Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant pleaded guilty to unlawfully reentering the United States. On appeal, defendant challenged his sentence as procedurally and substantively unreasonable. The court held that the district court committed no procedural error where it weighed defendant's argument for a below-guidelines sentence, but, in light of the totality of the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors, the district court found the defense's points only persuasive enough to warrant a sentence at the guidelines range's low end. The court also held that defendant's sentence was substantively reasonable where the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that a bottom-of-the-guidelines sentence was appropriate in light of concerns that defendant and the government raised. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Sanchez" on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted of one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child. Petitioner moved for a new trial alleging that his trial attorneys provided ineffective assistance of counsel when they failed to preserve error by declining to use a peremptory challenge against a prospective juror. The state subsequently appealed the district court's grant of habeas corpus relief to petitioner after his claim had been denied on the merits in state proceedings. The court agreed with the district court that the retaliation bar in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. 2254(d), forbade the court to disregard the state courts' factual findings and legal conclusions. Accordingly, the court reversed and rendered a judgment of dismissal. View "Morales v. Thaler" on Justia Law

Defendant, an attorney and the brother-in-law of Trent Lott, appealed from the denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion challenging one of his two convictions for bribing a judge. Defendant's conviction stemmed from his bribe of a circuit court judge in a lawsuit involving a fee-sharing dispute with co-counsel (the "Wilson Case"). Defendant offered to recommend the judge to Lott, who at the time was a U.S. Senator, for a district court judgeship in exchange for the judge's help in winning the Wilson Case. The court concluded that Skilling v. United States, which addressed the constitutionality of the honest-services statute, 18 U.S.C. 1346, had no effect on the district court's subject matter jurisdiction over defendant's guilty plea. Defendant had shown neither his actual innocence of post-Skilling honest-services fraud nor that there was cause and prejudice for failing to raise a constitutional-vagueness challenge to section 1346. Therefore, defendant procedurally defaulted on his claim and the district court correctly denied his section 2255 motion. Finally, the court rejected defendant's First Amendment overbreadth challenge to section 1346. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Scruggs" on Justia Law

Defendants Chon, Garcia-Rico, Cardoza, and YCL were convicted of conspiring to smuggle, transport, and harbor illegal aliens in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1324(a)(1)(A)(v)(I). Chon was also convicted of money laundering and three counts of willfully aiding and assisting in the filing of a false tax return. The facts of this case involved the use of the Gateway Hotel, which was located in close proximity to the United States-Mexico border. Overwhelming, undisputed evidence was offered at trial that individuals conducting alien-smuggling operations utilized the Gateway Hotel as a location to harbor illegal aliens who had just crossed the border before they were transported to other locations in the United States. In these circumstances, the court held that there was sufficient evidence to convict Chon, Cardoza, and YCL. The court also held that the sentences of Defendants Chon and Garcia-Rico were reasonable. Accordingly, the court found no reversible error and affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Chon" on Justia Law

Defendant and his co-defendant were convicted of charges related to their involvement in a scheme to defraud homeowners, home buyers, and mortgage lenders. Defendant appealed his sentence, challenging the district court's calculation of the loss amount and its application of the sentencing enhancement for "mass-marketing." In light of the court's precedent, the court could not say that the district court erred by employing an intended loss calculation and declining to account for the collateral's value, especially given the district court's factual findings that defendants did not intend to repay the mortgage loans here. The court also held that the district court did not err in imposing the mass-marketing enhancement under U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b)(2)(A)(ii) where defendants used advertisements in newspapers that circulated to thousands of people and potentially more through online viewing. While defendants could have phrased their advertisements to sell one house to one person, they solicited thousands of potential buyers in order to find the one buyer for each property. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Morrison" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of aggravated rape in 1980. Texas paroled him in 2004, but he returned to prison in 2006 after violating a condition of his release. Defendant subsequently obtained a certificate of appealability on the issue of whether his street-time should have been restored because he was erroneously released to parole. The court held that because defendant had no protected liberty interest in the street-time credit that he claimed to have accrued, his due-process right was not violated. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of his habeas petition. View "Rhodes, Jr. v. Thaler" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs Davila and Duarte appealed the district court's dismissal with prejudice of their claims brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 1346(b) and 3671, Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Fed. Bureau of Narcotics, and 42 U.S.C. 1983. Plaintiffs' claims arose out of two incidents, a checkpoint search and felony traffic stop. The court reversed the district court's dismissal of Davila's FTCA claim against the government arising out of his January 7, 2009 interrogation and arrest because the detention-of-goods exception did not apply to Davila's claim of false imprisonment as alleged in Count 2 of his complaint. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment claims against the NSPS Rangers arising out of the Big Bend traffic stop (Count 5 and 6) and affirmed the district court's dismissal of all four FTCA claims arising out of the Big Bend traffic stop (Counts 7, 9, and 10). View "Davila, et al v. United States, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Texas state prisoner of Muslim faith, filed a pro se complaint against TDCJ pursuant to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc-5, and 42 U.S.C. 1983. Plaintiff claimed that TDCJ violated RLUIPA and his constitutional rights by prohibiting him from wearing a beard and from wearing a white head covering, known as a Kufi, to and from worship services. The district court granted declaratory and injunctive relief in favor of plaintiff to the extent that TDCJ's policy prohibited him from wearing a quarter-inch beard. TDCJ appealed. As a preliminary matter, the court held that the district court did not violate Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a)(1), which required that the district court find the facts specially and state its conclusions of law separately. On the merits, the court held that TDCJ had not satisfied its burden of showing that the no-beard policy was the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling interests of controlling costs and in security by promoting easy identification of inmates. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Garner v. Kennedy, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant challenged his conviction for distribution of child pornography, arguing that he did not "distribute" child pornography by storing images in a shared folder accessible on a peer-to-peer computer network. Considering that defendant was a computer technician with computer experience, he affirmatively downloaded the LimeWare program, he maintained 144 videos of child pornography in his shared folder, he knew that others could access the materials stored in his shared folder, and a law enforcement officer actually downloaded one such video, the court held that the evidence was sufficient to support a finding that defendant distributed child pornography under 18 U.S.C. 2254(a)(2)(B). Any error in calculating the total offense level was harmless, given the district court's clear statements that it would have imposed the same sentence regardless of the correctness in the calculation. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction and sentence. View "United States v. Richardson, IV" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his revocation sentence, contending that the district court impermissibly based the length of the sentence on the court's perception of his rehabilitative needs, in violation of Tapia v. United States. The court held that the district court violated Tapia because it lengthened defendant's sentence based on rehabilitative needs and this error warranted reversal. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Culbertson" on Justia Law