Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Due to a technical error in the original indictment and a more substantial mistake by the government in its handling of that error, no indictment was pending against defendant at the time of his sentencing. This caused defendant to challenge the power of the district court to sentence him at all. Defendant also challenged the length of his sentence due to the enactment of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (FSA), Pub. L. 111-120, 2(a), 124 Stat. 2372, after he committed his offenses but before his sentencing. The court concluded that the district court retained the power to sentence defendant, and that the exercise of that power did not violate any of his constitutional rights or run afoul of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The sentence imposed, however, must be vacated because the district court did not apply the Sentencing Guidelines as revised by the FSA. View "United States v. McIntosh" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 188 months' imprisonment. At issue was whether defendant's prior conviction for intentional vehicular flight from an authorized law enforcement patrol care was a violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e). The court held that defendant's prior conviction did qualify as a violent felony where the offense of simple vehicle flight from a flashing patrol car presented a serious potential risk of physical injury comparable to the ACCA's enumerated crimes of burglary and arson. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Petite" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to unlawful reentry to the United States and was sentenced to 87 months of imprisonment. Defendant contended that the district court erred when it accepted his guilty plea and enhanced his sentence for having been removed following a conviction for an aggravated felony; the district court erred when it increased his offense level under the Sentencing Guidelines for having been convicted of a "crime of violence" before his removal; and the district court erred when it increased his criminal history score by counting a prior conviction for disorderly intoxication. The court held that defendant waived his first argument when he pleaded guilty; a prior panel precedent, United States v. Romo-Villalobos, foreclosed his second argument; and defendant's third argument failed because his conviction was more similar to a conviction for disorderly conduct than to a conviction for public intoxication. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Garcia-Sandobal" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the dismissal of his federal habeas corpus petition brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2254, as amended by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the habeas petition as untimely because it was not filed within the one-year statute of limitations. The court also concluded that petitioner failed to demonstrate extraordinary circumstances sufficient for equitable tolling of the filing deadline. View "Smith v. Commissioner, Alabama DOC" on Justia Law

Appellant, a death row inmate, appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus. On appeal, appellant argued that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective in the penalty phase of his murder trial. The Florida state courts denied appellant's ineffective assistance of counsel claims based on counsel's failure to discover that certain information appellant had told counsel about his background was false and counsel's reliance on court-appointed competency experts to testify instead of retaining defense experts to investigate mitigation evidence specifically. The court concluded, as did the district court, that the state court's judgment was not contrary to, or based on an unreasonable application of, Supreme Court precedent. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of the petition. View "Pooler v. Secretary, FL DOC, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment charging him with a violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) and his sentence on substantive reasonableness grounds. The court concluded, sua sponte, that defendant's argument that the indictment failed to charge an offense that implicated the district court's jurisdiction was not waived by his unconditional guilty plea and his appeal was properly before the court. The court also concluded that the restoration of only defendant's right to vote, and any attendant rights subsumed therein, was insufficient to satisfy the 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(20) exception. Finally, the court concluded that defendant's 12-month sentence, which was at the bottom of the guidelines range, was substantively reasonable and the district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing that sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Thompson" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty conditionally to possession of child pornography and receipt of child pornography, but reserved the right to appeal the district court's denial of his motion to suppress all evidence retrieved from his personal computer and five external hard drives. At issue was whether a government delay of some 25 days in submitting an application for a search warrant while holding a computer based on probable cause was an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The court held that, based on the totality of the circumstances, the government acted reasonably in obtaining the search warrant at issue. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of the motion to suppress. View "United States v. Laist" on Justia Law

Petitioner filed a 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence, claiming that the sentencing court had erred in finding that his prior Florida felony conviction for battery on a law enforcement officer was a crime of violence for purposes of the U.S.S.G. 4B1.1 career offender enhancement and that this court had erred in rejecting that contention when the court affirmed his sentence. The district court rejected petitioner's claim and dismissed his section 2255 motion. The district court, however, granted a certificate of appealability on whether Johnson v. United States should be given retroactive application so that petitioner's career offender classification should be eliminated and he should be resentenced. The court held that Johnson was not a change in the controlling law that was applicable at the time of petitioner's sentencing and at the time the court affirmed his sentence. Further, petitioner's sentence would also stand under the modified categorical approach, which remained unaffected by Johnson. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Rozier v. United States" on Justia Law

Defendant, a federal prisoner convicted of a crack cocaine offense, appealed the district court's denial of his 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2) motion for a sentence reduction based on Amendment 750 to the Sentencing Guidelines, which revised the crack cocaine quantity tables in U.S.S.G. 2D1.1. The court held that the district court did not err in denying the motion where defendant's offense level of 37 and initial guidelines range of 360 months to life imprisonment were not based on section 2D1.1's drug quantity tables, but on his status as a career offender pursuant to U.S.S.G. 4B1.1(b). More importantly, because defendant had two prior felony drug convictions, defendant was subject to a statutory mandatory minimum life sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Berry" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a death row inmate, appealed from the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2254. On appeal, petitioner asserted that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel at the penalty phase of his capital murder trial when the court interfered with his counsel's mitigation strategy and when his counsel did not object to the interference. The court held that petitioner failed to point to any clearly established federal law from the United States Supreme Court on the question of whether the ultimate authority to call trial witnesses rested with counsel or the client. Consequently, petitioner's claims were barred under section 2254. View "Burton, Jr. v. Commissioner, Alabama DOC" on Justia Law