Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Liquidators challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Brazil, concluding that a forfeiture judgment entered by a Brazilian court pursuant to Brazil's successful criminal prosecution of Kesten's former principals and owners took precedence over the Liquidators' Cayman Islands civil default judgment against Kesten. The court concluded that the penal law rule awarding summary judgment in favor of Brazil based on a forfeiture judgment of that sovereign grounded in a violation of Brazil's penal laws; however, the court recognized that 28 U.S.C. 2467 is a statutory exception to the penal rule; while no section 2467 request from Brazil is presently before the Attorney General, that nation's counsel advised the court at oral argument that if the challenged summary judgment decision were vacated based on the penal law rule, Brazil would promptly file a section 2467 petition pursuant to the nations' mutual legal assistance treaty; and therefore, the court remanded with instructions to the district court that it afford Brazil and the Attorney General a reasonable period of time to satisfy the section 2467's exception to that rule before reaching a final decision in this interpleader action. View "Federative Republic of Brazil v. Fu" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed from a conviction for violating a condition of supervised release imposed in connection with his earlier conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The district court sentenced defendant to an additional two-term of supervision for the violation. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court lacked jurisdiction because his original three-year term of federal supervision expired before the challenged judgment was entered and while he was incarcerated for a violation of state parole. In this instance, defendant's parole obligation derived directly from his state criminal conviction, and his violation required him to continue serving the sentence imposed for that conviction from which he had earlier been released. Therefore, the court held that defendant's New York incarceration was "in connection" with his underlying conviction for unlawful weapon possession, and that, as such, the district court still had jurisdiction to revoke his federal supervision. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Bussey" on Justia Law

Defendants pled guilty to conspiring to distribute a controlled substance in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a), 841(b), and 846, and to using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to that conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. 924(c). On appeal, defendants challenged their sentences. The court affirmed the sentence, holding that neither U.S.S.G. 5G1.3 nor 18 U.S.C. 3584 authorizes a district court to run a term of imprisonment concurrently with a discharged term of imprisonment on related charges, and (2) that those provisions' distinctions between discharged and undischarged terms were not irrational. Defendants' remaining arguments were without merit. View "United States v. Lucas" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the denial of his motion under 28 U.S.C. 2255 to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence. Defendant challenged, among other things, the imposition of the career offender enhancement under the Sentencing Guidelines for two drug convictions under Connecticut law, which the court later determined in United States v. Savage, did not qualify as controlled substance offenses for enhancement purposes. The court held that when entering his guilty plea, defendant knowingly waived his rights to attack collaterally his sentence; the process by which the district court advised defendant of his rights to appeal and to attack collaterally his conviction did not constitute plain error; and the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied defendant's motion to amend his petition to plead an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Tellado v. United States" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed an order revoking his supervised release. The district court concluded that defendant committed "another federal, state or local offense" in violation of the conditions of his supervised release, based solely on his pleas of guilty to a state drug offense entered under the Alford doctrine. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding, by a preponderance of the evidence, that defendant committed another offense in violation of the conditions of his supervised release because an Alford plea, under Connecticut law, constituted an acknowledgement of the strength of the state's evidence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Glenn" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for nine counts of various fraud crimes, including three counts of aggravated identity theft, 18 U.S.C. 1028A. The district court ordered that defendant's terms of imprisonment for all three of his section 1028A crimes run consecutively with each other even though two of those crimes may fall within U.S.S.G. 5G1.2 Application Note 2(B)(ii), which describes when the sentences for section 1028A crimes should generally run concurrently with each other. Here, the facts sufficiently suggested that at most two of the offenses underlying defendant's section 1028A offenses - counts three and eight - were groupable and therefore it was plain error for the district court not to discuss groupability. Count five, however, was clearly not groupable with counts three and eight. Therefore, the court found no error in the district court's failure to discuss groupability with respect to the sentence for this crime. The court remanded to the district court for further proceedings in connection with the sentences on counts four and nine; the court found no plain error with respect to the district court's decision to run the sentence for count six consecutively to all other sentences; and the court rejected defendant's other sentencing challenges. View "United States v. Chibuko" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for conspiracy and attempt to possess and distribute controlled substances. On appeal, the government challenged the district court's grant of defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal based upon the sufficiency of the evidence. The court held that a rational trier of fact could have found the elements of the charged crimes proven beyond a reasonable doubt where the jury was entitled to infer that defendant's knowledge that the highly valuable bag that he was poised to receive from a co-conspirator contained illegal drugs. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Hakimi" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of misprision of felony, sought a writ of error coram nobis on the ground that his lawyer rendered ineffective assistance by giving erroneous advice concerning deportation consequences of pleading guilty. On appeal, petitioner challenged the district court's denial of the petition. The court concluded that, at the time petitioner's conviction became final, no reasonable jurist could find a defense counsel's affirmative misadvice as to the immigration consequences of a guilty plea to be objectively reasonable. The court also concluded that petitioner has sufficiently shown that he could have negotiated a plea that would not have impaired his immigration status, and that even if he could not, he would have litigated an available defense. Consequently, the court found that petitioner has made a showing of prejudice based on his ability to negotiate an alternative plea. Petitioner established his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel and satisfied the requirements of coram nobis relief. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded to the district court with instructions to issue the writ and vacate the conviction. View "Kovacs v. United States" on Justia Law

Defendants plead guilty to committing a series of bank robberies. On appeal, defendants challenged the district court's order of restitution under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663-64. The court held that expenses other than those enumerated in section 3663A(b) were not compensable under the MVRA. In this case, the restitution order properly included the amount of money stolen during the bank robberies. However, the only portion of Merchant Bank's expenses subject to restitution was the amount paid to the bank's regular staff while the bank was closed as a crime scene. Accordingly, the court vacated the restitution component of the judgments and remanded to determine the amount of restitution. View "United States v. Maynard and Ludwig" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's imposition of a two-level sentencing enhancement for distribution of child pornography under U.S.S.G. 2G2.2(b)(3)(F). The court concluded that, although a defendant's intent was irrelevant for the enhancement under section 2G2.2(b)(3)(F), a defendant must know that his actions, such as the use of peer-to-peer software, would make the child-pornography files accessible to others. Because the district court's finding that defendant should have known that his files containing child pornography would be shared fell short of the required finding of knowing distribution, and because such error was not harmless, the court vacated and reversed for resentencing. View "United States v. Baldwin" on Justia Law