Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of second degree murder for the stabbing of a fourteen-year-old and assault with a dangerous weapon for the stabbing of a seventeen-year old in Indian country. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court erred in imposing mandatory minimum sentences under 18 U.S.C. 3559(f) because age was an element of the offense that must be found by the jury, and in denying her motions to suppress evidence and to sever counts of the indictment trial. The court held that the district court did not commit plain error in imposing the minimum thirty-year sentence for second degree murder of a child under the age of eighteen mandated by section 3559(f)(1) because the age provisions in section 3559(f) were sentencing factors. The court also held that, given the violent events of the night in question, the officer had probable cause to enter the parked, but highly mobile, vehicle without a warrant and to seize the weapons he observed inside. The court further held that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied her motion to sever the murder and assault charges. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

After defendant was convicted of two counts of involuntary manslaughter, defendant filed a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255. The court held that defendant was not deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel where defendant had not made a showing that his trial counsel's performance was deficient; where defendant could not have been prejudiced by his attorney's failure to make a meritless argument regarding a special agent's interview of defendant without an attorney present; and where there were sound reasons for counsel to omit a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. The court also held that the district court did not violate defendant's right to due process of law where defendant did not specify why the district court should have held evidentiary hearings on certain claims. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

A grand jury indicted defendant, an African-American, for conspiracy to distribute 50 or more grams of cocaine base, which then carried a 10-year mandatory minimum. The grand jury also indicted defendant's former husband, who is white, for conspiracy to distribute five or more grams of cocaine base, which then carried a five-year mandatory minimum sentence. Defendant subsequently appealed the district court's denial of her motion to dismiss the indictment for selective prosecution and denial of an evidentiary hearing. The court held that the district court properly denied the motion to dismiss where defendant offered no credible evidence that race or gender played a role in the government's charging decision. The court also held that defendant offered no credible evidence of discriminatory purpose. The court further held that defendant had not shown any credible evidence of purposeful discrimination and the district court properly denied an evidentiary hearing.

Defendant was convicted for the theft or embezzlement of funds from his employee's IRA accounts in violation of 18 U.S.C. 664. On appeal, defendant argued that his conviction should be reversed because, at trial, the district court barred him from presenting evidence to the jury that he eventually repaid all of the embezzled funds. The court held that because the intent to permanently deprive was neither a required element of, nor a defense to, the conversion or stealing that section 664 criminalized, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it excluded evidence of defendant's eventual repayment of his employees' funds in a bankruptcy proceeding as irrelevant.

Defendant was convicted of one count of distribution of child pornography and sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment. Defendant challenged his sentence, arguing that his Minnesota conviction for criminal sexual conduct "relat[ed] to aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor" did not trigger the enhanced mandatory sentence. The court held that the complaint established that defendant's prior conviction related to sexual abuse of a minor and thus served to enhance his sentence under 18 U.S.C. 2252(b)(1).

Defendant was convicted of knowingly receiving child pornography and knowingly possessing child pornography. On appeal, defendant asserted that there was insufficient evidence to support his receipt conviction or, in the alternative, that his convictions for both receiving and possessing the same images of child pornography violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. In light of United States v. Inman, the court found that the jury was not properly instructed and there was no objection to the erroneous instruction at trial. Therefore, the evidence presented in this case was clearly insufficient to satisfy the erroneous jury instruction because the government presented no evidence that the materials used to produce defendant's computer traveled in interstate commerce before they were assembled into the computer. The court further held that the government's evidence on the statutory element was not "overwhelming" and a rational jury could have concluded that the government failed to prove the element beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, the court reversed and vacated defendant's conviction for receiving child pornography and remanded for resentencing on his conviction for possessing child pornography.

Plaintiff, a jailer in Miller County, filed a civil rights action against Miller County, its sheriff, three of its county commissioners, and several other defendants to recover for her serious injuries which were caused by two inmates who took her hostage and attacked her after she honored their request to visit the jail's law library. The Miller County individual defendants filed this interlocutory appeal, alleging that the district court erred in concluding that a reasonable jury could find that they violated plaintiff's substantive due process rights. The court held that the Miller County individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity where their conduct was not conscience shocking and therefore did not violate plaintiff's substantive due process rights. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded for further proceedings against Miller County, the remaining defendant.

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful possession of a firearm as a previously convicted felon and was sentenced to 105 months imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release. Defendant appealed the district court's application of the advisory sentencing guidelines and its imposition of a special condition of supervised release. The court held that the district court did not fail to consider U.S.S.G. 5G1.3(b)(1) in its guidelines calculations or in fashioning its ultimate sentence, it simply determined that, in light of all the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors, a variance from the guidelines was appropriate. The court also held that defendant was statutorily barred from working at a federal credit union or FDIC-insured institution pursuant to 12 U.S.C. 1785 and 1829. Therefore, as the district court merely incorporated a statutory prohibition and ordered defendant to comply with federal law, there was no abuse of discretion.

Defendant was convicted of bank robbery and appealed his conviction, arguing that he was entitled to a new trial because the district court abused its discretion when it denied his repeated pretrial requests for new appointed counsel, which rendered involuntary his ultimate decision to waive his Sixth Amendment right to counsel and defend himself at trial. The court held that defendant failed to show that his attorney was unprepared, unable or unwilling to continue representing defendant, or had failed to take actions on behalf of defendant that would cause "justifiable dissatisfaction" with the quality of the attorney's advocacy. The court also held that there was no breakdown of communication requiring appointment of new counsel where defendant was unwilling to communicate with appointed counsel. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to grant defendant's request for new counsel. The court further held that the district court properly cautioned defendant as to the dangers of self-representation and a "persistent, unreasonable demand for dismissal of counsel and appointment of new counsel... [wa]s the functional equivalent of a knowing and voluntary waiver of counsel." Therefore, the court denied defendant's pro se motion claiming ineffective assistance of appellate counsel and affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Defendant entered a conditional plea of guilty to possession of child pornography, reserving the right to appeal the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence gathered during a warrant search of his home. On appeal, he also argued that the court imposed a substantively unreasonable 20 year consecutive sentence. The court held that the motion to suppress was properly denied, despite a violation of Arkansas Criminal Procedure Rule 13.2(c), where law enforcement presented the state court judge with probable cause to issue a warrant and good cause to authorize an immediate, night-time search and that the warrant expressly authorized execution at any time. Therefore, the warrant and its execution were reasonable under the Fourth Amendment and complied with Federal Rule 41. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its substantial sentencing discretion where it carefully considered the serious nature of defendant's predatory offenses and the need to protect the public from these types of offenses, as well as defendant's history of absconding.