Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant appealed his sentence after pleading guilty to investment fraud. The district court ordered defendant to pay restitution pursuant to the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A. The court concluded that the district court abused its discretion in including a certain sum in defendant's restitution order where intervening events made defendant's connection to another investor's losses in the scheme at issue simply "too attenuated" to impose liability on defendant for the investor's victims' losses. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence with regard to this amount of restitution and remanded for the limited purpose of entering an amended restitution order. The court concluded, however, that the district court did not clearly err in finding that defendant failed to establish that he played a minor role in the offense and therefore was not eligible for a two-level reduction in the base offense level. Accordingly, the court affirmed as to this issue. View "United States v. Swor" on Justia Law

In two separate cases, the government charged defendant with being an alien in the United States after deportation, as well as misrepresenting his identity and citizenship to fraudulently obtain supplemental social security benefits, acquire food stamps, and make a claim of citizenship, and apply for a passport. Defendant was convicted of all charges and his primary defense to all the charges was that he was a citizen of the United States. The court concluded that the district court erred in invoking an inherent "gate-keeping" authority to exclude defendant's birth certificate pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 104(a) without relying on some substantive basis outside of Rule 104(a); the district court erred by concluding that no reasonable juror could determine that the birth certificate was "substantively genuine," and by excluding the birth certificate pursuant to Rule 403 without first assessing its probative value when taken as a true record of defendant's birth; and the district court's exclusion of the central piece of evidence for defendant's main defense to a critical element of all the charges in the two cases was violation of defendant's Fifth Amendment right to present a defense. Because the district court's error was not harmless, the court vacated all of the convictions and remanded for a retrial. View "United States v. Evans, Sr." on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of sixteen counts of making a false claim for farm benefits in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1014 and subsequently appealed the district court's loss calculation. The court concluded that the record revealed sufficient evidence that defendant was not entitled to any portion of the indemnity payments as an "intended beneficiary" under U.S.S.G. 2B1.1 cmt. n.3(F)(ii), and the district court did not err in including in the loss calculation the full indemnity amount for all claims from the properties at issue; the district court did not err by including the total amount of the indemnities in the loss calculation; and the district court did not err by including in the loss calculation two other categories of expenses: A&O expenses - fees that the government pays to the insurance company for selling and servicing the policy - and premium subsidies. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Torlai, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant repeatedly violated his terms of supervised release after a child pornography conviction and the district court revoked his supervised release. Opper v. United States held that, in criminal proseuctions, where guilt must be established beyond a reasonable doubt, the Supreme Court required a conviction to rest on more than the uncorroborated confession of the defendant. The court concluded that the Opper rule did not apply to supervised release revocation proceedings and the district court did not abuse its discretion in revoking defendant's supervised release based on defendant's confession that he had violated restrictions on contact with minors. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Hilger" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an atheist, filed suit seeking damages and injunctive relief after he was forced as a condition of parole to participate in a residential drug treatment program that required him to acknowledge a higher power. The court held that the district judge erred in denying plaintiff's motion for a new trial based on the jury's failure to award damages; in instructing the jury to determine whether liability should have been apportioned among the multiple defendants in this case; and in dismissing certain other of plaintiff's claims. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Hazle, Jr. v. Crofoot, et al." on Justia Law

This case stemmed from charges that defendant falsified a 2000 charitable organization tax return in order to conceal his support of an independence movement in Chechnya. The case involved significant amounts of classified materials and multiple in camera, ex parte reviews as well as classified proceedings. The court concluded, inter alia, that the government violated its obligations under Brady v. Maryland by withholding significant impeachment evidence relevant to a central government witness; the district court erred in approving an inadequate substitution for classified material that was relevant and helpful to the defense; and the search that the government conducted of defendant's computer hard drives went beyond the explicit limitations of the warrant and the court remanded to the district court to consider the appropriate scope of items seized and whether the exclusionary rule should apply. Considering the errors both individually as well as cumulatively in light of the evidence as a whole, the court concluded that the errors were prejudicial and reversed and remanded for a new trial. The court filed concurrently a classified opinion with respect to the substitution. View "United States v. Sedaghaty" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of fifteen counts of wire fraud, eleven counts of money laundering, and three counts of tax evasion. At issue on appeal was whether the district court correctly applied U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b)(9)(A) because his offense involved "a misrepresentation that the defendant was acting on behalf of a charitable...organization." The court concluded that, under the reasoning of United States v. Treadwell, defendant's offense fits easily within the ambit of charitable enhancement even though his scheme involved the sham sale of shares in a for-profit company; the applicability of his sentencing enhancement did not change because he purported to act in the interest of a charitable organization but not as its agent or representative; and it was not significant that defendant's investor's could have been motivated, in part, by a desire to profit personally. By presenting the investment opportunity as his means of donating to the charitable organization, defendant misrepresented that he was acting "to obtain a benefit on behalf of" the organization. Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in applying the enhancement and the court affirmed the sentence. View "United States v. Cohen" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to violating Nev. Rev. Stat. 484C.110(3)(g), which prohibited driving with over 2ng/ml of marijuana in the blood, assimilated into federal law under the Assimilative Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. 13. On appeal, defendant challenged his conviction because an applicable federal regulation punished his conduct, thereby precluding assimilation of Nevada law. The court agreed with the district court that there was a gap in federal law which could be properly filled by Nevada's per se drugged driving law where there was no indication of an overriding federal policy with which Nevada's per se drugged driving law interfered and where there was a gap in federal law with respect to punishing operators of vehicles who exceeded a per se drug limit regardless of impairment. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Reed" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of El Salvador, was convicted of brandishing a firearm in the presence of the occupant of a motor vehicle, in violation of California Penal Code section 417.3. An IJ subsequently determined that petitioner's conviction was for a "crime of violence" and thereby an "aggravated felony," making petitioner statutorily ineligible for cancellation of removal and for asylum. The IJ denied withholding of removal and Convention Against Torture (CAT) relief on the merits. After petitioner appealed, the BIA affirmed the IJ's conclusion but issued its own reasoned decision. Petitioner petitioned for review of the BIA's decision. The court dismissed the petition for review, concluding that California Penal Code section 417.3 qualified categorically as a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. 16(a) and, therefore, petitioner was an aggravated felon who was ineligible for cancellation of removal under 8 U.S.C. 1229b(a)(3). View "Bolanos v. Holder, Jr." on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Peru, was found removable because he had committed a theft offense that qualified as an aggravated felony under 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(43). At issue was whether the government proved that petitioner was convicted of a qualifying felony theft offense. Applying the modified categorical approach, the court concluded that petitioner was clearly and unambiguously charged as a principal who personally drove or took the vehicle of another, without consent and with the intent to deprive the owner of it under California Vehicle Code section 10851(a). Further, the BIA has held that section 10851(a) was a categorical theft offense even though, in some circumstances, it criminalizes taking a vehicle temporarily. The court has also defined a "theft offense" to include taking property without consent and with the intent to deprive the owner of the property, even if the deprivation is less than total or permanent. Accordingly, the court denied the petition. View "Duenas-Alvarez v. Holder" on Justia Law