Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant appealed his conviction and forfeiture order for one count of conspiring with his wife to commit health care fraud, eight counts of payroll tax fraud, and two counts of failure to timely file income tax returns. Rejecting defendant's claims to the contrary, the court concluded that the evidence was sufficient to convict defendant of all the counts. Because the court upheld the conviction for the health care fraud charge, the court upheld the district court's forfeiture order. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Houser" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed from the district court's denial of his second motion for a stay of execution and all other denials of relief entered by the district court on June 17, 2014. The court agreed with the district court that petitioner has failed to show a substantial likelihood of success on his claim that he enjoys a due process or other Constitutional right with respect to his petition for clemency. Accordingly, the court denied the petition. View "Wellons v. Commissioner, GA DOC, et al" on Justia Law

Petitioner, scheduled to be executed by lethal injection, appealed from the district court's denial of his 42 U.S.C. 1983 action seeking a temporary restraining order, a stay of execution, a preliminary injunction, and a request for declaratory judgment. On the merits, the court concluded that petitioner's argument that the compounded pentobarbital may be defective or the personnel administering the execution may be untrained was insufficient to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of his Eighth Amendment claim. The court rejected defendant's remaining claims, affirmed the judgment of the district court, and denied the stay of execution. View "Wellons v. Commissioner, GA DOC, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner filed an emergency application for leave to file a second or successive federal habeas corpus petition based on 28 U.S.C. 2244(b) and the Supreme Court's recent decision in Hall v. Florida. After thorough review, the court denied the application because the rule enunciated in Hall has not been made retroactive and even if it had, petitioner has not shown a reasonable likelihood of success that he would benefit from the rule in Hall. The court also denied the motion for a stay from execution. View "In re: John Henry" on Justia Law

Defendant, convicted of possession and distribution of child pornography, appealed his sentence for revocation of his supervised release. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in revoking defendant's supervised release because defendant pleaded guilty to conduct underlying two of the supervised release violations - knowingly giving false information to a probation officer and violating 18 U.S.C. 1001. In regards to the reasonableness of defendant's sentence, the Supreme Court has not addressed whether it is error to consider a factor listed in 18 U.S.C. 3553(a)(2)(A) when imposing a sentence after revoking supervised release. The court has not addressed the issue in a published opinion, and those circuits that have are split. Because the Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue and there is a circuit split, any alleged error cannot be plain. In light of Tapia v. United States and the court's circuit precedent, the court found that the district court erred when it sentenced defendant to prison because it considered rehabilitation when doing so. However, the err did not affect defendant's substantial rights. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Vandergrift, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant was sentenced to three years probation for threatening to shoot President Obama on defendant's Facebook page. Afterwards, defendant spoke to a reporter for his college newspaper, saying that his ordeal was "pretty funny," that he could not be imprisoned in his "own house," and that a lot of good had come out of his case, including his rock band because a "lot of people showed up [to one of his shows] to see the kid who threatened to kill the [P]resident." The district court, upon learning of these comments, modified the conditions of probation to include 45 days in a halfway house and one year of home confinement with electronic monitoring. Defendant appealed. The court concluded that defendant's appeal was moot to the extent that it challenged the district court's modification of the conditions of probation to include a 45-day term in a halfway house; the appeal was not moot with respect to the district court's modification of the conditions of probation to include an additional eight months in home confinement with electronic monitoring; where 18 U.S.C. 3563(c) permits modification when a defendant's post-sentencing conduct shows that the original conditions were not sufficient to accomplish the purposes of probation, the home confinement modification did not violate defendant's rights under the Double Jeopardy Clause; the home confinement modification did not violate the Due Process Clause where, assuming there was any error, it did not seriously affect the fairness of the proceedings; and the home confinement modification did not violate the First Amendment where defendant's post-sentencing comments were relevant to the conditions of probation because they indicated that defendant did not grasp the seriousness of his conduct and did not think much of the probationary sentence he had received, and defendant was not punished for any abstract beliefs. Accordingly, the court dismissed in part and affirmed in part. View "United States v. Serrapio, Jr." on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the district court's denial of his fourth-in-time 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence. The court concluded that the district court erred in dismissing petitioner's fourth section 2255 motion as successive where petitioner's previous section 2255 motions did not render his fourth section 2255 motion successive. The court reversed and remanded for the district court to determine whether the instant motion was timely. View "Boyd v. United States" on Justia Law

Wellcare sought a writ of mandamus declaring it a "victim" within the meaning of the Crime Victims' Rights Act (CVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3771, and the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A, and directing the district court to act accordingly. The court concluded that, given Wellcare's admitted role in a criminal conspiracy to defraud Florida healthcare programs, the district court did not clearly abuse its discretion in denying Wellcare's motion to be recognized as a crime victim and to be awarded restitution. Accordingly, the court denied the petition. View "In re: Wellcare Health Plans, Inc." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for possessing a firearm as a previously convicted felon. The court concluded that the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress the firearms seized from his residence; the district court did not err in denying defendant's Batson challenge to the prosecution's peremptory strike of a veniremember; and the evidence was sufficient to support defendant's conviction under 18 U.S.C. 922(g). Defendant's remaining claims were without merit. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Folk" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction on several counts of Hobbs Act robbery, conspiracy, and knowing possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. Defendant principally argued that the district court admitted location evidence based on stored cell site information obtained by the prosecution without a warrant, in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The court held that cell site location information is within the subscriber's reasonable expectation of privacy and the obtaining of that data without a warrant is a Fourth Amendment violation. Nonetheless, the court concluded that the district court did not commit a reversible error where the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule under United States v. Leon was applicable in this instance. The court affirmed the judgment of conviction and vacated only that portion of the sentence attributable to the enhancement for brandishing. Only one witness testified that a gun was pointed at her, and there was no evidence that defendant was the one who did it. Further, the jury had an opportunity to convict defendant of either (1) possessing a firearm in furtherance of the robbery or (2) using or carrying a firearm in furtherance of the robbery. Yet it only found that defendant possessed a firearm. View "United States v. Davis" on Justia Law