Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of producing child pornography. The district court sentenced Defendant to a term of imprisonment and advised that it would order Defendant to pay restitution to the victim for mental health treatment. The district court wanted to simply order payment directly to the victim, but Defendant objected, saying the victim might not use the money for treatment. The court ordered payment to the Crime Victims Fund, from which payment would be made to provide the victim with therapy. On appeal, Defendant argued that the district court erred in ordering the payment be made to the Fund rather than to the victim. The First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded with direction for the court to enter a restitution order payable to the victim, as there was no basis for accommodating Defendant’s original desire to monitor how his victim used the restitution payment. View "United States v. Montalvo-Cruz" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Appellant was convicted of aiding and abetting interference with commerce by threats of violence and using a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence. On appeal, Appellant argued, among other things, that the district court violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel of choice because the court forbade him from retaining new counsel without giving him an opportunity to be heard on the issue. The First Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Appellant and vacated his conviction, holding that the district court violated Appellant’s right to counsel when it forbade Appellant from retaining substitute defense counsel without conducting any inquiry into Appellant’s conflict with present counsel. View "United States v. Diaz-Rodriguez" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was charged in state court with offenses related to the manufacture and possession of marijuana after a neighbor reported to the police that the door was wide open at Plaintiff’s vacant home, and the police entered the home. The charges were dropped when a state court judge suppressed the evidence found in Plaintiff’s home. Plaintiff subsequently sued the Town of Eastham, two police officers, and a crime-scene investigator who had assisted in the search in the federal district court, alleging, among other claims, that Defendants had deprived him of his Fourth Amendment rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court dismissed the complaint, holding that the officers who searched Plaintiff’s home were entitled to qualified immunity. The First District Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that because there is no clearly established law that would deter reasonable police officers from affecting an entry such as the one in this case, the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. View "Macdonald v. Town of Eastham" on Justia Law

Defendant confessed to participating in the arson of an African-American church following a seven-hour interrogation. Defendant was subsequently convicted in federal court of conspiracy against civil rights, damage to religious real property, and the use of a fire to commit a felony. Defendant appealed, arguing that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress the incriminating statements made in his confession because they were obtained through agents’ coercive tactics and in violation of his right to prompt presentment. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) under the circumstances of this case, the agents’ interrogative tactics did not amount to coercion in violation of Defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights; and (2) Defendant’s interrogation did not violate his right to prompt presentment. View "United States v. Jacques" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury, use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, and possession of a stolen firearm. Defendant was sentenced to a term of immurement above the top of the applicable guideline sentencing range. On appeal, Defendant contended that his sentence was procedurally flawed and substantively unreasonable because the sentencing court focused too little on the potentially mitigating factors of his upbringing and mental capacity and too much on the high incidence of crime in the community. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Defendant’s sentence, holding that the sentence the district court chose was not unreasonable. View "United States v. Santiago-Rivera" on Justia Law

A law enforcement officer placed a GPS device on Defendant’s vehicle without a warrant and used that device to track Defendant’s movements for forty-seven days. The GPS monitoring ultimately led to Defendant being charged with, and pleading guilty to, possessing and conspiring to possess heroin with the intent to distribute it. After Defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the warrantless GPS monitoring, the Supreme Court decided United States v. Jones, which held that the installation and use of a GPS tracker on an automobile constitutes a Fourth Amendment search. The district court denied Defendant’s motion to suppress, determining that the exclusionary rule should not apply in this case because the officers had relied in good faith on pre-Jones legal precedent. Before the parties briefed the case on appeal, the First Circuit Court of Appeals decided United States v. Sparks, in which the Court held that eleven days of pre-Jones warrantless GPS tracking fell under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that, for the reasons articulated in Sparks and United States v. Baez, another case decided today, the exclusionary rule applied to the officers’ warrantless GPS monitoring of Defendant's vehicle. View "United States v. Oladosu" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to four counts of arson. On appeal, Defendant argued that the district court erred by denying his motion to suppress evidence that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) obtained by monitoring his automobile using a global positioning system (GPS) device. The ATF began the GPS tracking, without a warrant, in August 2009 and continued for nearly one year. After Defendant filed his notice of appeal, the First Circuit Court of Appeals decided United States v. Sparks, in which the Court held that the warrantless installation of a GSP device on a defendant’s car and the use of that device to monitor the defendant’s movements for eleven days fell within the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule because the monitoring had occurred before the U.S. Supreme Court decided United States v. Jones, which held that the installation and use of a GPS tracker on an automobile constitutes a Fourth Amendment search. In the instant case, the First Circuit affirmed the denial of Defendant’s suppression motion, holding that this case fell within the rule laid out in Sparks, although the pre-Jones warrantless GPS tracking was of a significantly longer duration than that in Sparks. View "United States v. Baez" on Justia Law

Harold Evans-Garcia and Eric Joel Carrion-Cruz (together, Defendants) were each convicted of a carjacking resulting in death and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Both Defendants committed the crimes when they were younger than eighteen years old. Each of them unsuccessfully appealed and petitioned for habeas relief. Subsequently, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Miller v. Alabama, in which the Court held that the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders. Thereafter, Defendants sought certification to pursue a new habeas petition to secure a potential reduction in their sentences pursuant to Miller. The First Circuit Court of Appeals granted certification to Evans-Garcia but denied it to Carrion-Cruz, holding (1) Evans-Garcia made a prima facie case showing that the new rule announced in Miller qualified as a basis for habeas relief on a second or successive petition; but (2) Carrion-Cruz’s request must be denied because he was not sentenced pursuant to any statute or guideline that mandated a sentence of life without parole. View "Evans-Garcia v. United States" on Justia Law

On September 22, 2011, a grand jury returned a one-count indictment charging Appellant with conspiracy to defraud the United States. The indictment alleged that, from about March 29, 2005 until at least June 22, 2007, Appellant knowingly and willfully participated in a sham marriage to secure a change in immigration status for her spouse. Appellant filed a motion to dismiss the indictment as time-barred, alleging that she committed no overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy within the five-year period before the return of the indictment. Following a bench trial, Appellant was convicted of the charge. On appeal, Appellant revived her argument that the indictment should have been dismissed as time-barred because the conspiratorial object was achieved on October 7, 2005, when her spouse attained conditional lawful permanent resident status, and any subsequent acts could not have been in furtherance of an already-completed conspiracy. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the district court correctly found Appellant’s signing of Form I-751 on June 22, 2007 on her spouse’s behalf was an overt act committed in furtherance of the objects of the conspiracy as alleged in the indictment. View "United States v. Stewart" on Justia Law

Appellant was charged with possessing body armor after having been convicted of a “crime of violence” as defined by 18 U.S.C. 16. The crimes that Appellant was previously convicted of under Massachusetts law included breaking and entering in the daytime, breaking and entering at night, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and possession of a burglarious instrument. The district court ruled that, at a minimum, Appellant’s convictions for breaking and entering satisfied the requirements of section 16. Appellant entered a condition guilty plea to the offense, reserving the right to challenge the determination that he had previously been convicted of a crime of violence. The First Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Appellant’s conviction, holding that none of the crimes for which Appellant was previously convicted, as defined under Massachusetts law, qualified as a crime of violence under section 16. View "United States v. Fish" on Justia Law