Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued operators of commodity trading pools for fraud and related violations of the Commodity Exchange Act. Following earlier proceedings in the Seventh Circuit, the district court entered judgment against remaining defendants. Defendantâs assets of $104 million, 39% of the amount owed the investors in the pools, were placed in the control of a receiver. The district court approved the receiverâs proposed allocation of the assets among the investors, which excluded a claim filed by an Andorran bank as untimely and rejected a valuation claim by GAMAG. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The district court acted within its discretion in disallowing the bankâs claim, based on the bankâs neglect in pursuing its claim and the difficulty in recalculating the shares of the investors. GAMAGâs claim to be a creditor, rather than a shareholder, was properly rejected; its funds were commingled with and managed with the funds of the other investors and there was no difference in the level of risk.

The defendant entered a plea of guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 120 months. The Seventh Circuit declined to consider the merits of his appeal because the defendant had waived his right to appeal both the conviction and the sentence in return for the prosecutionâs promise to recommend a sentence at the low end of the guidelines. The prosecution did not make that recommendation because the defendant lied under oath; the defendant'. The defendant had not moved to vacate his plea.

The defendant was convicted of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The district court correctly conducted a "Batson" inquiry into the intent of the prosecution in using a peremptory challenge to strike an African-American potential juror. The government's assertions that the woman knew two potential witnesses; that her daughter's name was known to law enforcement; that she responded "not applicable" to a question on the juror questionnaire; and that she never looked the government attorneys in the eye included race-neutral justifications. Even if the court abused its discretion in allowing portions of an interview with a witness to be read into evidence, the error was harmless. The evidence was unnecessary to give the jury a complete view of the witnessâs testimony.

The defendant was outside his fenced yard when officers arrived to execute a warrant; a bystander yelled "police" and he ran. An officer used his taser and found a gun was found on the ground under the defendant. After accepting a conditional plea of guilty as felon in possession of a firearm (18 U.S.C. 922, 924), the defendant appealed denial of his motion to suppress. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, holding that the search was conducted pursuant to a valid warrant and that there was no need to address whether the defendant was within the curtilage of his home. The affidavit was based on statements from two informants, with whom the officer had worked in the past, that they had seen cocaine in the house; the officer personally observed activity consistent with drug trafficking. The execution was reasonable; there was no need to announce because the bystander had done so.

The defendant, convicted of child molestation in 1990, failed to register as a sex offender when he was released from prison in 1994, although registration was required by Indiana law. When he was released from prison in 2004, following conviction for theft, he signed an acknowledgement of the requirement and registered. He re-registered when he moved his residence within Indiana, but failed to notify either Indiana or South Carolina authorities when he moved to South Carolina, in violation of the 2006 Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, 18 U.S.C. 2251. The defendant entered a conditional plea of guilty and was sentenced to 27 months in prison. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting an argument that the Act violated the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Indiana Constitution. Although parts of the state registration law have been declared invalid, the defendant was required to register in South Carolina. The Act only punishes conduct occurring after its enactment; it simply creates new legal obligations.

The defendant, convicted of financial crimes involving his operation of an insurance brokerage, was sentenced to serve 121 months, ordered to pay $841,527 in restitution, and (following a remand) ordered to forfeit $15 million plus his interest in the racketeering enterprise. In 2010 the Supreme Court decided Skilling v. United States, limiting the "honest services fraud" theory to apply only to a defendant involved in either bribery or a kickback scheme. The defendant appealed the inclusion of "honest services" fraud in jury instructions at his trial. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, holding that the jury would have convicted the defendant without the instruction, but remanded for consideration of whether an honest services conviction affected sentencing.