Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was arrested during a DEA "buy bust" operation and subsequently convicted of possession with intent to distribute 500 or more grams of a substance containing methamphetamine and conspiracy to distribute 500 or more grams of a substance containing methamphetamine. Defendant appealed his conviction. The court held that even if the trial court's failure to administer oaths to a government informant's interpreters was plain error, the error did not affect defendant's substantial rights. The court also held that the district court did not plainly err in admitting the nontestifying agents' statements and there was sufficient evidence to sustain the verdict. Because defendant had not identified any other error, there was no cumulative error wanting reversal.

Defendant appealed his conviction under 8 U.S.C. 1326(b) for illegal reentry into the United States after being deported. On appeal, defendant challenged his conviction based on a collateral attack of the underlying removal order. The court held that a defect in defendant's 1997 immigration proceedings, that he was not meaningfully informed of his eligibility for voluntary departure, violated his due process rights. However, the district court did not consider fully whether defendant suffered prejudice. Therefore, the court remanded to the district court to consider this issue.

Defendant, a citizen of Macau, engaged in efforts to import protected defense articles from the United States into China, without the licenses required by law. Defendant was convicted after a jury trial on four counts of conspiracy and attempt to export defense articles without a license, money laundering, and conspiracy and attempt to smuggle goods from the United States. Defendant challenged his conviction and sentence. The court concluded that venue was proper in the Southern District of California; disagreed with defendant that the Arms Export Control Act, 22 U.S.C. 2778, violated the nondelegation principle; concluded that defendant's conviction on count three must be vacated as a matter of law because attempting to cause an export of a defense article was not a federal crime; defendant's conviction on count four must also be vacated for lack of jurisdiction; and because the district court should have allowed defendant to present evidence of duress to the jury, the court reversed and remanded for a new trial on counts one and two. The court did not reach defendant's arguments regarding his sentence.

The prosecutor in this case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerry R. Albert, accused defendant of having lied to the federal magistrate presiding at an earlier hearing. Without telling the court or defense counsel, the prosecutor presented to court and counsel an altered version of the prior hearing's question and answer and the altered version of such dialogue made it appear as though defendant had contradicted herself on a material point, when she plainly had not. When the prosecutor's misrepresentation was discovered by defense counsel, he moved for a mistrial, which the court swiftly granted. Defendant then moved to dismiss the indictment with prejudice, on double jeopardy grounds, but the district court denied that motion. The court affirmed the district court's denial of the motion where the defense had consented to a mistrial and there was no evidence that the prosecution was attempting to "goad" the defense into making the mistrial request -rather, the evidence revealed that this was a case of a prosecutor crossing the line an an attempt to "win at all costs." In addition, the court took several steps to ensure that the prosecutor's actions were properly investigated and that he was disciplined if the relevant authorities deemed it proper.

Defendant appealed the district court's grant of the government's motion for summary judgment, concluding that the government provided clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence that left no issue in doubt that defendant, a naturalized citizen, obtained his citizenship illegally. The court held that the district court improperly weighed the evidence in concluding that there were no genuine issues of material fact as to whether the government could strip defendant of his citizenship. The existence and nature of the cooperation agreement were the subjects of pending Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552, requests, and further evidence should have been allowed. Because of the importance of citizenship, which in turn conferred significant rights and responsibilities, the government bore a heavy burden when it sought to take away an individual's citizenship. The court also vacated the district court's denial of defendant's motion to dismiss for improper venue, and remanded with instructions that the district court conduct the proper inquiry consistent with the Immigration and Naturalization Act, 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(33).

Defendant appealed the sentence imposed after he pled guilty to being a deported alien found in the United States. Defendant contended that the government breached the plea agreement, notwithstanding the government's later admission that it made a mistake in its initial sentencing recommendation and its substitution of the recommendation to which defendant and the government had agreed in the plea agreement. The court vacated and remanded for resentencing, holding that the government breached the plea agreement and the sentence must be vacated to give defendant the benefit of his bargain, specific performance on the plea agreement.

Defendant was convicted of six counts of mailing threatening communications where he addressed four envelopes to media outlets and two to music-related websites. In the envelopes, defendant allegedly threatened to shoot people outside of the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, site of Super Bowl XLII. Defendant eventually had a change of heart and turned himself into law enforcement. At issue was the meaning of "person" and of "addressed to" in 18 U.S.C. 876(c), which prohibited the mailing of communications "addressed to any other person and containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of the addressee or of another." The court held that section 876(c) referred exclusively to an individual, or to a natural, person. Therefore, the statute required that the threatening communications be addressed to a natural person. The court also held that in order to identify the addressee, a court was not limited to the directions for delivery on the outside of the envelope or on the packaging, but also could look to the content of the communications. Because defendant's communications were not addressed to natural persons, the court reversed.

Defendant appealed from the district court's denial of his motion to suppress 700 Oxycodone pills found in his underwear after a warrantless search by officers in the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. At issue was the scope of a voluntary consent to search at an airport. The court concluded that defendant voluntarily consented to a search of his person, and that the arresting officer's full-body pat-down including the groin area outside defendant's pants, was reasonable and did not exceed his consent. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of the motion to suppress.

Defendant, a Mexican national, was convicted of two counts of illegal entry and subsequently appealed the district court's application of a sixteen-level sentencing enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b). Because defendant's original removal order improperly waived his right to judicial review, the court held that the district court erred when it applied the sentencing enhancement under section 2L.1.2(b) and thus committed procedural error by incorrectly calculating his Guidelines range. Therefore, the court vacated defendant's sentence and remanded for resentencing.

Petitioner appealed the denial of his habeas petition, contending that the California state trial court violated his Sixth Amendment rights when it imposed an upper term sentence based in part on its conclusion that he was on parole for a violent offense at the time of the crime. The court affirmed the district court's holding that petitioner suffered an error pursuant to Apprendi v. New Jersey but that any such error was harmless.