Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute more than five grams of crack cocaine, 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1); (b)(1)(B). Using the 2006 USSG, the probation office determined a base offense level of 32, which was combined with 11 criminal history points and career offender status, due to prior felony convictions for aggravated assault and distribution of a controlled substance. After a three level reduction for acceptance of responsibility, the total offense level was 31, resulting in an advisory range of 188-235 months. The court granted downward departure under the Crack Cocaine Guidelines, arrived at a range of 140-175 months, and sentenced him to 150 months. The Third Circuit affirmed. Defendant filed a motion for sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2), based on Amendment 706 to the Sentencing Guidelines. The district court denied the motion. The Third Circuit affirmed. The district court correctly determined that the advisory range was dictated by the Career Offender Guidelines, not his post-departure range, which corresponded to the range in the Crack Cocaine Guidelines.

Following a violent, racially-motivated fight among teenagers in a park, one person died. The mother of a participant was dating a police officer and the district attorney took over the investigation, believing there was a cover-up. The FBI became involved and officers were convicted of knowingly falsifying police reports with intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation into a matter within the jurisdiction of the FBI, 18 U.S.C. 1519 and knowingly making a false material statement in a matter within FBI jurisdiction, 18 U.S.C. 1001. The Third Circuit affirmed, finding sufficient evidence to support the convictions and rejecting a challenge to section 1519 as unconstitutionally vague.

The tenant moved into an apartment in 2004. The building later came under management by defendants. In 2008 tenant filed suit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. 1962, alleging that defendants conspired to harbor illegal aliens and to encourage or induce illegal aliens to reside in the U.S. in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii). He claimed that the apartment complex fell into disrepair and that criminal activity went unreported, causing injury to his leasehold property. The district court dismissed. The Third Circuit affirmed. The "harboring" claim was properly dismissed; the complaint did not sufficiently allege that the conduct tended to substantially facilitate an alien's remaining in the U.S. illegally and to prevent government authorities from detecting the unlawful presence. With respect to the "inducing" claim, the court stated that it could not imagine that Congress contemplated that landlords and hotel and motel operators would be responsible for making complex legal determinations about who is permitted to live in this country, much less that they would be criminalized for an error in so doing.

After receiving a tip from a reliable source that individuals in a white Toyota Camry were carrying firearms, police officers initiated a traffic stop. A firearm was discovered on the driver, who unsuccessfully moved to suppress the firearm as the fruit of an unlawful search and seizure. The Third Circuit vacated the conviction and sentence. The requisite reasonable suspicion of criminal activity was not established by the presence of illegal tints on the vehicle's windows or by the tip that firearms were in the possession of the individuals in the vehicle. The informant gave brief information, not including whether the firearm was legal or illegal.

In 2005, an inmate filed a pro se lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 2671, alleging personal injuries caused by defendants' exposing him to second-hand smoke. The district court dismissed, but news of the dismissal did not reach him for almost a year because of a prison transfer. The district court denied untimely motions to reopen the time for appeal and for reconsideration. The Third Circuit affirmed, holding that it could not relax the timing requirements for filing a motion to reopen the time for appeal under FRAP 4(a)(6), even for prison delay, because those requirements are governed by statute and are jurisdictional. The situation is not one in which time lost due to prison delays can be excluded. While prison delay may make an untimely motion for reconsideration timely, that motion was delayed by clerks' office errors, not by prison delay.

In 2006, Long filed an suit against city and state police and forensic chemists, claiming conspiracy to obtain a murder conviction against him by presenting false evidence and preventing him from obtaining DNA testing that would prove his innocence (42 U.S.C. 1983). After screening (28 U.S.C. 1915(e)(2); 1915A), the district court found that the claims were barred unless he could demonstrate that his conviction was invalid. Dismissal was entered on the docket August 21, 2006, so that he had until September 4 to file a Rule 59(e) motion for reconsideration. On September 25, he filed the motion with a letter explaining that he had not received the filings until September 22, because of a transfer from one prison to another. The district court treated the motion as timely, but rejected it on the merits. The order was entered on the docket October 6. On October 31, Long signed a notice of appeal that was timely from the denial of reconsideration, but untimely from the dismissal order. The Third Circuit affirmed without deciding the delay issue, finding that it had jurisdiction based on the denial of reconsideration.

An inmate in the custody of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections brought a civil rights action in 2000 claiming that two prison facilities unlawfully denied his request to accommodate his particular religious group, a subgroup of Sunni Muslims. Several claims were dismissed, and, following a trial, the district court ruled in favor of individual defendants on a 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim that policies and practices violated the inmate's right to practice his religion as guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments and a claim under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, 42 U.S.C. 2000cc. The Third Circuit affirmed. RLUIPA does not permit individual-capacity suits and defendants had qualified immunity with respect to the 1983 claims. Plaintiff did not have a clearly established right to separate religious services in accordance with the Habashi sect when Sunni Islamic services were already available.

Petitioner was convicted in 1990 of murder and arson after his 20-year-old mentally ill daughter died in a fire at a religious retreat. His attorney argued that the deceased set the fire as a suicidal act. He was sentenced to life without possibility of parole. On remand for an evidentiary hearing on claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, the court received substantial evidence about developments in the field of fire science that provided reason to question the reliability of the arson investigation. The court nonetheless affirmed the convictions and sentence. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied an appeal. The district court denied a petition for habeas corpus without an evidentiary hearing. The Third Circuit remanded for discovery. Petitioner was diligent in state court to develop his claims that newly developed scientific evidence establishes that the expert testimony at his trial was fundamentally unreliable, in violation of due process, and that he is actually innocent. He has alleged sufficient facts to demonstrate that discovery is essential to the development of his federal claims.

Petitioner, a native of Liberia, was admitted as a visitor in 1980. In, 1983, he became a lawful permanent resident. In 1988, he pled guilty to criminal sexual conduct. In 1995, Minnesota enacted a predatory offender registration statute. Petitioner initially complied, but in 1998, pled guilty to failing to register. In 2009, DHS began removal proceedings under 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(A)(i), for having been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude committed within five years after his date of admission and alleging that his 1998 conviction, coupled with his 1988 conviction, made him removable under 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii), for having been convicted of two crimes involving moral turpitude not arising out of a single scheme. Several months later, petitioner asserted for the first time that he was admitted in 1980, not 1983, but did not support his assertion with any evidence. The IJ ordered him removed. The BIA dismissed. The Third Circuit vacated, reversing the treatment of petitioner's conviction under the predatory offender registration statute. The court remanded with instructions to allow him to supplement the record to show that he was legally admitted in 1980 and to enter an order that he is not removable.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment against defendant and her boyfriend; she was charged with knowingly aiding and abetting the possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1)1 and 2(a)2. The boyfriend pled guilty as a felon in possession. The district court dismissed the indictment against defendant. The Third Circuit reversed and remanded. A finding that the government would not be able to prove the charge was premature; an aiding and abetting charge required proof that the substantive crime has been committed and that the defendant knew of the commission of the substantive offense and acted with intent to facilitate it. Rejecting a Second Amendment claim, the court reasoned that the indictment did not charge that defendant's mere possession of a gun violated the law.