Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant challenged the sentenced imposed on him after pleading guilty to illegally reentering the United States after deportation. Defendant contended that the district court erred when calculating his offense level under the Sentencing Guidelines, in particular by applying a sixteen-level adjustment on the basis of an Oklahoma conviction for domestic assault and battery. The court held that defendant's Oklahoma conviction was not a "crime of violence" within the meaning of U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) and defendant's guideline range would have been considerably lower if the district court had not applied the sixteen-level enhancement. Accordingly, the sentence was vacated and the case remanded for resentencing.

Defendant appealed the sentence imposed after he pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to posses with intent to distribute cocaine pursuant to a written, non-binding plea agreement. On appeal, defendant argued that the Government breached the plea agreement when the PSR recommended a higher base level than that agreed to by the Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA). Because the plea agreement entered into by the AUSA did not bind the Probation Officer from making sentencing recommendations in the PSR nor did it bind the district court, the court affirmed the sentence.

Defendant pleaded guilty to illegal reentry following a deportation after conviction for an aggravated felony. On appeal, defendant argued that his sentence was procedurally and substantively unreasonable. The court affirmed the sentence, holding that the district court did not commit procedural error with respect to the sufficiency of its explanation for the sentence it imposed; the sentence was not substantively unreasonable where the district court heard and considered defendant's arguments for a below-guidelines sentence, but it rejected them, determining that a within-guidelines sentence was appropriate in light of the Guidelines, the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors, and the policy statements; and defendant's sentence was presumed reasonable because it was within the guidelines range.

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of harboring an undocumented alien for financial gain. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court erred in denying her motion to suppress because the post-Miranda statements that she, her boyfriend, and the illegal alien made constituted fruits of the poisonous tree. The court agreed and held that defendant's post-arrest statements were inadmissible under the exclusionary rule where there was no indication that more than a few hours had passed between the Fourth Amendment violation made by police and ICE agents at defendant's home and the statements made at the ICE officer; the record did not reveal, and the Government did not raise, any intervening circumstances that would have broken the causal chain; and the court previously noted that the officers' conduct was egregious. Because neither of the attenuation nor the inevitable discovery exceptions to the exclusionary rule applied, the court held that the district court did not err in excluding the testimony of defendant's boyfriend and the illegal alien. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiff, who was incarcerated in the custody of TDCJ-CID, sought damages under 48 U.S.C. 1983, asserting that her constitutional rights were violated when her ovary and lymph nodes were removed without her consent during a radical hysterectomy. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the physicians who performed the surgery, holding that they were entitled to qualified immunity. In light of the circumstances, the court could not say that the law was, or was at the time of defendants' conduct, clearly established such that a reasonable official in the physicians' positions would understand that their conduct violated plaintiff's Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. Noting that the law governing claims involving unwanted medical treatment in the prison context was far from certain, the court held that plaintiff failed to rebut defendants' entitlement to qualified immunity on her Fourteenth Amendment claim and summary judgment was appropriate. The court disposed of plaintiff's other claims and affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Defendant pled guilty to two counts of possession with intent to distribute heroin. Defendant appealed her sentence of 240 months imprisonment. The court held that because the sentence was not beyond the statutory maximum, Apprendi was not violated and defendant's sentence was affirmed. Because the death resulting enhancement, U.S.S.G. 2D1.1(a)(2), was imposed with strict liability, defendant had not proffered sufficient evidence to show the link between her drugs and Richard Reitz's death was inaccurate or unreliable, and she could not show the PSR was based on factual errors, the court affirmed the finding that there was sufficient evidence that defendant's drugs caused Reitz's death.

Defendant pleaded guilty to two counts of using a facility of interstate commerce to attempt to coerce a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity. On appeal, defendant challenged the sufficiency of the factual basis of his plea and objected to the procedural and substantive reasonableness of his sentence. The court held that the district court did not commit plain error in accepting defendant's guilty plea based on the facts in the record concerning his conduct towards the minors at issue. Although the court upheld his guilty plea, the court vacated the sentence because the district court improperly relied on defendant's rehabilitative needs in lengthening the sentence.

Defendant appealed his conviction for possession of five grams or more of crack cocaine with intent to distribute. Defendant argued that the district erred in admitting the crack cocaine and in admitting four photographs of defendant posing with a gun. Defendant was forced to undergo a proctoscopic examination under sedation pursuant to a warrant obtained on the police's belief that he was concealing crack cocaine in his rectum. The court found that the search was unreasonable but that the evidence should not be suppressed because the police acted in good-faith reliance on a valid search warrant. The court held that the district court abused its discretion in admitting the non-probative photographs but there was no reversible error because there was substantial evidence supporting defendant's conviction. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Petitioner was found guilty of murder committed in the course of a kidnapping and robbery, and the state court sentenced him to death based on the jury's verdict on the two special issues at sentencing. At issue was whether the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) unreasonably applied federal law as established in Atkins v. Virginia when it refused to allow petitioner to wholly replace full-scale IQ scores with a clinical assessment to establish his claim of mental retardation. Considering that the Supreme Court had delegated to the states the responsibility of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction against executing mentally retarded defendants, the court could not second-guess the CCA's decision. Therefore, the court denied petitioner's application for a certificate of appealability because the CCA's decision was not an unreasonable application of federal law.

Defendant was convicted of conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens, conspiracy to conceal or harbor illegal aliens, and two counts of harboring or concealing illegal aliens, 8 U.S.C. 1324(a)(1)(A)(ii), (iii), (v)(I), and (a)(1)(B)(I). The Fifth Circuit affirmed, upholding the district court's admission of expert testimony by federal law enforcement agents regarding usual locations of passengers in the vehicles used to transport illegal aliens; use of multiple bailouts in illegal alien trafficking; the role of guides; and relationships among drivers, guides, and recruiters. An agent's statement identifying a particular phone number as belonging to unindicted co-conspirator was hearsay, but not prejudicial.