Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant, convicted of four counts of distributing crack cocaine, appealed the district court's denial of his 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2) motion to reduce his sentence. The court held that a defendant subject to a statutory mandatory minimum was eligible for section 3582(c)(2) relief when he was sentenced above that minimum and a retroactive guidelines amendment lowers the high-end of his applicable guidelines range. In this instance, defendant was subject to a statutory mandatory minimum sentence of 120 months' imprisonment, but a retroactive amendment to the sentencing guidelines lowered his applicable guidelines range from 120 to 125 months' imprisonment to simply 120 months. The court vacated the district court's order and remanded because the district court erroneously concluded that it lacked the authority to consider defendant's motion. View "United States v. Hargrove" on Justia Law

The law requires a financial institution to file with the Department of Treasury reports of cash transactions by any person on a single day that exceed $10,000. Defendant was indicted on 85 counts of violating 31 U.S.C. 5324(a)(3), which makes it a crime to structure cash transactions for the purpose of evading the reporting requirement. After he was convicted of 70 counts, defendant appealed. The court concluded that the indictment in this case did not provide the necessary factual allegations and failed under any reasonable construction to charge all of the elements of the offense. Where no count in the indictment charges a crime, the defendant was entitled to have the judgment vacated and the case remanded with instructions that the indictment be dismissed. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "United States v. Lang" on Justia Law

Defendants were convicted of murdering a family and sentenced to death. Defendants raised numerous issues on appeal. The court concluded that the majority of defendants' arguments had no merit; the district court did not abuse its discretion in its admission of the uncharged firearms and drug trafficking offenses; the district court's exclusion of expert testimony from a forensic psychologist was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence against Defendant Troya; and the district court properly admitted testimony of the government's psychologist to rebut Defendant Sanchez's expert testimony at sentencing. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Troya, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his convictions for drug and firearms possession charges. The court concluded that the district court did not err by denying defendant's motion to suppress because the district court made a proper credibility finding and completed a sound Fourth Amendment analysis in light of the facts that it reasonably found; there was sufficient evidence to convict defendant of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime under 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(1)(A); and any error in the district court's application of Batson v. Kentucky was harmless. Accordingly, the court affirmed defendant's convictions and sentences. View "United States v. Williams" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of murder and sentenced to death, was granted a federal writ of habeas corpus on the ground that his right to confrontation had been violated at his resentencing hearing. The court reversed, concluding that because hearsay was admissible at capital sentencing and petitioner had an opportunity to rebut the hearsay, petitioner's claim that the admission of hearsay testimony at his resentencing hearing violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause failed. The court also concluded that, because the retrospective application of the cold, calculated, and premeditated statutory aggravating factor did not disadvantage petitioner, his claim that the application of the factor violated his rights under the Ex Post Facto Clause failed. View "Muhammad v. Secretary, FL Dept. of Corrections, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner was sentenced to death for the murder of a Florida Highway Patrol who intercepted and opened a bomb that petitioner sent to a woman he feared would report a murder committed as part of a drug trafficking conspiracy. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it read Gonzalez v. Crosby to mean that the change of law in Holland v. Florida was not an extraordinary circumstance. Holland altered the court's previous interpretation of the statute of limitations of one year for a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The Supreme Court held that the type of change in decisional law in this instance was not an extraordinary circumstance under Rule 60(b). Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of petitioner's motion for relief from judgment. View "Howell v. Sec., FL Dept. of Corrections" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. At issue was whether a district court had jurisdiction to entertain a motion to dismiss the charging document in a criminal case under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b)(3)(B) while defendant's direct appeal was pending. Because defendant's conviction and sentence were already on direct appeal when he filed his Rule 12(b)(3)(B) motion to dismiss the Information for failure to state an offense, the court concluded that the district court lacked jurisdiction to entertain it. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded with instructions to dismiss the motion for lack of jurisdiction. View "United States v. Diveroli" on Justia Law

Defendants Jeffrey W. Edwards and Frontier Holdings appealed the district court's order of restitution under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act, 18 U.S.C. 3663A. Edwards' convictions stemmed from his involvement in a scheme to solicit funds from investors by promising astronomical returns and then using the funds for extravagant personal expenditures. The court concluded that the district court correctly ignored Edwards' finances when determining the amount of restitution; the district court did not clearly err by ordering restitution to Camencita Jocson for losses caused by a related scheme; the district court properly found that Edwards owed restitution to victims whose related counts were dismissed at trial; and there was insufficient evidence supporting the restitution order to Teana Reece's alleged victims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the convictions; affirmed the restitution order generally; vacated the restitution order in respect to Reece's alleged victims; and remanded for a hearing to determine whether they were entitled to restitution. View "United States v. Edwards, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of two counts of capital murder and sentenced to death, challenged the denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for habeas relief and his Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 59(e) motion to alter or amend the judgment. The court concluded that the failure of the district court to give notice to the parties that it would decide the merits of the claims without briefing did not rise to the level of a due process violation; in light of the nature of petitioner's crimes and the specific findings of the trial court and his own testimony about his deprived childhood, the court concluded that there was no reasonable probability that the presentation of further, mainly cumulative, evidence regarding petitioner's horrific home life would have changed the outcome of his sentence; the district court did not err in dismissing petitioner's lethal injection challenge in his federal habeas petition where relief was still available to him in a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action; and the court rejected defendant's remaining claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "McNabb v. Commissioner, Alabama Dept. of Corrections" on Justia Law

Wilson Lucom was an American expatriate who wished to bequeath assets worth more than $200 million to a foundation established for impoverished children in Panama. Plaintiff, Lucom's attorney, filed suit against the Arias Group/Arias Family, Lucom's wife and step-children, under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1961-1968, alleging that the Arias Group participated in a criminal conspiracy to thwart plaintiff through acts of intimidation, extortion, corruption, theft, money laundering, and bribery of foreign officials, so that the Arias Group could steal the Estate assets for themselves. At issue on appeal was RICO's four-year statute of limitations on civil actions and the "separate accrual" rule. Under the rule, the commission of a separable, new predicate act within a 4-year limitations period permitted a plaintiff to recover for the additional damages caused by that act. The court concluded that none of the injuries in plaintiff's complaint were new and independent because all of his alleged injuries were continuations of injuries that have been accumulating since before September 2007. The court agreed with the district court that plaintiff had done little more than repackage his 2007 abuse of process complaint. Therefore, plaintiff's civil RICO complaint was untimely, and the district court did not err when it granted summary judgment in favor of the Arias Group. View "Lehman, et al. v. Lucom, et al." on Justia Law