Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant, pursuant to a plea agreement, plead guilty to aiding and abetting tax evasion. On appeal, defendant asserted that the district court denied him his Sixth Amendment right to counsel of his choice. The court concluded that the district court properly reviewed defendant's request for new counsel and correctly denied it; defendant's attempted withdrawal of his guilty plea had no factual or legal support to justify granting it; on the other hand, there was ample support for concluding that defendant's counsel provided defendant competent, effective assistance of counsel, and therefore, the court found no abuse of discretion and affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Baisden" on Justia Law

Defendant was found guilty of transmitting a facsimile communication containing a threat to injure FBI agents, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 875(c), and was sentenced to 45 months of imprisonment. On appeal, defendant challenged his conviction. After being indicted, defendant was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The court concluded that section 875(c) did not require the government to prove a defendant specifically intended his or her statements to be threatening but rather required the government to prove a reasonable recipient would have interpreted defendant's communication as a serious threat to injury; therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it granted the government's motion to strike the word "willfully" from the indictment under section 875(c); the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's verdict, and the district court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting a proposed instruction on reasonable doubt. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment, View "United States v. Nicklas" on Justia Law

Defendant was found guilty of one count of production of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. On appeal, defendant challenged his convictions. The court affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress his confession where, considering the totality of the circumstances, defendant's confession was made knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily. The district court also did not err in admitting the videotape seized from defendant's home and testimony from a cellmate. Finally, the evidence presented a trial was sufficient to support the jury's verdict. Accordingly, the court affirmed the convictions. View "United States v. Wallace" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to one count of securities fraud in violation of 15 U.S.C. 78j(b), 78ff and 17 C.F.R. 240.10b-5 (Rule 10b-5). On appeal, defendant challenged his sentence of five years' imprisonment, arguing that because he had no knowledge that his conduct violated Rule 10b-5, imprisonment was not a permissible sentencing option. However, defendant had admitted to knowing the substance of Rule 10b-5, and this removed him from the protection of the no-knowledge provision. Because defendant failed to carry his burden of showing that he had no knowledge of Rule 10b-5, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Behren" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's denial of his motion for judgment of acquittal and his request for an offense level reduction based on his mitigating role under U.S.S.G. 3B1.2. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict, the court concluded that the government presented sufficient evidence for a rational jury to find that defendant possessed the methamphetamine knowingly or intentionally. Defendant, among other things, was the sole operator and passenger of the truck in which the methamphetamine was found; he appeared nervous when asked to step out of the truck; and the box of methamphetamine smelled like mustard, a common agent for masking the odor of drugs. The court also concluded that the district court did not err in finding that defendant had failed to prove that he had a mitigating role in the offense; the record showed that the district court considered all the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors in determining defendant's sentence; and defendant's sentence was substantively reasonable. View "United States v. Castillo" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. On appeal, defendant claimed that the district court violated his Sixth Amendment right to a public trial at the sentencing hearing when it closed the courtroom during the testimony of a certain witness. In light of the First Amendment public trial access jurisprudence, the emphasis by the Supreme Court that the right was created specifically for the benefit of the accused, the Supreme Court's reminder regarding the critical nature of sentencing hearings themselves, and, most importantly, the court's conclusion that public access at a sentencing hearing played a significant positive role in its functioning and furthers the benefits sought to be afforded by the accused under the Sixth Amendment, the court held that the Sixth Amendment right to public access attached at sentencing. Considering the record before the district court, which laid out the witness's expressed fear of testifying against defendant, the court found no abuse of discretion in the district court's conclusion that defendant's family should be excluded from the courtroom during the witness's testimony. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Thompson" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, patients at the Iowa Civil Commitment Unit for Sex Offenders (CCUSO), filed a complaint under 42 U.S.C. 1983 challenging the placement of video cameras in CCUSO restrooms, and moved for a preliminary injunction to stop their use. The district court denied the motion as to cameras in the dormitory style restrooms but granted a preliminary injunction ordering that cameras in the traditional style bathrooms be pointed at the ceiling or covered with a lens cap. The administrators of CCUSO appealed the district court's grant of the preliminary injunction. The court concluded that by capturing images of patients while they occupy single-user bathrooms, CCUSO violated its patients' reasonable expectation of privacy, thus conducting a search under the Fourth Amendment, irrespective of whether there was some chance that those images would not be viewed. The court agreed with the district court that plaintiffs showed the requisite probability of success on their Fourth Amendment claim; plaintiffs established a threat of irreparable harm; plaintiffs' interests in this case outweighed the injuries that the injunction would inflict on other parties; and there was a greater public interest in protecting the Fourth Amendment rights of plaintiffs and their personal privacy and dignity against unwarranted intrusion by the State. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Arnzen, III, et al. v. Palmer, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant conditionally pled guilty to conspiracy to make, utter, and possess counterfeit securities in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371 and 513. On appeal, defendant challenged the denial of his motion to suppress the evidence discovered during the search of his car and a luggage cart. The court concluded that probable cause existed to arrest defendant for possession of counterfeit checks; officers lawfully searched defendant's car incident to his arrest because they had reason to believe that the vehicle contained evidence relevant to the crime of conspiracy to possess counterfeit securities; and since the evidence showed that all items on the luggage cart would have inevitably been discovered and that the officers were pursuing an alternative line of investigation, the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Allen" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of racketeering offenses, including murders in aid of racketeering. Defendant appealed the denial of his petition for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2255. The court granted a certificate of appealability on the question of whether defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel because his trial counsel exercised peremptory challenges based on race. The court concluded that although trial counsel's strategy may have been misguided, it could not be said that it denied entirely defendant assistance of counsel during voir dire, and defendant was not entitled to the presumption of prejudice. Because defendant was not entitled to a presumption of prejudice, and he has not attempted to demonstrate a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different, his claim for ineffective assistance of counsel failed. View "United States v. Kehoe" on Justia Law

Petitioners Martinez and Garcia sought review of the BIA's dismissal of their appeal of the IJ's order of removal after the IJ denied their motions to suppress evidence uncovered by a warrantless entry. In the order, the IJ conflated Martinez's testimony with that of his son. Both the IJ and the BIA found the officers' warrantless entry justified by exigent circumstances solely based on the son's yell to Garcia "not to open the door" because immigration officers were outside. Assuming petitioners' accounts of the ICE officers' conduct were true, any Fourth Amendment violations they suffered were not sufficiently egregious to entitle them to the remedy they seek - exclusion of decisive evidence in a civil removal proceeding. Although both the IJ and BIA clearly erred in their treatment of Martinez's and his son's testimonies, the error did not necessitate remand because the error was not prejudicial. The court lacked jurisdiction to consider defendant's burden-shifting argument pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1252 because they failed to raise this issue at the administrative level. Accordingly, the court denied the petition. View "Carcamo, et al v. Holder, Jr." on Justia Law