Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

After seeing Tebbens soliciting funds in an intersection using a fireman’s boot, Chicago Police Officer Mushol determined that Tebbens possessed firefighter identification, but was not a firefighter. Seeing Tebbens soliciting a second time, the officer issued tickets for not having a valid city permit to solicit funds on behalf of his charity and one for failing to display a city permit, both of which eventually were dismissed. On charges relating to theft of the firefighter identification, Tebbens accepted court supervision. Seeing him soliciting a third time, Officer Mushol arrested Tebbens. Charges were later dismissed. Tebbens sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging the arrest was without probable cause in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. He sought indemnification against the City of Chicago under state law. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants, finding that Officer Mushol had probable cause to arrest Tebbens for violating the terms of his court-ordered supervision and was entitled to qualified immunity because a reasonable officer could have believed that there was probable cause to arrest Tebbens for violating the supervision order. The Seventh Circuit affirmed.

Medina first entered the U.S. illegally, at age 16, in 1982. He was deported after two 1989 convictions, one for selling or transporting cocaine and the other for attempted robbery. He returned and was convicted of illegal reentry and again deported. He entered unlawfully a third time and was convicted of being found in the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326(a). He appealed the 37-month sentence he received, contending that he should not have received a sixteen-level enhancement for being deported after a felony conviction for a “drug trafficking offense” where the imposed sentence exceeded 13 months or after a felony “crime of violence.” Medina argued that his 1989 convictions did not fall within those definitions under the 1989 edition of the United States Sentencing Guidelines and so the enhancement does not apply. The Seventh Circuit affirmed; the crimes qualify under the 2010 Sentencing Guidelines, which were the guidelines in effect at the time of Medina’s sentencing.

Chapman was convicted of six counts of forging checks (18 U.S.C. 513(a)) that were made payable to the IRS and given to him by a client who had hired Chapman to resolve a tax dispute. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence and to the district court’s admission of a previous forgery conviction.

Javell, the owner of a mortgage brokerage, and Arroyo, Javell’s employee and loan processor, were convicted of two counts of mortgage-based wire fraud (18 U.S.C. 1343) based on their actions in procuring a fraudulent mortgage during an FBI sting operation. Javell was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Javell argued the district court violated Bruton, and Javell’s Sixth Amendment rights by admitting the post-arrest statements made by Arroyo and by failing to properly instruct the jury about the rules of non-imputation. According to Javell, Arroyo’s post-arrest statements directly implicated Javell and had the jury not heard those statements, Javell would not have been convicted. Noting a “plethora” of other evidence, including recordings, the court rejected the argument.

During unrelated federal civil litigation against Illinois Department of Corrections officials, Eichwedel, an inmate proceeding pro se, filed motions for sanctions that the district court denied as “frivolous.” The state revoked six months of Eichwedel’s good-conduct credits. Illinois law establishes penalties for prisoners who file frivolous motions in litigation against the state, 730 ILCS 5/3-6-3(d). A state trial court denied relief; the appellate court declined review. Rejecting a federal habeas petition, the district court concluded that the Supreme Court never has recognized a First Amendment right to file frivolous motions and that the revocation of Eichwedel’s credit was supported by “some evidence in the record.” The Seventh Circuit held that the district court correctly disposed of the right-of-access claim, but certified to the Supreme Court of Illinois the question: As of the date Mr. Eichwedel’s state court challenge to the revocation of his good-conduct credits became final, was the State required to establish, in order to revoke a prisoner’s good-conduct credit, either that the court making the finding of frivolousness had determined specifically that the filing satisfied one of the definitions of frivolousness in 730 ILCS 5/3-6-3(d) or that the court had otherwise made its intent to invoke 730 ILCS 5/3-6-3(d) known?

Winters pled guilty to conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute large quantities of drugs. The plea agreement provided that the government would recommend a base offense level of 32. But at sentencing the government concurred in the Presentence Investigation Report’s conclusion that Winters was a career offender, which raised Winters’s offense level to 37. The district court set Winters’s offense level at 37, and sentenced him to 165 months’ imprisonment, well below the recommended Guidelines. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting an argument that the government violated the plea agreement. The Supreme Court’s decision in Sykes v. United States, 131 S.Ct. 2267 (2011), overrode that recommendation. The case, decided while Winters’s sentencing was pending, held that felony vehicle flight was a crime of violence for purposes of the career offender provisions.

Grigsby and coconspirators executed two bank heists, stealing more than one-half million dollars from the bank where Grigsby worked as a teller. Grigsby was indicted on two counts of entering a federally insured bank for the purpose of committing a felony, 18 U.S.C. 2113(a). She pleaded guilty without a plea agreement to the first count and stipulated that she committed the second crime. With that, the government moved to dismiss the second count. In her sworn statement to the court, Grigsby minimized her role, trying to pin most of the blame on her coconspirators. The district court applied a two-level sentencing enhancement for obstruction of justice, U.S.S.G. 3C1.1, and a three-level enhancement for her supervisory role, 3B1.1(b). The resulting guidelines range was 46 to 57 months; the court chose a sentence of 57 months. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the sentence. Both enhancements were based on a factual finding that Grigsby lied during her plea colloquy in an intentional effort to mislead the court; the finding was supported by the evidence and specific enough to withstand clear-error review. The court sufficiently considered the section 3553(a) sentencing factors and was not required to specifically address Grigsby’s routine arguments for a below-guidelines sentence.

Carter and Willis robbed a couple at gunpoint, taking the couple’s vehicle and their belongings. One of the stolen cell phones was enabled with a GPS tracking feature. Police were able to monitor find and arrest them the same night. In a joint trial with separate juries for each defendant, the two were convicted of carjacking, using a firearm during the carjacking, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting a challenge to sufficiency of the evidence. The court upheld the district court’s jury instruction, requiring the government to prove that each defendant “intended to cause serious bodily harm when the defendant took the motor vehicle” as consistent with the carjacking statute, which refers to “intent to cause death or serious bodily harm” 18 U.S.C. 2119.

In 2001, Hall was convicted in state court of murdering his stepson. Shortly after his verdict came down, Hall discovered that one of his jurors had a son that was a fellow inmate of his. Before his trial, the juror’s son informed the juror that Hall was likely innocent, but during the trial, the juror found out that his son and several co-inmates changed their mind about Hall, and thought him guilty. The juror relayed this information to several jurors. The state court rejected Hall’s motion to correct error, and Hall was denied relief on direct appeal. After unsuccessfully seeking collateral relief in Indiana, Hall filed a federal habeas petition, arguing that the state should have carried the burden of proving that the extraneous information that reached his jury was not prejudicial. The district court granted the petition. The Seventh Circuit vacated and remanded, holding that the state court violated a clearly established constitutional right, but did not adequately address the issue of prejudice. The district court erred in presuming prejudice.

A class of persons required to register on the state’s online sex and violent offender database sued the Indiana Department of Correction, alleging that failure to provide any procedure to correct errors in the registry violates due process. In response, the DOC created a new policy to give notice to current prisoners about their pending registry listings and an opportunity to challenge the information. The district court granted summary judgment on the ground that the new policy was sufficient to comply with due process. The new procedures still fail to provide any process at all for an entire class of registrants: those who are not incarcerated. The Seventh Circuit reversed. State judicial post-deprivation remedies cited by the DOC are insufficient to meet the requirements of due process. Although registrants can challenge registry errors in the course of criminal prosecutions for failure to comply with registration requirements, due process does not require a person to risk additional criminal conviction as the price of correcting an erroneous listing, especially where a simple procedural fix is available much earlier.