Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Following his conviction for a meth-related offense, defendant exhausted his state remedies on claims that he did not knowingly and intelligently waive conflict-free counsel or an impartial jury. The federal magistrate judge, however, conducted its own evidentiary hearing and granted the writ. Based on its review of the state court proceedings alone, the court reversed. The court held that in light of Cullen v. Pinholster, the district court erred in allowing an evidentiary hearing under section 2254(e)(2). With the evidence properly confined to the record before the state courts, the court reversed the grant of habeas relief.

Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine and to possession of pseudoephedrine with the intent to manufacture methamphetamine. Defendant appealed his consecutive prison terms of 240 months and 120 months. The court held that the PSR's mathematical computation was not clearly erroneous. The court also held that it had no jurisdiction to review the district court's denial of defendant's discovery request where defendant waived his right to appeal. The court further held that there was no abuse of discretion in sentencing defendant to 360 months imprisonment. The court finally denied defendant's claim of ineffective counsel without prejudice. Accordingly, defendant's sentence was confirmed.

Movant was convicted on a guilty plea of aiding and abetting a carjacking resulting in death, an offense he committed when he was sixteen years old. Movant, a federal prisoner, moved the court for authorization to file a successive 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion challenging his sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and for appointment as his counsel the attorney who filed the instant motion. The court held that movant had made a sufficient prima facie showing to be permitted to present his second section 2255 motion where Graham v. Florida clearly stated a new rule of constitutional law that was not previously available and the case was certainly the first recognition that the Eighth Amendment barred the imposition of life imprisonment without parole on non-homicide offenders under age eighteen and where Graham had been made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court. Therefore, the court granted the motion for an order authorizing movant to file his second section 2255 motion. However, the court denied without prejudice movant's motion for appointment of counsel inasmuch as the limited proceedings before the court have now concluded.

Defendant pleaded guilty of possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. Defendant subsequently appealed the reduction of his sentence made pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 3582(c). The court held that defendant failed to show that the district court abused its discretion by reducing his sentence in the matter that it did and therefore, the district court did not err in rejecting defendant's first and second proposed calculated methods. The court also held that the district court did not reject defendant's third comparable-reduction argument, that the court eliminated its recency points, because it lacked the authority to do so. Instead, the district court rejected that argument because it believed that further reducing defendant's criminal history was unnecessary because it had already reduced that history once before. The court further held that Congress had set forth sufficient standards for the Commission in exercising its discretion and U.S.S.G. 1B1.10 did not present a separation-of-powers problem. Accordingly, because the district court did not err or abuse its discretion, the court affirmed the judgment.

Defendant pleaded guilty to multiple crimes related to his conduct in running a fraudulent Ponzi scheme. The district court disregarded the plea agreement's recommendation of an applicable sentencing range of 151-188 months imprisonment and imposed the statutory maximum sentence of 360 months. Defendant argued that the Government breached the plea agreement by providing the district court with facts and arguments supporting a longer sentence than the parties agreed upon. The court held that the Government did not breach the plea agreement where the district court exercised its discretion by disregarding the plea agreement's recommendations and independently deciding to impose the statutory maximum sentence. The court also held that defendant waived his right to appeal the sentence on grounds that the district court abused its discretion in imposing the statutory minimum. Accordingly, the sentence was affirmed.

Defendant, a state court judge and former criminal defense attorney, was convicted of two counts of wire fraud and one count of making false statements, stemming from defendant's use of his position as a state judge to obtain money and sexual favors in exchange for assisting a criminal defendant. Defendant subsequently appealed his conviction and his 60-month concurrent sentences. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's motion for a new trial; based on the record, the court concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that the verdict would have been the same absent any error in the jury instructions and the indictment; and defendant's sufficiency of the evidence challenged failed. The court also held that the district court properly applied the specific offense characteristic; the second uncharged bribe could be used to increase the offense level for defendant's bribery conviction; and any monies rendered for legitimate legal services could not be subtracted from the loss value under U.S.S.G. 2C1.1(b)(2) because defendant and his colleague provided these services after the offense was detected. Therefore, none of defendant's several challenges required a new trial, reversal of conviction, or resentencing.

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 63 months imprisonment, as well as three years of supervised release. Defendant subsequently appealed his sentence. The court affirmed the district court's addition of three criminal-history points for defendant's grouped and otherwise-uncounted deadly-conduct offenses. The court also held that there was no evidence that, given defendant's extensive criminal history, the district court abused its discretion in choosing to impose a within-Guidelines sentence and in refusing to downwardly depart from the Guidelines by two criminal-history points. Therefore, the court held that defendant had not shown that his sentence was substantively unreasonable "nor has he rebutted the presumption of reasonableness that attached to his within-[G]uidlines sentence." Accordingly, the court affirmed defendant's sentence.

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of using a cellular telephone to willfully threaten to unlawfully damage or destroy a building by means of explosive. At issue was whether the district court erred by imposing a two-level enhancement for using a minor to purchase a prepaid cellular phone, with which defendant made bomb threats the following day pursuant to U.S.S.G. 3B1.4. The court held that, despite the novel use of the enhancement, there was no error in the district court's application of U.S.S.G. 3B1.4 and therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Petitioner, a citizen of Pakistan, pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of less than two ounces of marihuana. At issue was whether a waiver was available where an applicant had been convicted of two separate offenses of possessing 30 grams or less of marihuana but had already received an 8 U.S.C. 1182(h) waiver relating to the first offense. The court held that based on the plain language of section 1182(h), the implausibility of petitioner's reading, and prior BIA and Fifth Circuit precedent, an alien who had been convicted of two or more offenses of simple possession of 30 grams or less of marihuana was ineligible for a 1182(h) waiver, regardless of whether he previously received a 1182(h) waiver related to one of his offenses. Therefore, the petition for review of the BIA's decision was denied.

Petitioner was convicted of capital murder, rape, and kidnapping and subsequently appealed the denial of his petition for habeas corpus. At issue was whether the trial court erroneously allowed the prosecution to submit to the jury an aggravating circumstance without sufficient evidentiary support in violation of the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Also at issue was whether the trial court erred during the sentencing phase of defendant's trial by excluding relevant mitigating evidence in violation of the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The court held that although the "great risk of death" aggravating circumstance was improperly applied to defendant, the error was harmless. The court also held that the trial court's exclusion of a self-made videotape as mitigating evidence was not objectively unreasonable in light of the clearly established constitutional precedent. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's denial of habeas corpus relief.