Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant pleaded guilty to drug charges. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court erred by applying the ten-year mandatory minimum in 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(B) without first concluding that a ten-year sentence was "not greater than necessary" to achieve the sentencing objectives listed in 18 U.S.C. 3553(a)(2). The court rejected defendant's argument and held that a statutory mandatory minimum provision constrained a district court's discretion under section 3553(a) when it "specifically provides" for a minimum sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Carter" on Justia Law

The State appealed from the district court's grant of petitioner's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. After petitioner's initial sentence was vacated on the ground that it was illegal, the state court resentenced him to a term he contended was higher than his initial sentence and that, as a result, this higher sentence was presumptively vindictive under North Carolina v. Pearce. Because the court concluded that the Appellate Division's determination that the Pearce presumption did not apply to petitioner's resentence was not an unreasonable application of Supreme Court law, the court reversed. View "Somerville v. Hunt" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of seven offenses involving narcotics, racketeering, and firearm offenses. On appeal, defendant argued that his Sixth Amendment right to represent himself at trial was violated by the district court's failure to grant his request to proceed pro se. The court concluded that defendant abandoned his request to represent himself, and therefore the court affirmed the judgment of conviction.

Defendant appealed from his 33-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession. Defendant argued that the district court erred in denying him a sentencing reduction under the "lawful sporting purposes" provision of the Sentencing Guidelines. The court held that the proper focus of the inquiry whether a defendant was eligible for the "lawful sporting purposes" reduction was the defendant's purpose for possessing the firearm, determined by considering all relevant surrounding circumstances. By focusing exclusively on defendant's actual use of the firearms he possessed, the district court misinterpreted the Guidelines, but the court concluded that the error was harmless because the district court would have denied the reduction absent any error.

Petitioner appealed the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support his conviction for depraved indifference murder under New York law. The court concluded that the district court erred in denying the petition as procedurally barred, but that the merits of the underlying legal insufficiency claim turned on significant and unsettled questions of New York law, which the court certified to the New York Court of Appeals.

Defendant appealed from his conviction for possession of a weapon by a person previously convicted of a felony. Defendant argued, inter alia, that the district court improperly (a) excluded evidence that the Government initially discharged the other occupants of the vehicle in which he was traveling with possession of the firearm that the Government claimed was found on his person; and (b) improperly limited cross-examination of a Government witness at trial by barring defendant's use of a prior adverse credibility finding in a similar but unrelated case. The court concluded that the district court's evidentiary rulings were erroneous and that the errors were not harmless. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment and remanded for a new trial.

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of bank robbery and the district court sentenced him as a career offender under U.S.S.G. 4B1.1(a). At issue on appeal was whether a district court could rely on a Presentence Report's (PSR) description of a defendant's pre-arrest conduct that culminated in a prior conviction to determine whether that prior conviction constituted one for a "crime of violence" under U.S.S.G. 4B1.2(a)(1), where the defendant made no objection to the PSR's description. The court held that it could not. Therefore, the court vacated the sentence imposed by the district court and remanded for further proceedings.

Petitioner appealed the denial of a writ of habeas corpus with respect to his 2004 Connecticut murder conviction. Petitioner argued that the state trial court's decision to exclude him from the courtroom violated his federal constitutional right to be present at trial and that police interrogation violated his Miranda rights. The court held that any error in excluding petitioner was harmless because he did not miss any critical stage of the trial as a result of that exclusion. Further, because the subsequent decision to continue petitioner's exclusion was attributable to his own violent conduct, the Connecticut Supreme Court reasonably applied United States Supreme Court precedent in upholding the trial court's decision. Petitioner's two claims of improper police procedure in his interrogation were also meritless. One claim misapprehended Supreme Court precedent; the other was never raised in state court and was thus unavailable for review in federal court.

Defendant appealed his sentence stemming from an amended judgment of conviction for possession and attempted production of child pornography. The court held that defendant waived his procedural challenge to the district court's factfinding at sentencing and, in any event, there was no plain error in these findings. The court also held that there was no merit to defendant's various challenges to the district court's Guidelines calculations in this case as they pertained to his conviction for attempted production of child pornography. The court further held that there was no merit to defendant's argument that any sentence above the minimum term of 15 years mandated by his conviction for attempted production of child pornography, was substantively unreasonable. The challenged 30-year prison sentence fell within the range of substantively reasonable choices available to the district court and the court affirmed.

Defendant appealed from a conviction of knowingly receiving and possessing child pornography. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court erred in employing the modified categorical approach to analyze the facts underlying his prior state conviction for endangering the welfare of a child, and that under the proper standard - the categorical approach - his prior state conviction did not qualify as a 18 U.S.C. 2252A(b)(1) predicate offense. The court agreed and therefore vacated his sentence and remanded to the district court for resentencing.