Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant appealed his conviction of robbery and firearms offenses. The court vacated defendant's conviction on Count Four, the 18 U.S.C. 924(c) charge for using and brandishing a gun in the commission of the April 11th robbery, where the government's evidence was plainly insufficient. The court concluded, however, that the evidence was sufficient to support defendant's remaining convictions; the district court improperly denied defendant's request for expert assistance but the denial did not result in a fundamentally unfair trial; defendant failed to meet his burden in demonstrating that the district court committed plain error when it allowed introduction of a phone call between defendant and his brother as substantive evidence; and defendant's cumulative error argument failed. Accordingly, the court reversed Count Four and affirmed defendant's remaining convictions. View "United States v. Feliciano" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an inmate at the W.C. Holman Correctional Facility, was assaulted in the "back hallway" with a knife by another inmate who cut plaintiff's throat and nearly killed him. Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against prison officials, seeking damages for the injuries he received. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiff's requests for leave to conduct additional discovery where the only evidence plaintiff was unable to obtain related to the purchasing of craft materials and the policies for disposing of used hobby craft blades. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants on plaintiff's claim that defendants were deliberately indifferent to the substantial risk of serious harm plaintiff faced at the time of the assault. Although the evidence demonstrated that the warden was on notice that inmate-on-inmate assaults occurred in the back hallway, the evidence of inmate-on-inmate assault involving weapons did not indicate that inmates were exposed to something even approaching the constant threat of violence and Holman's policies for monitoring the back hallway did not create a substantial risk of serious harm. The record failed to demonstrate that any lapse in oversight of cutting instruments created a substantial risk of excessive inmate-on-inmate violence. Even if the conditions at Holman created an excessive risk of inmate-on-inmate violence, defendants were not deliberately indifferent to the risk. View "Harrison v. Culliver, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted of malice murder and sentenced to death. The district court later granted petitioner's petition for a writ of habeas corpus in part and vacated his sentence only. The court concluded that the state habeas court's rejection of petitioner's ineffective-assistance claims were not an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington where the state habeas court did not unreasonably determine that petitioner suffered no prejudice from his counsel's failure to discover mitigating background and mental health evidence, especially in light of the substantial aggravating circumstances that would also have been revealed. Further, petitioner had not shown that the Georgia Supreme Court unreasonably applied Griffin v. California or any other Supreme Court precedent in concluding that the prosecutor's closing argument did not violate petitioner's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of petitioner's 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition. View "Jones v. GDCP Warden" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the district court's denial of his motions for discovery and leave to amend his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, as well as the district court's determination that the U.S. Parole Commission did not violate the mandate handed down by the court in Bowers v. Keller. The court concluded that the district court's decision to deny leave to amend was informed largely by its overly narrow interpretation of the court's mandate. The district court also noted that the habeas petition was already "long and complicated." Neither explanation amounted to a "substantial reason" for denying a motion to amend. Accordingly, the court concluded that the district court abused its discretion in denying petitioner leave to amend. The court reversed and remanded on that ground, but affirmed on all other grounds. View "Bowers, Jr. v. U.S. Parole Commission, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of conspiracy to distribute drugs, conspiracy to launder money, and possession with intent to distribute at least one kilogram of heroin. At issue on appeal was whether the district court misapplied the sentencing guidelines by using defendant's conduct in the underlying drug conspiracy to impose a role enhancement when calculating his adjusted offense level for money laundering under U.S.S.G. 2S1.1(a)(1). The court concluded that the district court mistakenly considered defendant's role in the drug conspiracy that generated the dirty money. Consequently, defendant received a higher adjusted offense level and guidelines range than he might have received if the application note to section 2S1.1 had been followed. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Salgado" on Justia Law

Petitioner, sentenced to death for the strangulation murder of a thirteen-year-old girl, appealed the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court held that evidence of a rejected plea offer for a lesser sentence, like evidence of innocence or evidence of the geographical location of the crime, was not a mitigating circumstance because it shed no light on a defendant's character, background, or the circumstances of his crime; the Constitution did not mandate the admission of rejected plea offers as relevant mitigating evidence at sentencing; and, as a result, petitioner was not entitled to federal habeas relief on his Eighth Amendment claim. Finally, given the significant aggravating circumstances involved in his offense and found by the trial court, the court could not say that no fairminded jurists could agree with the Florida Supreme Court's determination that there was no reasonable likelihood of a lesser sentence had counsel obtained and presented the available evidence of brain damage. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of petitioner's section 2254 petition. View "Hitchcock v. Secretary, FL Dept. of Corrections" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a death row inmate, appealed the denial of federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court granted petitioner's application for a certificate of appealability with regard to two claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. The court concluded that the state supreme court correctly found that trial counsel's failure to engage the services of a forensic pathologist did not prejudice petitioner because the likelihood of a different result was not substantial and that the state supreme court reasonably determined that counsel did not perform deficiently during the sentencing phase by focusing on the residual doubt theory instead of focusing solely on rebutting the State's evidence in support of the armed robbery aggravating factor. Accordingly, the district court correctly rejected petitioner's claims and the court affirmed the denial of habeas relief. View "Terrell v. GDCP Warden" on Justia Law

Defendant, convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, appealed his sentence. The court concluded that the district court plainly erred by imposing an enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1). In light of Descamps v. United States, a conviction under Alabama Code 13A-7-7 could not qualify as generic burglary under the ACCA. Therefore, defendant did not have the three qualifying convictions necessary for the enhancement. Further, such error affected defendant's substantial rights. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing without the ACCA enhancement. View "United States v. Jones" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed his sentence for illegal reentry after deportation. The court concluded that plaintiff's 2007 South Carolina conviction for the burglary of a dwelling was a "crime of violence" under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) where plaintiff failed to object to the presentence investigation report's statement that the conduct underlying his burglary conviction involved entry into the victim's residence. Accordingly, the court concluded that the district court properly applied the sixteen-level enhancement under section 2L1.2(b)(1)(A) and affirmed the forty-six month sentence. View "United States v. Ramirez-Flores" on Justia Law

Defendant, while incarcerated, participated in a fraudulent scheme to obtain tax refunds by using the personal information of other inmates. Defendant pleaded guilty to 41 of the 46 counts with which he was charged. On appeal, defendant contended that the district court should amend its written judgment to conform to its oral pronouncement at sentencing that forfeited funds would be applied toward his restitution obligation. In light of the statutory framework governing restitution and forfeiture, the court held that a district court generally had no authority to offset a defendant's restitution obligation by the value of the forfeited property held by the government which was consistent with the approach taken by the Fourth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits. Because the district court had no authority to offset defendant's restitution obligation by the amount of funds forfeited to the government, its oral pronouncement directing such was contrary to law. Therefore, defendant could not avail himself of the general rule that discrepancy between an oral pronouncement at sentencing and a written judgment was to be resolved in favor of the oral pronouncement. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's written judgment. View "United States v. Joseph" on Justia Law