Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant appealed his statutorily mandated, five-year minimum sentence following his guilty plea to conspiracy to possess crack cocaine with intent to distribute, and distribution of at least five grams of crack cocaine under 21 U.S.C. 846 and 841(a)(1). At issue was whether the Fair Sentencing Act ("Act"), 21 U.S.C. 841, applied to a sentence that was imposed prior to the date of the new statute's enactment. The court held that it was compelled to affirm defendant's five-year mandatory minimum sentence where it could find no evidence that Congress intended for the Act to apply to defendants who had been sentenced prior to the August 3, 2010 date of the Act's enactment.

Defendant appealed the district court's dismissal of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion as untimely. Defendant argued that the court's order recalling the mandate, so that it could consider his motion for appointment of certiorari counsel, restarted the clock for the 90-day period within which he was required to petition the Supreme Court for certiorari review of his conviction on direct appeal. Defendant also argued, in the alternative, that misconduct by his attorney and misinformation provided by someone in the office of the Ninth Circuit Clerk entitled him to equitable tolling. The court held that its order recalling the mandate did not restart the clock for purposes of petitioning for certiorari and therefore, defendant's petition for certiorari and his section 2255 motion were untimely. The court held, however, that defendant's contention that the court's clerk provided him with inaccurate advice, if true, could entitle him to equitable tolling. Accordingly, the court vacated the dismissal of the section 2255 motion and remanded for further proceedings.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation ("CDCR") had a paid chaplaincy program that employed Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Native American clergy. These chaplains served all inmates but other religions were also served by volunteer chaplains. A Wiccan volunteer chaplain and a small group of inmates challenged the paid chaplaincy program asserting that the Wiccan chaplain should be eligible for employment in the paid-chaplaincy program. The court held that the inmates failed to exhaust their claims or brought them in an untimely fashion and the chaplain was pursuing constitutional claims that were derivative of the inmates' claims rather than his own. Accordingly, the court held that the district court properly dismissed and granted summary judgment in favor of defendants on the Wiccan chaplains' claims because, for the most part, he lacked standing. The court agreed that the district court need not exercise jurisdiction over these derivative claims. The court also held that, although the Wiccan chaplain had standing to pursue his personal employment claims, and also constitutional claims for different treatment as a volunteer chaplain and retaliation, ultimately he could not prevail on those claims.

Petitioner appealed the district court's denial of his petition for writ of habeas corpus where he was convicted of attempted second degree robbery and first degree murder of a Long Beach shop owner with the special circumstance that he was an active participant in a criminal street gang and the murder was carried out to further the activities of the criminal street gang under Cal. Penal Code 190.2(a)(22). The jury also found that a principal discharged a firearm resulting in the shop owner's death under Cal. Penal Code 12022.53(d), (e)(1) and imposed two gang enhancements pursuant to Cal. Penal Code 186.22(b)(1). At issue was whether petitioner's due process rights were violated because there was insufficient evidence to support the special circumstances finding pursuant to section 190.2(a)(22) and the gang enhancements imposed pursuant to sections 186.22(b)(1) and 12022.53(d) and (e)(1). The court held that petitioner's due process rights were not violated where there was ample evidence supporting the jury's conclusion that petitioner used extreme violence to avenge a minor slight against a casual acquaintance and a rational trier of fact could have found that when he and another gang member acted together to commit the robbery and murder, petitioner specifically intended to assist in criminal conduct. Therefore, the denial of the petition for writ of habeas corpus was affirmed.

Petitioner, an African-American, was tried and convicted of aggravated mayhem, torture, assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, corporal injury on a cohabitant, and criminal threats. During voir dire examination, the prosecutor used peremptory challenges to remove nine potential jurors. At issue was whether the state court's decision to deny a Batson v. Kentucky claim when petitioner made no contemporaneous objection to the use of peremptory challenges in the trial court was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. The court held that petitioner could not raise a Batson claim in his habeas petition where petitioner failed to timely object to the prosecution's use of peremptory challenges at trial. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court denying petitioner habeas relief.

Defendant appealed his sentence for seven counts of bank robbery. Defendant argued that his sentence must be vacated and the case remanded for resentencing because the government breached the plea agreement; the district court's decision to make an upward departure from criminal history category II to III, U.S.S.G. 4A1.3, was procedurally erroneous; and the district court's overall sentence was substantially unreasonable. The court held that the government did not breach the plea agreement where it made no argument that the district court should increase the offense level calculation set forth in the presentence report ("PSR") and plea agreement. The court also held that the court reviewed upward departures under section 4A1.3 for substantive reasonableness, not for procedural error, and concluded that the district court's sentence was substantively reasonable and procedural error was harmless where the district court deviated only 30 and 16 months from the high end of the PSR and its own Guidelines ranges and where the district court's characterization of defendant's seven armed robberies as serious offenses reflected a rational and meaningful consideration of the factors enumerated in 18 U.S.C. 3553(a).

Defendants, the chairman and chief executive officer of Lunde Electric Company ("company"), appealed convictions stemming from the misappropriation of employee 401(k) contributions to pay the company's operating expenses. At issue was whether there was sufficient evidence to support defendants' convictions under 18 U.S.C. 664, for embezzlement or conversion of elective deferrals, and 18 U.S.C. 1027, for false or misleading statements in a required Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA"), 29 U.S.C 1001 et seq., document. The court held that there was sufficient evidence to support defendants' convictions on Counts 17 and 18 under section 664 where there was sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that the 1991 Profit Sharing Plan had been restated before defendants retained their employees' elective deferrals in the company's general account; where defendants commingled their employees' contributions with the company's assets to prop up their failing business and therefore, intentionally used their employees' assets for an unauthorized purpose; where they sent participants account statements showing 401(k) balances which were in fact non-existent; where defendants' decision to deviate was the wilful criminal misappropriation punished by section 664; and where defendants were alerted repeatedly about their obligation to remit the deferrals and defendants hid their actions from employees. The court also held that there was sufficient evidence to support defendants' convictions on Count 21 under section 1027 where defendants' initial decision to mislead their own employees about the solvency of their retirement plans by filing false account statements and false Form 5500s were the behaviors targeted by section 1027.

Appellant was convicted of robbery affecting commerce and use of a firearm during a crime of violence. At issue was whether the trial court erred in instructing the jury on the definition of "brandish." The court affirmed the conviction and held that the district court neither erred nor abused its discretion in instructing the jury with the statutory definition of "brandish" and declining appellant's proffer of a dictionary definition where, in light of the well-settled principle that, for purposes of statutory interpretation, the language of the statute was the first and, if the language was clear, the only relevant inquiry.

Petitioner filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus relief after she was found guilty of murder with special circumstances and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. At issue was whether the trial court violated petitioner's Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial by dismissing a juror who was known to be the lone holdout for acquittal. The court held that the removal of Juror No. 6 deprived petitioner of her right to a fair trial by jury where there was at least a reasonable possibility that Juror No. 6's discharged stemmed from his disagreement with his peers over their views of the merits of the case and where there was no good cause to justify the juror's discharge. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded with instructions to grant the writ.

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Vietnam, petitioned for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals' ("BIA") decision affirming an Immigration Judge's order of removal. At issue was whether petitioner's state misdemeanor conviction for rendering criminal assistance was a crime related to obstruction of justice and thus constituted an aggravated felony under the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"), 8 U.S.C. 101(a)(43)(S). The court granted the petition for review and held that petitioner's conviction lacked the necessary actus reus and was not categorically an obstruction of justice according to the definition provided in In Re Espinoza-Gonzalez. The court also held that nothing in the record of petitioner's conviction established that he provided assistance to an individual who was subject to a pending judicial proceeding or ongoing police investigation and therefore, his conviction did not qualify as obstruction of justice under the modified categorical approach.