Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant appealed his 240 month sentence imposed after pleading guilty to knowingly receiving child pornography, arguing that the district court erred by applying a five level enhancement, under U.S.S.G. 2G2.2(b)(3)(B), which provided for the enhancement if the offense involved distribution of child pornography "for the receipt, or expectation of receipt, of a thing of value." Defendant obtained child pornography by installing a peer-to-peer file-sharing software called LimeWare. The court concluded that a defendant's mere installation and use of a peer-to-peer network to download child pornography into the user's shared folder did not as a matter of law support the application of the enhancement. Therefore, the court held that the district court clearly erred in applying the enhancement for distribution of the receipt of a thing of value and vacated the sentence, remanding for resentencing.

Plaintiff brought this action against two officers seeking damages under 42 U.S.C. 1983. Plaintiff alleged that one officer's use of a police dog constituted excessive force and that the other officer failed to intervene and stop the dog attack, both in violation of the Fourth Amendment. At issue was whether clearly established federal law prohibited the officers from allowing the dog to conduct a five to seven minute attack against plaintiff who ran from his car after a traffic stop, where he was lying face down with his hands exposed, no longer resisting arrest, and repeatedly pleading with the officers to call off the dog because he surrendered. The court concluded that clearly established law did not permit this level of force. As a result, the court reversed the decision of the district court granting qualified immunity to the officers and remanded for further proceedings.

Defendant pled guilty to one count of receipt of child pornography and the district court applied a five-level enhancement for distribution of illicit images for the receipt, or expectation of receipt, of a non-pecuniary thing of value. On appeal, defendant argued that no evidence supported the application of the enhancement. Although the court found that the evidence that defendant distributed illicit images, there was insufficient evidence to support the other elements of the enhancement. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence and remanded.

Defendant, who acquired seven firearms in exchange for 50 grams of heroin, was convicted of a firearms charge and other crimes. At issue was whether defendant possessed a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense. The court affirmed the conviction and concluded that bartering drugs for firearms furthered trafficking in drugs.

Petitioner was convicted in Florida state court and was sentenced to death. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed petitioner's conviction and sentence and later denied post-conviction relief. The district court denied habeas relief but granted a certificate of appealability on the question of the habeas petition's timeliness. Petitioner contended that the timeliness of his habeas petition must be analyzed by looking at the petition as a whole and not by analyzing his petition claim by claim. He asserted that his timely Atkins claim revived his other time-barred claims, making the entire petition, in effect, timely. The court concluded, pursuant to Walker v. Crosby, that the timely Atkins claim in petitioner's petition made timely all the other claims in the petition: reviving claims that were determined to be individually untimely by the district court. Therefore, as a matter of law, the district court erred in applying the statute of limitation separately to each claim in the petition and in dismissing any claim in the petition in this case on the grounds of timeliness.

Petitioner was convicted of capital murder and subsequently sought a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that he received ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of his Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The court rejected defendant's claims and concluded that the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals did not unreasonably apply federal law or unreasonably determine the facts when it rejected defendant's claims. Accordingly, petitioner failed to meet his burden under 28 U.S.C. 2254(d) and the court affirmed the denial of the petition.

Defendant was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g), and sentenced to 80 months' imprisonment. At issue was whether the enhancement defendant received for possession of a firearm under U.S.S.G. 2D1.1(b)(1), which the district court applied based on the cross-reference provision in the guideline applicable to firearm offenses, constituted impermissible double counting. The court held that because defendant's guideline range for his drug possession was higher than his guideline range for possession of a firearm, the court properly applied the cross-reference provision in U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(c)(1)(A) and properly calculated defendant's sentencing range using section 2D1.1. Therefore, inclusion of the firearm enhancement under section 2D1.1(b)(1) did not constitute double counting and defendant's sentence was affirmed.

Defendant appealed his sentence for illegal reentry after deportation by an alien previously convicted of a felony in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326(b)(1). On appeal, defendant argued that his sentence was excessive. The court held that the violation of state law proscribing the possession of a forged document with the intent to defraud was a crime related to forgery under 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(43)(R). Therefore, defendant's conviction was related to forgery such that the increased offense level under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b) applied. The court also held that the district court amply supported its sentencing decision in the record and that the sentence imposed was reasonable and well within the judge's discretion. Therefore, there was no basis upon which to vacate defendant's sentence.

Defendant, former commissioner in charge of the Environmental Services Department of Jefferson County, was convicted of charges related to federal-funds bribery for accepting cash from an engineering firm that contracted with the county for a sewer reconstruction project. Defendant subsequently appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions and the reasonableness of his prison term. The court held that the same evidence that supported defendant's federal-funds bribery convictions supported his conspiracy conviction. The court also held that defendant's sentence was procedurally and substantively reasonable. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

In 1994, defendant was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, one count of armed burglary, and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, but those convictions were set aside on appeal by the Florida Supreme Court. In 2004, defendant was retried and again convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and defendant claimed that this second trial violated the Fifth Amendment's prohibition on double jeopardy. On direct appeal, the Florida Supreme Court denied him relief, as did the federal district court on his application for a writ of habeas corpus. Having carefully reviewed the Florida Supreme Court's decision in light of United States Supreme Court precedent, the court held that defendant was not entitled to habeas relief because he was not "twice put in jeopardy" as that phrase was defined in federal constitutional law.