Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioner proceeded in forma pauperis in the district court, but the court discovered that $1,501 had been deposited in his prison account during the previous six months. When petitioner sought leave to appeal of denial of a motion to reconsider his sentence, the court ordered that money in his prison trust account be applied to his district court filing fee and to a special assessment against him that was imposed as part of his sentence. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of reconsideration in a separate order, and denied the petition for mandamus, concluding that petitioner's inability to pay the filing fee was moot. The order directing payment of the unpaid filing fee from the prison trust account was proper (18 U.S.C. 3572(d)(3)) , but the order that the warden deduct money from the account to pay the special assessment was not, because petitioner was already enrolled in a payment plan.

Half-brothers, caught in sting operation, were convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 5 kilograms or more of cocaine, and attempting to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1). The Seventh Circuit previously upheld one defendant's convictions and accepted the other's counsel's Anders submission as to several trial and sentencing issues. Rejecting a claim that defendant's nonattendance on the day of the robbery amounted to withdrawal, the Seventh Circuit affirmed the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction.

Between 2003 and 2006, more than 2,000 fell victim to defendants' internet fraud scheme that involved individuals outside the U.S., often based in Romania posing as sellers of goods on eBay and other internet auction sites. Victims were directed to send payment by wire transfer. The foreign co-schemers developed a network of individuals in the U.S., who collected payment using false identifications. Defendant S pled guilty to wire fraud, (18 U.S.C. 1343), and G pled guilty to several counts of wire fraud and two counts of receipt of stolen funds (18 U.S.C. 1343, 2315). On remand for sentencing, S was sentenced to 97 months and G to 78 months in prison, the same sentences originally imposed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, stating that the findings and reasonable inferences from the record supported accountability for the conduct of co-conspirators under U.S.S.G. 1B1.3(a)(1)(B).

Defendant, convicted of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine and crack cocaine, was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The district court properly admitted evidence that defendant used and distributed marijuana. Even the government violated Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)'s notice requirement any error was harmless in light of overwhelming evidence.

After intercepting a shipment of marijuana from Mexico, federal agents executed a controlled delivery. Because the address on the shipment did not exist and they could not locate the addressee, the agents contacted the shipper in Mexico and delivered the shipment to an industrial park. Agents refused to allow the single individual who first appeared to unload the truck alone. That individual recruited another. Three laborers who were working on-site, but who had never met the other two, were told what the shipment contained and persuaded to unload the truck. Police raided the scene and arrested all five. All five were charged with conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to distribute (21 U.S.C. 846) and possession with the intent to distribute (18 U.S.C. 841(a)(1)). One defendant pled guilty. Three were convicted on both counts; one was acquitted on the conspiracy count but convicted for possession with the intent to distribute. The Seventh Circuit vacated the conviction of one of the laborers and ordered a new trial, with consideration of an entrapment defense. In addition, failure to instruct the jury on the charge of simple possession was prejudicial error on these facts. The court vacated another defendant's sentence.

Defendants pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute more than 400 grams of substances containing a detectable amount of fentanyl and more than a kilogram of substances containing a detectable amount of heroin. Fentanyl is a powerful heroin substitute; retailers to whom defendants sold it diluted it so that the mixture sold to customers was less than one percent fentanyl. The judge attributed the entire amount of the retail sales to the defendants on the ground that their wholesaling was a "jointly undertaken criminal activity" and imposed sentences of 200, 170, and 121 months in prison. The Seventh Circuit vacated two of the sentences. Quantities sold by retailers cannot be attributed to defendants on a conspiracy theory, based on the sales alone, but the larger number of doses that result from selling fentanyl is partly reflected in the drug-equivalency tables in the Guidelines. The judge should have calculated the Guideline ranges on the basis of just the defendants' sales and then have adjusted their sentences to reflect considerations not taken into account by the 2.5:1 ratio, such as the many more retail doses that a given quantity of fentanyl produces than the same quantity of heroin.

During an undercover FBI investigation of corruption in the Harvey Police Department, defendant, an officer, was discovered engaging in a drug deal. He was charged with attempting knowingly or intentionally to possess, with intent to distribute, a controlled substance (21 U.S.C. 841(a) and 846) and forged a police report to make it appear as if he had been conducting an undercover investigation himself. His effort resulted in an additional charge of falsifying a police report to impede an investigation (18 U.S.C. 1519). Defendant was convicted on both counts and received a sentence of 12 years. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, first rejecting a claim of entrapment. The district court properly excluded an "indecipherable" recorded conversation submitted by defendant. There was sufficient evidence of defendant's intent to possess the drugs to support the conviction.

Defendant, a participant in a major mortgage fraud scheme, pled guilty to committing wire fraud as part of that scam and was sentenced to 37 months in prison and ordered to pay $1,792,000 in restitution. His role was to act as a "straw," or fake, buyer of seven properties, and to cause $4,473,161.55 to be transferred from unwitting mortgage companies to their banking partners; he received $90,000 from his co-schemers. The Seventh Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. The district court acted within its discretion in rejecting defendant's assertion that his sentence should be lower because he gave the government substantial assistance. The court should have explained its rationale in attributing a "reasonably foreseeable" loss amount to defendant. The court also erred in interpreting the minor role sentencing adjustment guideline when it stated that an act otherwise deemed minor could, if repeated, necessarily preclude the adjustment, and that a person playing a necessary role cannot play a minor role. The court should evaluate his role in context of other participants in the scheme, keeping in mind that a minor player is substantially less culpable than the average participant, not the leaders.

Defendant was arrested in a park while on his was to meet a person he believed to be a 15-year-old girl with whom he had been chatting online. He called his family and asked that they hide electronic equipment in his bedroom. His efforts were unsuccessful. He e was convicted of knowingly attempting to persuade a minor to engage in sexual activity, 18 U.S.C. 2422(b); travel in interstate commerce for the purpose of engaging in a prohibited sexual act with a minor, 18 U.S.C. 2423(b); and obstruction of justice for attempting to destroy his electronics with the intent to deprive the government of its use, 18 U.S.C. 1512(c). The Seventh Circuit affirmed, upholding the district court's theory was that everything on the computer was direct evidence of obstruction because it demonstrated why defendant worked so hard to get a family member to destroy or hide electronic storage media. Noting the overwhelming evidence on the other counts, the court concluded that any error in admitting the images was harmless.

Because defendant, stopped for speeding, behaved oddly, the officer had a canine perform a free-air search. The dog alerted and defendant consented to a search of the car. During a pat-down, defendant tried to pull away, and, after feeling a hard object in defendant's pocket, the officer found a bundle of cash and a packet of cocaine. While being cuffed and while in the squad car, defendant made statements about being able to obtain additional cocaine. Convicted of possession with intent to distribute more than five grams of cocaine base (21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1)), defendant was sentenced to 236 months, based on 24 prior convictions. The Seventh Circuit affirmed denial of a motion to suppress. An officer who encounters a small, hard object during a pat-down may have reasonable suspicion to believe the object is a weapon. The court suppressed all of defendant's responses to questions, but his other statements were not coerced and police are not precluded from listening to voluntary statements.