Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, an inmate at Great Meadow Correctional Facility (Great Meadow), filed suit, pro se, in district court against three Great Meadow employees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that he had been improperly denied access to medically-prescribed therapeutic diets, resulting in violations of his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment and of his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. Plaintiff, subsequently represented by counsel, appealed the revocation of his in forma pauperis status, as well as the decision of the district court to grant summary judgment to one of the defendants, James Pagano. The court held that, based on its recent decision in Mills v. Fischer, any action dismissed on the ground of absolute prosecutorial immunity was presumed "frivolous" for purposes of 28 U.S.C. 1915(g). The court also held that the remainder of plaintiff's arguments on appeal were without merit. Accordingly, the orders of the district court revoking plaintiff's in forma pauperis status and granting Pagano summary judgment were affirmed.

Defendant appealed from a judgment of conviction where he and his co-defendant were found guilty of two counts of conspiracy with intent to distribute cocaine and one count of attempt to possess with intent to distribute cocaine. At issue was whether the district court properly admitted a portion of a recorded telephone call that defendant made while incarcerated, because he argued that the communication was protected by the attorney-client privilege. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that defendant was unable to prove that his communication was made in confidence, given his knowledge that his calls were being recorded by the Bureau of Prisons and his ability to communicate directly with his attorney in the absence of any monitoring. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's decision to admit defendant's telephone call.

Six defendants appealed from their convictions for a variety of weapons trafficking offenses. On appeal, the court addressed three of the many issues raised by defendants, finding, after due consideration, their remaining arguments lacked merit. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to support all of the convictions and rejected a vagueness-as-applied argument raised by one defendant (Kharabadze). The court held, however, that the district court employed the wrong standard of proof at sentencing in imposing increases to another defendant's (Solomonyan) base offense level under U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(b)(1)(E) and (b)(3)(A). Therefore, the court vacated that defendant's sentence and remanded for resentencing.

Defendant was convicted of eleven counts of a thirteen count indictment, including several Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. 1951(a), violations predicated on robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery. On appeal, defendant challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, arguing that the stipulation at issue was insufficient to establish the requisite jurisdictional element. The court held that the evidence proffered by the government was sufficient to sustain the interstate elements of the Hobbs Act attempted robbery count at issue where the stipulation entered into by the parties, that "marijuana [wa]s grown outside of the state of New York and travel[ed] in interstate and foreign commerce to arrive in the New York City area[,]" conveyed the same information about the interstate nature of the marijuana trade as the court's precedents. The court also held that the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal where, given the ample evidence, a rational juror could find that defendant's conduct went far beyond "mere preparation" and constituted a "substantial step" toward commission of a robbery. The court considered all of defendant's other arguments and found them to be without merit and therefore, affirmed the judgment of the district court in its entirety.

Thirteen present and former female inmates of various New York state prisons appealed from the dismissal of their class action complaint brought under 42 U.S.C. 1983, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief compelling the Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) to alter its practices and procedures so as to enhance the protection of the class from sexual assault, abuse, and harassment. The complaint also asserted individual claims for damages. The dismissal was based on the grounds that some of the claims of named plaintiffs were moot and that the remaining named plaintiffs had failed to exhaust available remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. 1997e. The court held that it lacked pendant appellate jurisdiction over the damages claims. The court also held that the claims for injunctive and declaratory relief by plaintiffs who were now free but were in DOCs custody when they brought suit were not moot. The court applied a relation-back theory and determined that plaintiffs' class claims were capable of repetition, yet evading review. The court further held that three plaintiffs have exhausted applicable internal prison grievance proceedings while the remaining ten have not. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment in part and remanded for further proceedings.

Defendant appealed from a judgment of the district court convicting him of conspiracy to distribute narcotics and possession of a firearm during and in relation to a drug-trafficking crime. The district court imposed a sentencing enhancement pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(1)(A)(iii) for the discharge of the weapon, even though it was the intended victim, and not defendant, who fired the gun. Defendant contended that because he did not possess the gun when it was discharged, the district court erred in applying the enhancement. The court held that the district court correctly held that defendant was subject to the discharge enhancement where, as here, defendant possessed a firearm in furtherance of a drug-related crime and the firearm was discharged during the course of that crime. Therefore, by its plain terms, the statute applied. The court also held that when a defendant possessed a firearm during a drug-trafficking offense, the risk of an intended victim trying to seize the gun was just as real as an accidental discharge and that defendant's reliance on United States v. Daija was unavailing. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

This case stemmed from appellant's participation in the Bayou Hedge Fund Group (Bayou), a classic Ponzi scheme masked as a group of domestic and offshore hedge funds. Appellant appealed from his sentencing, following a plea of guilty to misprision of felony in violation of 18 U.S.C. 4. At issue was whether the district court's order of restitution in the amount of $60 million was improper because it relied on events occurring outside the relevant time period and the putative victims' losses were neither directly nor proximately caused by his actions as required by the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A. The court found no error, much less plain error, in the district court's use of appellant's fraudulent 2003 faxes at sentencing. The court also found no error in the district court's conclusion that appellant's failure to report the Bayou fraud was both the direct and the proximate cause of the victim investors' losses. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Former investors with Bernard L. Madoff appealed from an order entered by the United States Bankruptcy Court in the liquidation proceedings of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC under the Securities Investor Protection Act (SIPA), 15 U.S.C. 78aaa et seq. At issue was whether the Net Investment Method the trustee selected for carrying out his responsibilities under SIPA was legally sound under the language of the statutes. The court held that the trustee's determination as to how to calculate "net equity" under SIPA was legally sound in light of the circumstances of the case and the relevant statutory language. Accordingly, the court affirmed the order of the bankruptcy court.

Defendant appealed from the judgment of the district court granting defendants' motion to dismiss his claims brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983 and Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics. At issue was whether the district court erred in finding that the statute of limitations had run on the first of his two causes of action and in dismissing his second cause of action for improper venue. The court vacated and remanded on the grounds that claims brought by an inmate under the Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA"), 32 U.S.C. 1997e(a), were entitled to equitable tolling during the time-period the inmate was exhausting his administrative remedies, as required by the PLRA. The court also vacated the judgment insofar as it dismissed some of defendants' claims for improper venue and remanded with instructions that the court transfer those claims to the Eastern District of New York if the court deemed it proper to do so upon reexamination of defendants' claims.

Defendant appealed from a 45 month prison sentence following his guilty plea to possession of a firearm where the district court imposed a six-level sentence enhancement after finding that the stolen weapon was a machine gun. At issue was whether the enhancement was reversible error where the weapon's automatic fire feature was disabled at the time of defendant's theft and therefore, it no longer qualified as a machine gun. The court held that the weapon was a machine gun within the meaning of 26 U.S.C. 5845(b) because the undisputed evidence established that the weapon originally was designed to fire automatically. Accordingly, the sentence was affirmed.