Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant pled guilty to a three-count indictment charging him with receipt of visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, receipt and/or distribution of child pornography, and possession of child pornography. The district court imposed a concurrent 120-month term of imprisonment on each count. The Sixth Circuit remanded for determination of whether separate acts or conduct underlie the convictions for receipt and possession as to each of the three convictions. Possession of child pornography under 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(5)(B) is a lesser-included offense of receipt of child pornography under 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(2)(A). It is unclear whether the two convictions were based on receiving the same images.

In 1994 the then-18-year-old petitioner robbed a liquor store with a 14-year-old accomplice. Both wore masks. The security camera captured petitioner shooting and killing the owner, who did not resist. After a tracking dog led police to petitioner's house, they obtained a warrant and found the murder weapon and cash. Petitioner was convicted of aggravated robbery and murder. The jury recommended the death penalty. A juror admitted consulting an outside source about the definition of paranoid schizophrenia, but stated that her answer had played no role in his deliberations. The judge imposed the death penalty. Petitioner exhausted state appeals and collateral attack, then filed a federal habeas petition. The district court denied the petition. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting a juror misconduct claim. There is no constitutional imperative to admit cumulative or irrelevant evidence; the court properly excluded evidence of mental illness in petitioner's family. The Ohio Supreme Court's reweighing cured whatever misconduct the prosecutor engaged in at trial. The court also rejected challenges involving exclusion of a juror and jury instructions.

Defendant was convicted of bank fraud (18 U.S.C. 1344) and wire fraud (18 U.S.C. 1343), based a scheme to acquire a house for $1.4 million, intending to resell for a profit. The purchase involved recruiting a third-party with good financial credit to act as nominal purchaser. Defendant and her now-deceased husband provided the straw buyer with $30,000 that she deposited in her bank account, and falsified documents so that she appeared as president of defendants' sales group since 2003, earning a salary of $30,000-to-$40,000 per month. Within months of the purchase, the loan went into default. The lien holder foreclosed and resold the house, resulting in a net loss of $376,070.16. The straw buyer was not prosecuted, but testified without a nonprosecution agreement. The Sixth Circuit affirmed denial of a motion for a new trial. The prosecution's failure to disclose that the straw buyer was testifying without an agreement was not material, for purposes of a "Brady" violation or a claim of ineffective assistance.

Petitioner was convicted of a murder, committed to prevent testimony in a criminal case, and was sentenced to death. After Ohio courts denied appellate and post-conviction relief, the federal district court denied 47 claims of error asserted in a petition for habeas corpus. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The defense argued that the prosecution wrongfully withheld evidence of prior inconsistent statements made to the police by state witnesses and plea-agreement deals, grants of immunity, and other inducements given to such witnesses in violation of its "Brady" obligation. The court concluded that the defense did not establish prejudice to excuse procedural default of some aspects of the claim and did not show that the undisclosed evidence was sufficiently material to warrant relief. Defense counsel's representation of a witness did not adversely affect his representation so that defendant was denied effective assistance of counsel, nor was he prejudiced by counsel's failure to object to hearsay evidence during the penalty phase or to adequately prepare and present mitigation evidence. The court also rejected claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel.

Petitioner, arrested for rape on July 6, 2001, was not tried until February, 2003 because of continuances and motions by both parties and the court, some of which concerned DNA testing and unavailability of a defense expert. He was received four consecutive life sentences. The Ohio Court of Appeals rejected a claim under speedy trial provisions in Ohio Rev. Code 2945.71 and the supreme court denied leave to appeal. The district court denied a petition for habeas corpus. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, noting the deference owed state court decisions under the pursuant to the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 28 U.S.C. 2254(d). Ohio's manner of looking at the reason for delay is thus not contrary, or diametrically opposed, to federal precedent. The state court reasonably considered relevant factors and its finding that petitioner was not prejudiced was supported. At most, the delay in holding trial constituted official negligence, but petitioner did not put forth any facts to show that the continuances, failing to submit DNA samples on time, and failing to submit a bill of particulars were a calculated attempt to gain an advantage at trial.

Petitioner, convicted of the first degree murder and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, unsuccessfully sought a writ of habeas corpus (28 U.S.C. 2254), arguing that counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing present an insanity defense, despite knowledge of petitioner's long, well-documented history of severe mental illness. The Sixth Circuit reversed The Michigan Court of Appeals unreasonably applied clearly established federal law and unreasonably determined facts. That court acknowledged that counsel did not sufficiently investigate the insanity defense by obtaining an independent evaluation to rebut that provided by the forensic center, but instead relied on a self-defense strategy that was contradicted by the evidence. The court improperly looked at petitioner's actions after the shooting, rather than his state of mind at the moment of the offense, resulting in "a thinly veiled and unsupportable conclusion that it simply did not believe" that petitioner was legally insane, a factual issue that it should not have addressed. There is an "overwhelming probability" that knowledge of petitioner's history would have shed a different light on testimony that petitioner killed a complete stranger with minimal or no provocation, but then testified clearly and consistently that he believed the victim was trying to kill him and did shoot him.

After receiving an anonymous tip, police went to the home of defendant's mother-in-law, where defendant was staying, for a "knock and talk." Defendant, who stays at the house intermittently, objected to a search, during which media storage devices were found. Other occupants of the home consented. Defendant was charged with possessing counterfeit securities and fraudulent identification documents. The district court denied his motion to suppress. He pled guilty and was sentenced to 45 months in prison. The Sixth Circuit reversed. Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the bedroom, which he shared with his wife and which he used to store personal belongings.

In 1988 defendant was convicted of aggravated murder, aggravated felony murder, kidnapping, and aggravated burglary, and sentenced to death. A federal district court concluded that the prosecution had failed to disclose exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland and granted a conditional writ of habeas corpus, requiring the state either to set aside the convictions and sentences or conduct another trial within 180 days. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. About a week before retrial was to begin, the prosecutor notified defense counsel of additional evidence, including blood and soil samples. Defense counsel sought additional time. The court changed the scheduled trial date, which was within the 180 days, to May 4, 2009, which was not. The district court denied the state's motion for more time, issued an unconditional writ, ordered expungement of defendant's record, but declined to bar reprosecution. On remand, following the death of the state's key witness, the district court barred reprosecution.The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The district court continued to have jurisdiction, despite the fact that defendant was no longer incarcerated, based on the collateral consequence: the threat of reprosecution.

Petitioner was convicted of murdering a man and raping his daughter, setting their house on fire, and related offenses. At the mitigation hearing, his parents testified about an unpleasant childhood, but defense counsel did not present evidence of "horrific" conditions in records from Childrenâs Services and in affidavits from his siblings, including evidence of rape, incest, and sexual abuse, or present evidence of petitioner's attempt to help his younger sister. A psychiatric consultant, employed despite the fact that he was not a trained mitigation specialist, advised the attorneys to obtain those records, but they did not do so, nor did they prepare witnesses to testify. The Sixth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of a writ of habeas corpus on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel at the mitigation hearing and granted a conditional writ of habeas corpus vacating the death sentence, unless the State of Ohio begins a new mitigation hearing within 180 days. Despite gruesome crime, there is a reasonable probability that, had the three-judge panel heard the true horror of petitioner's childhood, at least one of the judges would not have sentenced him to death; the Ohio court's conclusion to the contrary was unreasonable,

Police investigated an airplane landing at an unstaffed airport in Jackson, Tennessee at 9:00 p.m., approached the plane, and asked three occupants for identification. A warrant check came up clean. The officers returned the identifications, chatted with the men for 10-15 minutes, and asked for consent to search the plane. The pilots refused, nervously, according to the officers, climbed back into the plane, and flew to Nashville, where local police discovered 70 kilograms of cocaine hidden in the plane. The district court suppressed the officers' account of what happened at the Jackson airport. The Sixth Circuit reversed. The evidence was not the product of an illegal seizure, so the exclusionary rule does not apply. Defendants' contact with police was relatively short in duration and non-threatening and defendants did not establish any causative link between the alleged police misconduct and the evidentiary discovery.