” Tapia believed that Ayala may have been under the influence of drugs.A magistrate held Ayala to answer to count 1 (Abner) but not to count 2 (Ayala’s mother, Clarisa), finding a “failure of proof of a threat that would result in death and great bodily injury to Clarisa.” The charge nonetheless included two counts, with two prior strike convictions and two prior felony convictions. Ayala moved to dismiss count 2 on the ground that Clarisa was not threatened within the meaning of Penal Code 422 because the alleged threat was to kill or inflict physical harm on Abner. The trial court denied Ayala’s motion. Following a remand, the court of appeal denied Ayala’s petition for peremptory writ of prohibition. Section 422 is focused on mental distress and does not require a threat of violence against the victim. View "Ayala v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

Jackson Police Officer Stanton saw a silver Cadillac parked near an open convenience store. The vehicle was occupied by two men who “didn’t appear to be exiting the vehicle, [and] didn’t appear to be patronizing the establishment.” Stanton decided to conduct a “field interview.” Several patrol cars converged on the vehicle with their blue lights activated; it would have been impossible for the vehicle to leave the parking lot. Officers approached the car. Stanton testified that the men in the vehicle were free to leave but he did not communicate that to them. Flowers, in the driver’s seat, lowered his window. Stanton reported smelling “what appeared to be the strong odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle.” Flowers provided his driver’s license. According to Stanton, the car's passenger (Mayo) then threw an object into his mouth. In response, Stanton ordered both men to exit the car. When Flowers stepped out, Stanton saw in plain view a .gun on the driver’s seat. A criminal history check revealed that Flowers had an outstanding arrest warrant. During a search incident to his arrest, Flowers stated that he had marijuana on him. Stanton recovered a small bag of marijuana from his pocket.Flowers was convicted as a felon in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). The Fifth Circuit affirmed, rejecting a Fourth Amendment claim. Assuming that Mayo and Flowers were seizedStanton had reasonable suspicion to conduct a “Terry stop” under these circumstances. View "United States v. Flowers" on Justia Law

Texas state prisoner Haverkamp, a biological male at birth who identifies as a transgender woman, sued, alleging violations of the Equal Protection Clause by denying Haverkamp medically necessary sex-reassignment surgery and by failing to provide certain female commissary items and a long-hair pass. Texas’s Correctional Managed Healthcare Committee has a policy concerning the treatment of gender disorders. Based on the state’s advisory, the district court ordered service of Haverkamp’s operative complaint on Dr. Murray, whom the state identified as the proper defendant if Haverkamp were seeking sex-reassignment surgery, and the nine Committee members who had not yet been named as parties. The district court subsequently denied motions to dismiss, concluding that the state was not entitled to sovereign immunity.The Fifth Circuit vacated. Haverkamp’s suit is barred by sovereign immunity because the Committee members are not proper defendants under Ex Parte Young; Haverkamp fails to allege they have the requisite connection to enforcing the policies Haverkamp challenges. In light of the state’s representations to the district court that these defendants are the proper state officials to sue, the court did not dismiss them from the case. View "Haverkamp v. Linthicum" on Justia Law

Trevino was the sole owner of a chain of marijuana dispensaries throughout Michigan. A federal jury convicted him of conspiracy and nine substantive marijuana offenses. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Trevino's argued that he never should have been charged, citing a congressional appropriations rider, the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment, or “Section 538,” that bars the Department of Justice from spending funds to “prevent” states from “implementing their own State laws” permitting medical marijuana, 128 Stat. 2130, 2217 (2014). Even construing Section 538 as broadly as Trevino suggests he is not entitled to relief because he was not in compliance with the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act.. Trevino also argued a limited exception to the general rule that ignorance or mistake of law is no excuse. The court rejected the argument, reasoning that the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. 801, under which Trevino was convicted, is not ambiguous. The court also rejected challenges to the denial of Trevino’s counsel’s motion to withdraw, filed less than two weeks before trial; the government’s use of summary charts at trial; and to the procedural and substantive reasonableness of his sentence. View "United States v. Trevino" on Justia Law

Officers used a confidential informant to arrange four controlled drug buys from Rollerson. Officers obtained search warrants for an apartment and for Rollerson’s home, then stopped Rollerson for speeding. They recovered a gun and marijuana from his car. Rollerson, a convicted felon, said that he “was the only one who had something to do with the drug sales.” In Rollerson's home, police found $150,000 in cash that Rollerson admitted were drug proceeds. Rollerson had a key to the apartment, which contained four kilograms of fentanyl, 52 grams of heroin, 97 grams of cocaine, and 236 grams of tramadol, plus digital scales, firearms, and mail addressed to Rollerson. Rollerson was convicted on certain drug and firearm charges but acquitted on other drug charges. The Seventh Circuit affirmed his 276-month sentence. Rollerson claimed that the prosecution did not present sufficiently reliable information that he sold heroin and fentanyl during four controlled drug buys for which he was not charged and that those uncharged controlled buys and other drugs for which he was acquitted were not “part of the same course of conduct … scheme or plan” as his offenses of convictions. The record at sentencing on the controlled buys was sparse but absent contradictory evidence, a police officer’s affidavit attesting that the buys occurred provided the “modicum of reliability” needed to find by a preponderance of the evidence that Rollerson committed those additional crimes. View "United States v. Rollerson" on Justia Law

Von Lester Taylor and an accomplice, Edward Deli, murdered two unarmed women who tragically encountered them burglarizing a mountain cabin in December 1990. Taylor confessed to shooting the women; he never denied he fired the first shot in the brutal attack that lead to their deaths. Taylor pled guilty to two counts of first degree murder and was sentenced to death by a Utah jury. He challenged his convictions through a petition for federal habeas corpus, contending missteps by his trial counsel lead to a defective guilty plea. The Tenth Circuit determined Taylor failed to raise his ineffective-counsel claim in Utah state court, and this would have been a procedural bar to federal habeas relief. This notwithstanding, Taylor argued that despite re-affirming time and again he participated in the murders, he was “actually innocent” of them. Thus, he contended, the Tenth Circuit should consider his underlying claims. At the district court, Taylor presented new ballistics evidence that he alleged called into question whether he fired the fatal shots in the two murders. The court credited Taylor’s claim, set aside the convictions, and considered the merits of Taylor’s claims for habeas relief. In its review, the Tenth Circuit disagreed with the district court’s assessment of Taylor’s actual innocence claim. “To answer the question of whether he can be actually innocent of the crime: He cannot. Mr. Taylor ‘is not innocent, in any sense of the word.’” The district court’s grant of habeas relief was reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings. View "Taylor v. Powell" on Justia Law

Juvenile J.S. appealed a circuit court’s finding of delinquency based on petitions alleging criminal mischief, simple assault and attempted simple assault. The petitions were filed after a series of events in September 2020 at the Mount Prospect Academy, a non-secure detention facility whose students are placed there due to behavioral issues. At the close of the State’s case at the adjudicatory hearing, the court granted the juvenile’s motion to dismiss one of the petitions for insufficiency of evidence, and denied his motions to dismiss the remaining petitions for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The latter motions argued that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the State failed to comply with RSA 169- B:6, III and IV. On appeal, the juvenile argued the trial court “erred as a matter of law in determining that, on the undisputed facts in the record here, Mount Prospect Academy is not a school.” Accordingly, he contended the court erred by failing to dismiss the delinquency petitions. The New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld the trial court’s determination on the facts presented in this case, that Mount Prospect was not a “school” for purposes of RSA 169-B:6, III and IV. Accordingly, the Court upheld the trial court’s denial of the motions to dismiss and affirm the finding of delinquency. View "In re J.S." on Justia Law

In 2004, defendant Gregory Washington was convicted by jury of second-degree murder, two counts of assault with intent to commit murder (AWIM), possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. In a 2006 unpublished opinion, an appellate court affirmed defendant’s convictions but remanded the case for resentencing because the trial court had failed to articulate substantial and compelling reasons for its departure from the second-degree murder sentencing guidelines. Before defendant was resentenced, he petitioned the Michigan Supreme Court for review. While the Supreme Court was considering defendant’s application, the trial court resentenced defendant, and he petitioned the Court of Appeals for review of the new sentence. The Supreme Court ultimately denied defendant’s application for leave to appeal his original convictions. After the Court of Appeals also denied defendant’s application for leave to appeal, he filed his second petition to the Supreme Court, which was again denied. Defendant then moved the trial court for relief from judgment, which was denied. Defendant appealed that decision to the Court of Appeals; the Supreme Court denied appeal of the Court of Appeals’ denial. In June 2016, after exhausting all available postconviction relief, defendant filed a second motion for relief from judgment with the trial court, arguing that the trial court had lacked jurisdiction to resentence him in 2006 because his application for leave to appeal in the Supreme Court was pending at the time. The trial court agreed and granted the motion, vacated defendant’s sentence, and ordered resentencing. The prosecution appealed. The Court of Appeals, upheld the trial court’s ruling in a published per curiam opinion, holding that although defendant’s successive motion for relief from judgment was barred by MCR 6.502(G), the trial court had lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to enter the second sentence. The Supreme Court concluded the trial court indeed lacked subject-matter jurisdiction when it resentenced defendant in 2006 while his application for leave to appeal was still pending with the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court also held the trial court did not err 10 years later in 2016 when it granted defendant relief on that ground, which was raised in defendant’s successive motion for relief from judgment. The matter was remanded for the trial court for resentencing consistent with its 2016 order. View "Michigan v. Washington" on Justia Law