Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Appellant, owner and operator the Custer Battlefield Museum, was investigated in 2005 for unlawfully attempting to sell migratory bird parts and for fraudulently misrepresenting the provenance of historical artifacts for sale. During that investigation, two search warrants were executed and the court sealed the affidavits supporting the warrant applications. The government ultimately declined prosecution of any criminal charges. In 2010, appellant asked the district court for a copy of the search warrant applications and supporting affidavits. At issue was whether the public had a common law or First Amendment right of access to materials filed in support of search warrant applications after an investigation had been terminated. The court held that the public had a qualified common law right of access to warrant materials after an investigation had been terminated. The court also held that the district court properly recognized that right here, but it erred by granting appellant only restricted access to the warrant materials without articulating a compelling reason for its ruling or making specific factual findings. Therefore, the district court's order was vacated and the matter remanded to the district court to reapply the common law standard to appellant's request.

Defendant appealed from his conditional guilty plea to receiving material involving the sexual exploitation of minors in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252(a)(2). Defendant challenged the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence seized from computers in his custody. The court held that, giving the appropriate deference to the appointed Primary Search Authority Military Magistrate's determination as required by Illinois v. Gates and the court's own precedent, there was probable cause to support the issuance of the warrant. Alternatively, even if the court were to determine that there was no probable cause for the warrant, the court would affirm the district court's determination that the warrant fit within the good-faith exception set forth in United States v. Leon. Accordingly, the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress was affirmed.

Defendant appealed his sentence of 25 months' imprisonment plus five years of supervised release following his guilty plea to ten counts of embezzlement under 18 U.S.C. 656, and eight counts of bank fraud under 18 U.S.C. 1344. The eighteen counts defendant pleaded guilty to related to two schemes to defraud Wells Fargo: an embezzlement scheme and a check-kiting scheme. On appeal, defendant's primary contention was that because he did not know he was the subject of a pending criminal investigation at the time he committed perjury in a civil suit concerning the very same conduct later charged in the criminal indictment, the district court erred in applying U.S.S.G. 3C1.1 to enhance his sentence for willfully obstructing justice. The court held that because the district court applied the correct legal standard and relied upon probative evidence submitted by the government, the district court did not err in calculating the intended loss at being over $200,000. The court also held that "willful" meant only that defendant had engaged in intentional or deliberate acts designed to obstruct any potential investigation, at the time an investigation was in fact pending; it did not mean that defendant had to know for certain that the investigation was pending. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

Defendant was convicted of illegal reentry in 2004, escape, and a second count of illegal reentry with a found-in date of June 7, 2007. Defendant appealed his conviction on the second illegal reentry offense, challenging the denial of his motion to dismiss based on violation of the 30-day preindictment time limit imposed by the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. 3161(b). The court held that the Speedy Trial Act's 30-day preindictment time limit, which ordinarily ran from the date of the defendant's initial arrest, restarted when the underlying complaint was dismissed without prejudice and the charges were later refiled. In this case, the 30-day clock both started and stopped upon the filing of the second superseding indictment, which reinstated the dismissed illegal reentry charge. Therefore, there was no violation of section 3161(b) and the district court properly denied defendant's motion to dismiss.

Plaintiff, a Washington State prisoner, sought relief under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for alleged violations of his First and Fourteenth Amendment right of access to the courts and alleged supplemental state law claims for conversion and fraud. Along with his complaint, plaintiff moved to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP) pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1915. Plaintiff subsequently appealed the district court's sua sponte dismissal of his pro se civil rights action for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. In light of the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act's (PLRA), 28 U.S.C. 1915(g), "three-strikes" provision, the court concluded that because three of the five dismissals on which defendants relied were not final at the time plaintiff took his appeal, they could not count against him in this case. Therefore, the court declined to revoke plaintiff's IFP status. The court also reversed the district court's order dismissing plaintiff's right to access the courts, retaliation, and state law conversion claims and remanded for further proceedings. The court affirmed the district court's judgment as to plaintiff's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1961-1968, claim because the district court properly concluded that the deficiencies in plaintiff's complaint could not be cured by an amendment.

Defendant was sentenced to death for the murder of two thirteen-year-old girls. Defendant challenged his sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2254, arguing that he should receive an evidentiary hearing to develop the claim that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance at sentencing by failing to adequately investigate and present evidence that defendant suffered from organic brain damage at the time of the murders. The court held that, under the demanding standard of Strickland v. Washington, defendant had not presented a colorable claim that counsel's actions were constitutionally ineffective. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of an evidentiary hearing.

Defendant, a former Boeing engineer who gave technological information to China, appealed his convictions on six counts of violating the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (EEA), 18 U.S.C. 1831(a)(1), (3); on one count of conspiring to violate the EEA, 18 U.S.C. 371; on one count of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, 18 U.S.C. 951; and on one count of making a false statement to federal agents, 18 U.S.C. 1001. On appeal, defendant argued primarily that his convictions were not supported by sufficient evidence, and in the alternative, defendant contended that he was entitled to a new trial because the government failed to turn over exculpatory information in violation of its duty under Brady v. Maryland and because the district court made several erroneous evidentiary rulings. Defendant finally challenged the district court's calculation of his offense level under the Sentencing Guidelines. The court held that there was sufficient evidence to support defendant's convictions; that there were no Brady violations; that there was no violation of defendant's Sixth Amendment rights where the admission of certain evidence at issue was harmless; and that the district court did not err in choosing section 2M3.2 as the most analogous guideline applicable to the foreign agent conviction.

Defendant appealed from the district court's denial in part of his motion to reduce his sentence pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2). Defendant contended that the district court's modification of his sentence to the 120-month mandatory minimum term pursuant to 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(A) constituted the application of a new sentence in violation of Dillon v. United States and that the sentence the court ordered violated Apprendi v. New Jersey. The court affirmed and held that the district court's application of the mandatory minimum term pursuant to section 841(b)(1)(A) did not constitute an imposition of a new sentence.

Defendant pleaded guilty for violating 18 U.S.C. 704(a), which prohibited the unauthorized wearing of military medals, where defendant fraudulently obtained a Purple Heart and wore it in public. On appeal, defendant challenged the constitutionality of the statute. The court held that defendant's overbreadth challenge failed because a person violated the unauthorized wearing portion of section 704(a) only if he or she had an intent to deceive. The court rejected defendant's argument that United States v. Alvarez dictated that section 704(a) was unconstitutional. The court held that, under United States v. O'Brien, the government had a compelling interest in preventing the intentionally deceptive wearing of medals; those interests were unrelated to the suppression of free expression because section 704(a) did not prevent the expression of any particular message or viewpoint; and section 704(a) promoted the goals of maintaining the integrity of the military's medals and preventing the fraudulent wearing of military medals. Therefore, the court rejected defendant's facial First Amendment challenge.

Defendant was convicted by a jury of nine counts of bank fraud, two counts of fraudulent use of an access device, two counts of attempted fraudulent use of an access device, two counts of laundering monetary instruments, and one count of money laundering. The district judge found by clear and convincing evidence that defendant had murdered his wife and that her death was the means he used to commit his crimes. Relying on that finding, the judge imposed a sentence of 262 months. Defendant appealed his sentence, arguing that the district court committed procedural error and that, in any event, its sentence was substantively unreasonable. The court held that it was eminently reasonable for the district court to infer that the victim was dead, that defendant knew she was dead, and that he had brought about her death in order to pillage her assets. The court also held that the district court's references to the seriousness of defendant's conduct and resulting harm to the victim was more than adequate to explain both its decision to depart drastically and its ultimate sentence. The court further held that its review of the record satisfied the court that the district court took great pains to fashion its sentence in light of the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors. The court finally held that given that defendant's involvement in the victim's death was factually established, the district court was not unreasonable in giving it great weight; having determined that defendant intended to murder the victim, it was reasonable for the district court to substantially increase defendant's sentence; and the pre-indictment delay was not a relevant sentencing factor. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment.