Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendants Randy Vana Haile and Mark Anthony Beckford were convicted of conspiracy and attempt to possess with intent to distribute marijuana and cocaine and knowing possession of several firearms in conjunction with their drug trafficking offenses. The district court sentenced Beckford to 438 months and Haile to 468 months of imprisonment. Beckford appealed his conviction and sentence, and Haile appealed his sentence. Haile and Beckford both contended that: (1) Count 4, knowing possession of firearms in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, was not properly before the jury; and (2) even if Count 4 was properly submitted to the jury, the jury instructions for that charge were erroneous. Beckford also contests: (1) the sufficiency of the evidence in his case; (2) the district court’s failure to give certain jury instructions; and (3) his 438-month sentence. After a thorough review of the record and the parties’ briefs, and with the benefit of oral argument, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. The Court affirmed Haile's conviction. The Court affirmed Beckford's convictions on all but one count, a "knowing possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number" charge. The Court affirmed Beckford's sentence and noted that his sentence on the serial number count was to run concurrently with his sentence on the remaining counts, therefore resulting in no 438-month sentence imposed by the district court.

The issue on appeal before the Fourth Circuit in this case concerned whether the Supreme Court of Florida unreasonably applied clearly established federal law when it explicitly refused to consider relevant mental health evidence in its collateral review of a sentence of death. Defendant Dennis Sochor, a serial rapist, was sentenced to death after he confessed to the murder and kidnapping of an eighteen-year-old woman. Defendant applied to the Fourth Circuit for the writ of habeas corpus. He argued on appeal that the ruling of the Supreme Court of Florida that the failure of his trial counsel to present mitigating mental health evidence during the penalty phase of his trial did not prejudice him and was an unreasonable application of "Strickland v. Washington," (466 U.S. 668 (1984)). Although "Porter v. McCollum" ((Porter II),130 S. Ct. 447 (2009)) made clear that the Supreme Court of Florida unreasonably applied Strickland, the Fourth Circuit's de novo review of the record established that there was no reasonable probability that the trial court would have imposed a sentence other than death had Defendant's trial counsel not been deficient. Further, the Court ruled that "Sochor fail[ed] to offer clear and convincing evidence that the contrary findings of the Supreme Court of Florida [were] unreasonable." Accordingly, the Court affirmed the denial of Defendant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

When Defendant Ralph Merrill sold millions of rounds of ammunition to the United States Army, he concealed that the ammunition was manufactured by a Communist Chinese military company because his contract with the Army prohibited the delivery of that kind of ammunition. Defendant had the ammunition repackaged which made it unsafe for later use. Defendant was convicted for conspiracy to commit false statements, major fraud, and wire fraud against the United States and for major fraud and wire fraud. On appeal, Defendant argued that the district court misinterpreted the regulation that prohibited the Department of Defense from acquiring munitions manufactured by a Communist Chinese military company, that the regulation did not apply to the ammunition he sold, and that he did not defraud the government because he did not misrepresent a material fact when he lied about the origin of the ammunition. Upon review, the Eleventh Circuit concluded Defendant's arguments failed because his interpretation of the applicable statutes was flawed and, "more fundamentally, is irrelevant to his misconduct." Because all of Defendant's arguments failed, the Court affirmed his convictions.

After pleading guilty, Defendant-Appellant Silvano Jimenez-Cardenas appealed his 57-month sentence for illegal reentry, and possession of a firearm by an illegal alien. Defendant challenged the district court's refusal to group his illegal reentry and firearm convictions when calculating his sentence per the sentencing guidelines. After review, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the district court properly refused to group the convictions, and affirmed Defendant's sentence.

This appeal involved a federal officer with limited authority who repeatedly usurped the power to patrol traffic, violated the civil rights of motorists, abused the public trust, and lied about it in official reports. Defendant, a former officer of the Federal Protective Service, appealed his convictions and sentences for eight counts of willfully depriving a person of the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizure by a law enforcement officer and four counts of making false statements in a matter within the jurisdiction of a federal agency. Defendant raised seven issues on appeal. The court affirmed four of defendant's eight convictions for willful unreasonable seizures and affirmed his four convictions for making false statements. The court vacated the remaining convictions for willful unreasonable seizures.

MARPOL is the common name for the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, 1340 U.N.T.S. 62. At issue was whether the United States had jurisdiction to prosecute a nominated surveyor for knowingly violating the MARPOL treaty while aboard a foreign vessel docked in the United States. After thorough review of the relevant treaty and U.S. law, the court held that the United States had jurisdiction to prosecute surveyors for MARPOL violations committed in U.S. ports. Further, under the court's lenient standards of review for issues raised for the first time on appeal, the court found no reversible error in the indictment or jury instructions. Finally, the court affirmed the district court's denial of judgment of acquittal. Accordingly, the court affirmed defendant's conviction.

Defendant was convicted of two murders and sentenced to death. At issue was whether the Supreme Court of Florida unreasonably applied clearly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States, when it determined that defendant's attorney at his second penalty phase hearing made a reasonable strategic decision to present the expert testimony of a mental health expert who provided some damaging testimony during the first penalty phase. The court concluded that capital defense lawyers did not render deficient performance as a matter of law when they presented evidence of a defendant's antisocial personality disorder; the Supreme Court of Florida reasonably concluded that counsel satisfied the deferential standard of Strickland when they called the expert to testify again; and in light of defendant's statements that he did not want further testing, there were reasonable arguments that counsel satisfied the deferential standard of Strickland when they did not pursue different mental health theories at the resentencing. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of defendant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

Petitioner, a prisoner on Florida's death row, appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition challenging his capital murder conviction. At issue was whether the Florida Supreme Court's decision denying petitioner's claim that the trial court erred when refusing to instruct the jury about other consecutive sentences was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, the Supreme Court's decision in Simmons v. South Carolina. Petitioner based his claim on the trial court's refusal to inform the advisory jury of his multiple terms of incarceration that he would have to serve before becoming eligible for parole. The court held that petitioner could not prevail on his claim for relief because none of the Supreme Court precedent upon which he relied illustrated that the Florida Supreme Court rendered a decision that was contrary to, or an unreasonable application, of clearly established law under section 2254(d).

Petitioner appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for writ of habeas corpus. Petitioner was convicted of murdering his neighbor and attempting to murder six of her family members by adding the toxic element thallium to bottles of Coca-Cola in the victims' homes. On appeal, petitioner alleged that certain parts of a special agent's testimony were false and petitioner was thus entitled to a new trial under Giglio v. United States. The court held that, assuming that the false testimony violated Giglio, the error was harmless under the standard set forth in Brecht v. Abrahamson. Accordingly, petitioner was not entitled to habeas relief.

Petitioner, an Alabama prison inmate awaiting execution for a capital murder, appealed the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Defendant's principal claims were that in requiring him to stand trial jointly with a co-defendant, the Alabama courts denied him due process of law, as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, and an individualized sentencing proceeding, as guaranteed by the Eighth Amendment. Defendant also argued that the prosecutor commented on his post-Miranda silence in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court found no error in the district court's denial of the writ and affirmed the judgment.