Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm. On appeal, defendant alleged that the district court erred in allowing a trial witness to be advised by an attorney who had previously represented defendant in the early stages of the case. The court concluded that defendant incorrectly asserted that the per se rule of reversal was applicable to this case. While it may have been a better practice to have the witness advised by an attorney who had never represented defendant, such error, if it was one, was neither clear nor obvious under current law. Therefore, the district court did not plainly abuse its discretion. Defendant also failed to demonstrate any prejudice. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Green" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of attempted enticement of a minor to engage in illicit sexual activity and possession of child pornography. Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence. The court affirmed and held that there was no prosecutorial misconduct in cross examining a defense expert and in rebuttal closing argument that deprived him of a fair trial; there was sufficient evidence to convict him of possessing child pornography; and there was no error in calculating the advisory guidelines range for the attempted enticement count, namely, imposing the two-level enhancement for misrepresenting his identity authorized in U.S.S.G. 2G1.3(B)(2). View "United States v. Grauer" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. Defendant appealed the convictions, challenging two of the district court's evidentiary rulings. The court held that the district court's refusal to allow cross-examination about prior convictions and favorable treatment by state prosecutors did not violate defendant's rights under the Confrontation Clause where the connection between defendant's proposed cross-examination of the witness and an inference of bias was highly attenuated and where defendant had other opportunities to develop evidence of the witness's potential bias. The court also held that district court's limitation on cross-examination of defendant's brother's testimony was not an abuse of discretion where any risk of unfair prejudice was minimal. View "United States v. Jasso" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted by a jury of conspiring to use and aiding and abetting the use of a weapon of mass destruction, causing the damage or destruction of a vehicle by means of an explosive resulting in personal injury; possession of unregistered grenades; possession of an unregistered machinegun; possession of a machinegun; conspiring to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding; and aiding and abetting in the corrupt concealment of documents with the intent to impair the use of the documents in an official proceeding. Defendant appealed his convictions and sentences, alleging errors at the pretrial stage, at trial, and at sentencing. The court affirmed defendant's convictions as to Counts 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8; remanded Counts 5 and 6 with instructions to set aside one of the convictions; and affirmed the sentence as to Counts 7 and 8 but remanded Counts 1, 2, 3, and 5 or 6 for resentencing. View "United States v. Mann" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to one count of conspiring to distribute methamphetamine and the district court sentenced her to 120 months' imprisonment. The court held that the district court did not clearly err in finding defendant was a supervisor of the conspiracy and denying safety-valve relief. The court also held that the district court did not err in denying her an opportunity to withdraw her guilty plea where she withdrew her motion to withdraw her guilty plea and waived her right to raise the argument on appeal. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Gamboa" on Justia Law

Defendant moved to suppress evidence, claiming that the stop and search of his vehicle violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The court affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion, holding that the officer had, at minimum, a reasonable suspicion that defendant was engaged in criminal activity when he turned on his lights and siren and stopped defendant's van; defendant consented to the search of the van; and the officer did not need to obtain consent, or a warrant, when he searched the van for a second time. View "United States v. Farnell" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of two counts of possessing cocaine with intent to deliver. On appeal, defendant argued that evidence discovered in a vehicle search should have been suppressed and that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction. Defendant also argued that he should have received the benefit of the amended cocaine-base provisions in the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, 124 Stat. 2372. The court rejected defendant's arguments regarding the suppression issue and the sufficiency of the evidence but remanded to the district court to address the applicability of the Act given the retroactivity of the Act as determined by the Supreme Court in Dorsey v. United States. The court also denied the motion for replacement counsel. View "United States v. Orozco" on Justia Law

Minneapolis police arrested defendant in 2003 and seized several items of his property. After his conviction and the disposition of his appeals, defendant moved under Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to have his property returned. The district court denied the motion. The court reversed and remanded for an evidentiary hearing. On remand the district court denied defendant's request to subpoena a witness and declined to convert his motion into a civil action for damages. Defendant subsequently appealed. Since the state court judge voluntarily wrote the district court and confirmed that she had not handled the evidence before or during trial and had been absent after trial when the property was lost, the court need not address any issue of judicial immunity or whether the district court abused its discretion by not issuing a subpoena. The court also held that the district court abused its discretion in denying defendant's motion to convert the Rule 41 action into a civil claim for damages where defendant should have been allowed an opportunity to convert his Rule 41 motion into an action for damages against the government because the government no longer possessed the property at issue. View "United States v. Bailey" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to failure to appear at a change of plea hearing in a drug trafficking case. The court affirmed the district court's application of a nine-level increase to defendant's offense level, pursuant to U.S.S.G. 2J1.6(b)(2)(A), because the underlying offense, conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, in respect to which he failed to appear carried a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. View "United States v. Jacobo" on Justia Law

Defendant was found guilty of six counts related to firearms and possession of controlled substances with intent to distribute. After finding that defendant was an armed career criminal under 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1), the district court sentenced defendant to 322 months' imprisonment. Defendant appealed his convictions and sentence. The court held that the district court did not commit plain error in admitting Rule 404(b) evidence; the district court did not abuse its discretion in failing to strike testimony regarding defendant's unemployment; even if it would have been reasonable for the district court to strike a detective's reference to heroin's comparative dangerousness, the error was harmless; the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting a challenged statement to show why the officers conducted their investigation in the way they did; and Instruction 20 accurately reflected the law to be applied and there was no abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the court affirmed the convictions and also affirmed defendant's sentences. View "United States v. Shore" on Justia Law