Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

In 2005 Truman and partners purchased a vacant commercial building for $175,000, insured for $4,250,000 in fire-related losses. The property, without the building, was worth more than with the building. After a minor accidental fire, Truman told an employee that if it ever caught fire again, just get out. Considering leasing, Truman stated that it would make more money if it burnt. By late 2006, Truman had less than $5,000 in personal bank accounts. Premiums were paid through November 17. The building burned down November 12. Truman, Jr. confessed that he had burned the building at his father’s direction. State charges were dismissed because of inability to corroborate junior’s testimony, as required under New York law. Truman was charged with aiding and abetting arson, 18 U.S.C. 844(i); mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1341; use of fire in commission of a felony, 18 U.S.C. 844(h); and loan fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1341. Following a guilty verdict the district court granted acquittal and conditionally granted a new trial. The Second Circuit vacated and remanded for sentencing. Junior’s refusal to answer certain questions did not render his testimony incredible as a matter of law, and his prior state testimony was nonhearsay. Truman was not prejudiced by improper cross-examination or summation argument references to the cooperation agreement.

Defendant pleaded guilty to a two-count information that charged him with producing child pornography, 18 U.S.C. 2251(a) and possessing child pornography, 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(5)(B), (b)(2), and was sentenced to concurrent sentences of imprisonment for 240 months and 120 months and 40 years of supervised release with numerous conditions. The Second Circuit affirmed, rejecting an argument that his plea was defective because the district court did not advise him of the possibility of civil commitment as a sexually dangerous person at the end of his prison term under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, 18 U.S.C. 4248(a) (2006).The court was not required by due process or Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to advise of the possibility of civil commitment.

Convicted of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, heroin, ketamine, and morphine, 21 U.S.C. 846; distribution and possession with intent to distribute cocaine and attempting to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute morphine and ketamine, 21 U.S.C. 812, 841(a)(1), and 841(b)(1)(C), defendant, a previously convicted felon, was sentenced to four concurrent terms of 120 months, the mandatory minimum. The Second Circuit remanded for resentencing, noting that the indictment did not properly allege any quantified amount of cocaine, so that defendant should have been sentenced under 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(C), the penalty provision that does not depend on quantity and does not, except in circumstances not present here, provide a mandatory minimum prison term.

A jury convicted defendant of conspiracy, (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. 1962(d)), and being a felon in possession of a firearm, (18 U.S.C. 922(g)). The district court upheld the firearm conviction, but vacated the RICO conviction and dismissed the conspiracy count from his indictment. The court stated that the attempt to prosecute conspiracy to violate the Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act, 18 U.S.C. 2341, failed for unconstitutional vagueness in New York Tax Law, 471, which delineated the parameters of a CCTA violation. The Second Circuit reversed, holding that a prior decision to certify questions regarding Section 471 to the state’s highest court did not indicate that that statute was unconstitutionally vague. The court rejected a claim that the CCTA was inapplicable to defendant given New York’s “forbearance policy,” under which the state refrained from collecting taxes on cigarette sales transacted on Native American reservations. The forbearance policy did not signal a choice not to enforce tax laws when enforcement would be possible, but represented a concession to the difficulty of state enforcement, complex jurisdictional issues surrounding reservation-based cigarette sales, and the politically combustible nature of bootlegging prosecutions. Congress enacted the CCTA to provide federal support to states struggling with those circumstances.

Zaleski was convicted of possessing machine guns, 18 U.S.C. 922(o), 924(a)(2); possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, 18 U.S.C. 922(k), 924(a)(1)(B); and possessing firearms, silencers, and destructive devices not registered to him, 26 U.S.C. 5841, 5861(d), and 5871. The district court imposed a 101-month sentence and ordered forfeiture of machine guns and pistols, a shotgun, homemade silencers, hand grenades, and improvised explosive devices, all unlawfully in his possession. Weapons Zaleski lawfully possessed remained in government custody while the government sought an order (All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. 1651(a)), authorizing it to destroy them. Zaleski estimates the value of non-forfeited weapons at $100,000, including guns, 65,000 rounds of ammunition, body armor, grenades, a grenade launcher, explosive chemicals, and materials for pipe bombs. As a convicted felon, Zaleski was prohibited under 18 U.S.C. 922(g) from possessing the items; he sought to have the weapons transferred to a dealer for sale. The court determined that the government did not need the requested order, that the proposed sale arrangement would violate 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1), and that appraisal would be useless because the doctrine of sovereign immunity bars claims for damages. The Second Circuit vacated in part; 922(g) does not categorically prohibit the proposed sale arrangement.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement obtained a report from German federal police indicating that the user of a particular IP address had child pornography on their computer. American officials traced the IP address, obtained the name and address of the customer whose account was associated with the address, verified the address (but not the apartment number) with post office and drivers’ records, and obtained a warrant. Neither the warrant nor any accompanying information mentioned Voustianiouk’s name. About a week later, agents arrived at the building and rang both buzzers because neither was marked. They saw a light from the second floor; a man came to the front door and confirmed that he was Voustianiouk. Officials did not explain that the warrant did not mention Voustianiouk’s name or that it clearly referred to the downstairs apartment, not the second floor. Officials discovered thousands of files containing child pornography on Voustianiouk’s computers. He admitted to viewing child pornography for more than one year. The district court imposed a five-year sentence. The Second Circuit vacated the conviction, holding that the search violated the Fourth Amendment and that the government should have been prohibited from introducing evidence seized as a result of that search.

In 1986, minority inmates commenced a class action, alleging racial discrimination in housing, job assignment, and discipline. The trial judge found a “pattern of racism” and, in 1993, issued a decision requiring that the percentage of minority inmates in “preferred” jobs, including jobs in the print shop, correspond to the percentage of minority inmates in the general prison population. In 1999, plaintiffs, inmates formerly employed in the print shop, filed complaints alleging racial discrimination by civilian supervisors and prison administrators. After four years of discovery, plaintiffs sought to file an amended class action complaint. In addition to claims under 42 U.S.C. 1981, 1983, 1985, and 1986, the complaint claimed violations of the earlier order, and the state Human Rights Law and constitution. Plaintiffs contended that the pattern-or-practice method of proof used in Title VII class actions could be employed against individual defendants. The court denied class certification and leave to amend and analyzed plaintiffs’ individual complaints under the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework generally employed in assessing individual disparate treatment claims under Title VI and granted defendants summary judgment on individual claims. The Second Circuit affirmed; the pattern-or-practice framework is ill-suited to establish liability of individual defendants named in the proposed amended complaint.

In 1987, Cassesse was convicted of conspiracy to distribute heroin and sentenced to five years’ probation. In 1991, he was convicted of possession with intent to distribute more than 500 grams of heroin and sentenced to 87 months with a consecutive term of 87 months for violating probation, and a lifetime term of supervised release, 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(B) (1991). While under supervised release, he was indicted for racketeering, 18 U.S.C. 1962. Following his guilty plea, the district court sentenced Cassesse to 90 months of imprisonment and three years of supervised release. Cassesse pled guilty to the supervised release violation in exchange for a recommendation that any additional term be served concurrently. The court rejected the recommendation, imposing a sentence of 12 months of imprisonment for the supervised release violation to run consecutively to the 90 month term. Having revoked lifetime supervised release for the narcotics violation, the court then imposed a new lifetime term of supervised release. The Second Circuit affirmed. The court was not required to deal with “the almost metaphysical issue” of how a lifetime term of supervised release, imposed for a supervised release violation, should be reduced by the number of months of a prison term imposed for the violation.

Rivas, serving an indeterminate life sentence in New York for the second-degree murder of his former girlfriend, sought habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. 2254. The district court dismissed the petition as barred by the statute's one-year limitations period. On remand, the district court again dismissed, after hearing evidence of actual innocence. The Second Circuit reversed, finding that Rivas raised a credible and compelling claim of actual innocence, based on new information not presented to the jury that dramatically undermines the central forensic evidence linking him to the crime of which he was convicted. There was essentially unchallenged testimony from a respected forensic pathologist, that the victim was almost certainly killed at a time when he had an uncontested alibi, and not earlier. That evidence warrants an equitable exception to AEDPA’s limitation period, allowing the petitioner to have his otherwise time-barred claims heard by a federal court.

After obtaining an indictment against Jacques for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a 12-year-old girl, the government filed a Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty. Included in the Notice, as required by the Federal Death Penalty Act, 18 U.S.C. 3591, were allegations of aggravating factors the government proposed to put before the jury in the penalty phase that would follow a conviction. These factors included allegations of six prior rapes and an attempt to obstruct justice by influencing the testimony of a juvenile witness/victim. In pre-trial orders, the judge struck allegations of three of the prior rapes and suppressed evidence of the attempt to obstruct justice as having been obtained in violation of the Sixth Amendment. The Second Circuit affirmed exclusion of evidence of two of the alleged prior rapes, remanded the third for reconsideration, leaving the outcome to the district court’s discretion, and vacated exclusion of evidence of the attempted obstruction of justice.