Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of possessing an unregistered machine gun and sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment. On appeal, the government conceded that the district court miscalculated defendant's base offense level. The court vacated and remanded for resentencing, holding that the district court also erred in applying a six-level enhancement for multiple firearms under U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(b)(1)(C) on the basis of other weapons found at defendant's home. View "United States v. Vargem" on Justia Law

Defendants Guillen-Cervantes and Castillo were convicted of conspiring to transport and harbor illegal aliens. On appeal, Castillo challenged her forfeiture judgment, contending that it violated her due process rights under the Fifth Amendment because she was unable to seek contribution from other members of the conspiracy. The court held that Castillo possessed no right to contribution under existing federal law. The court rejected Castillo's request that the court find an implied right under 18 U.S.C. 982 or forge a new right to contribution in this case, and to hold that the deprivation of that right as a consequence of her forfeiture order violated her Fifth Amendment guarantee to due process. Therefore, the court concluded that Castillo's due process claim failed because she could not demonstrate a constitutionally protected liberty or property interest of which she has been deprived. Accordingly, the court affirmed the forfeiture judgment against Castillo. View "United States v. Guillen-Cervantes" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of felony murder and other offenses, appealed the district court's denial of his petition for habeas corpus relief. The court concluded that the state trial court's decision to credit the prosecutor's race-neutral explanation for striking an African-American venireman, when viewed in light of the totality of the relevant facts, was not an objectively unreasonable application of Batson v. Kentucky. The court also concluded that the state trial court's decision to admit a codefendant's hearsay statement was not an objectively unreasonable application of the Ohio v. Roberts framework. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Mayes v. Premo" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a prisoner suffering from schizoaffective disorder and who is proceeding pro se, sought damages from California prison officials under 42 U.S.C. 1983. Plaintiff challenged the district court's denial of his request for a guardian ad litem because the Pro Bono Coordinator advised the court that no one was available to undertake the representation. In these consolidated appeals, at issue was whether the district court erred, under Rule 17(c)(2), by declining to appoint a guardian ad litem and instead staying plaintiff's cases indefinitely until he is found to be restored to competency. Determining that the court had jurisdiction over the appeal as a final decision under 28 U.S.C. 1291, or in the alternative, as a collateral order pursuant to Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., the court concluded that the district court abused its discretion by staying plaintiff's cases until he was found competent (if ever). Such a stay order failed to adequately protect plaintiff's interest and thus did not constitute "another appropriate order" under Rule 17(c). Instead, it amounted to a dismissal with prejudice. Therefore, the court vacated and remanded with instructions. View "Davis v. Walker" on Justia Law

Defendant, a native and citizen of Mexico, appealed the denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment charging him with attempted reentry after a prior removal in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326. The court concluded that defendant's removal as an alien "not admitted or paroled" as alleged in the Notice to Appear was not "fundamentally unfair" where the termination of his temporary resident status returned him to the status of an inadmissible alien subject to removal; defendant was foreclosed from demonstrating prejudice because INA 212(h) did not provide relief for aliens removed for illegal presence in the United States without admission or parole in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(6)(A)(i), the sole basis of defendant's removal; and defendant did not preserve his claim that the IJ failed to advise him of his right to counsel and/or obtain a valid waiver of the right to counsel. Finally, the district court's imposition of a below-Guidelines fine was not procedurally erroneous. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Hernandez-Arias" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of two murders and sentenced to death, appealed the district court's denial of his petition for habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court concluded that the state court's determination that media coverage was not constitutionally prejudicial was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent; the state court's rejection of petitioner's challenge to the jury venire was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent where the prosecutor provided race-neutral explanations for the exercise of his peremptory challenges against two Hispanic potential jurors; because the Supreme Court has eschewed claims predicated on the unavailability of immaterial evidence, the state court's denial of petitioner's belated request to inspect a sanitized crime scene was also not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, Supreme Court precedent; the evidence did not support petitioner's request for jury instructions on voluntary intoxication and second degree murder and the state court's denial of relief was consistent with Supreme Court precedent; the state court meticulously weighed the mitigating circumstances against the aggravating factors before imposing a death sentence and its determination was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent; the state court's decisions denying relief on the claims of ineffective assistance of counsel were not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington; the district court correctly resolved the claims of evidence presented to the state courts; no cognizable Martinez v. Ryan claims were asserted; and the court denied habeas relief as to all claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Roger Murray v. Schriro" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of two murders and sentenced to death, appealed the denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas corpus petition. The court affirmed the denial of petitioner's Batson v. Kentucky claim where the state court's decision regarding two potential Hispanic jurors was not an unreasonable determination of the facts where the prosecutor proffered race-neutral explanations for his strike of the jurors; affirmed the ineffective assistance of counsel claim where the record did not support a finding that the state court's decision regarding the adequacy of counsel's performance in conducting the mitigation investigation was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts or an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington; and denied petitioner's motion to expand the Certificate of Appealability where such claims were futile. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Robert Murray v. Schriro" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought review of the BIA's decision finding him inadmissible and denying his application for cancellation of removal. The court held that the conviction under which petitioner was convicted, California Health & Safety Code 11377(a), was a divisible statute under Descamps v. United States, and therefore, the court applied the modified categorical approach in analyzing his prior convictions. The court concluded that the government satisfied its burden in proving that petitioner was twice convicted of methamphetamine, a controlled substance listed in the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. 802. Accordingly, the court concluded that the BIA did not err in finding petitioner inadmissible based on his prior convictions. However, the court remanded because the BIA failed to address petitioner's due process claims regarding the ineffective assistance of counsel and bias by the IJ. Finally, the court dismissed petitioner's unexhausted equal protection claim for lack of jurisdiction. View "Coronado v. Holder" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a state prisoner, appealed the denial of a motion to stay and abey his habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The district court denied petitioner's motion for a stay and abeyance on the sole ground that he did not establish good cause for his failure to exhaust - the first prong of the Rhines v. Weber test. The court held that the Rhines standard based on ineffective assistance of counsel was not any more demanding than the cause standard articulated in Martinez v Ryan. Because the district court applied an erroneous legal standard in concluding that petitioner failed to meet the Rhines good cause standard, the district court abused its discretion in denying a stay and abeyance. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Blake v. Baker" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to wire fraud and making a false statement on a loan application. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's imposition of a 16-level increase to defendant's base offense level based on that court's calculation that the banks suffered a loss of over a million dollars. The court held that, in a mortgage fraud case, loss under U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b) is calculated in two steps. First, calculating actual or intended loss allowed for a reasonable foreseeability analysis although the actual loss generally consisted of the entire principal of the fraudulently obtained loan. Second, crediting against the actual or intended loss the value of any collateral recovered or recoverable, did not permit a foreseeability analysis. Rather, the value of the collateral was credited against the amount of the loss calculated at the first step, whether or not the value of the collateral was foreseeable. The court affirmed the sentence because the district court followed this rule in calculating the loss attributable to defendant as $1,033,500. View "United States v. Morris" on Justia Law