Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant pled guilty to knowing and unlawful possession of a firearm and the district court sentenced him to five years of supervised release subject to special conditions. At issue on appeal was whether the district court could require a sexual offender assessment as a condition of a supervised release when defendant had two decades-old prior sexual offense convictions involving weapons, when the current offense also involved a weapon, and when defendant's prior completion of sexual offender treatment could not be confirmed. The court concluded that it could require such an assessment and affirmed the condition imposed. View "United States v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence for illegal re-entry into the United States. The government contended that defendant waived his right to appeal in his written plea agreement. The court held that the district court's statement near the end of the sentencing hearing that defendant "may have a right to appeal" was equivocal or ambiguous and therefore did not vitiate defendant's explicit waiver of the right to appeal in his written plea agreement. View "United States v. Arias-Espinoza" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence gained through a frisk after a vehicle stop. The court concluded that the police officers had no particularized suspicions directed at the unthreatening defendant to justify the Terry frisk at its inception; the searching officer exceeded the lawful scope of the frisk by lifting defendant's shirt to retrieve an object; and therefore, the court reversed and remanded with instructions to grant defendant's motion to suppress. View "United States v. I.E.V., Juvenile Male" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of conspiring to possess and of possessing pseudoephedrine, knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that it would be used to manufacture methamphetamine. On appeal, defendant contended that the district court erred as a matter of law in refusing a requested jury instruction specifying that "reasonable cause to believe" must be evaluated from her perspective, based on her knowledge and sophistication. The court held that the district court erred in refusing defendant's requested instruction and that the error was not harmless. View "United States v. Munguia" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his jury conviction for offenses relating to the sale of eagle parts. He contended that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated when an undercover agent used a concealed audio-video device to record an illegal transaction defendant conducted in his home. The court rejected this argument because the Fourth Amendment's protection did not extend to information that a person voluntarily exposed to a government agent, including an undercover agent. The court also rejected defendant's Confrontation Clause challenge, and his objection to the admission of certain photographs of eagles and other bird parts at his trial under Federal Rule of Evidence 403. The court reversed, however, defendant's conviction on Counts 2 or 3 and Counts 4 or 5 because those were multiplicitous. View "United States v. Wahchumwah" on Justia Law

Defendant was arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance and a firearm. Defendant moved to suppress evidence of these crimes that was discovered in the subsequent warrantless search of his car. The government presented its substantive arguments orally at the suppression hearing and in its written response to the magistrate judge's Report, and therefore the court held that those arguments were preserved for appeal. Moreover, because the police had probable cause to suspect that evidence of a crime would be found in defendant's car, which had the potential for mobility and was being used as a licensed motor vehicle, the court held that the government's warrantless search of defendant's car was permissible under the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. Therefore, defendant's motion to suppress should not have been granted and the court reversed the judgment. View "United States v. Scott" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to possession and transportation of child pornography. The court affirmed the district court's imposition of a sentencing enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. 3C1.1 for obstruction of justice in a case in which defendant pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The court wrote that defendant's conduct was obstructive with respect to the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of his felon-in-possession conviction; and it was immaterial that he intended to obstruct only the prior child pornography case in which he was on pretrial release. View "United States v. Manning" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a state prisoner, asserted that denials by prison officials of his request for a conjugal visit with his wife violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc et seq., and the First Amendment, by interfering with his practice of a tenet of his Islamic faith requiring him to marry, consummate his marriage, and father children. The court held that because plaintiff's claim was based on an independently wrongful, discrete act in 2008, which was the denial of his request for conjugal visits with his second wife, his claims were not time-barred, notwithstanding the denial, pursuant to the same regulation, of his prior requests for conjugal visits with his first wife in 2002. View "Pouncil v. Tilton, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed her conviction and sentence for perjury and for making a false statement. Principally she challenged the district court's admission of testimony from a grand juror. She also challenged the district court's rejection of her claim of recantation, the sufficiency of the evidence, and her sentence. Because the court held that the admission of the grand juror's testimony was unduly prejudicial, the court reversed. View "United States v. Wiggan" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence for illegal reentry. The court held that a November 1, 2012 amendment to the Sentencing Guidelines clarified, rather than altered, existing law in providing that a probation revocation sentence served after deportation should not be used to calculate the "sentence imposed" under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b)(1). Therefore, the court applied the amendment retroactively and concluded that the district court erred in imposing a 16-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b)(1)(A) rather than a 12-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b)(1)(B). View "United States v. Catalan" on Justia Law