Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The state appealed the district court's grant of a conditional writ of habeas corpus where defendant was charged with murder. At issue was whether petitioner's lawyer rendered ineffective assistance of counsel while trying to have him acquitted of the death penalty. The court reversed and held that petitioner had not made out his claim that his counsel's assistance was constitutionally deficient and even if he had, the gruesome nature of the crime, coupled with the relatively weak additional evidence that might have been revealed, led the court to conclude that any ineffectiveness was not prejudicial.

Petitioner filed a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal district court alleging that his prolonged detention was unlawful. At issue was whether petitioner's bond hearing, provided under Casas-Castrillon v. Department of Homeland Security, violated due process. The court clarified that once an alien received a Casas bond hearing before an immigration judge ("IJ"), he could appeal the IJ's decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA"). If the alien was dissatisfied with the BIA's decision, he could then file a habeas petition in the district court challenging his continued detention. The district court's decision on the habeas petition could then be appealed to this court. Therefore, the court remanded to the district court with instructions to dismiss petitioner's petition without prejudice where he did not exhaust administrative remedies before pursuing habeas relief.

Defendant was arrested and charged with illegal entry into the United States and appeared at a group plea hearing in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona as part of the district's "Operation Streamline." At issue was whether the taking of guilty pleas at a large group plea hearing violated a criminal defendant's rights protected by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. The court held that any Rule 11(b)(1) error was harmless where defendant would not have changed her plea of guilty if the magistrate judge had conducted sixty-seven separate advisements of rights and that, although the district court failed to comply strictly with Rule 11(b)(2), such failure was not plain error where the record reflected that defendant's plea was fully informed and the record did not demonstrate that such a plea would have changed if the magistrate had expressly inquired into the voluntariness of her decision. The court also held that the record did not suggest that defendant misunderstood her rights or involuntarily entered her plea and there was no question that this procedure complied with due process. The court further held that the plea hearing did not deprive defendant of her right to counsel where she was provided with adequate, even superior, representation by counsel and failed to demonstrate a reasonable probability that the result of the proceeding would have been different if counsel had not been temporarily separated from her during the group advisement. Accordingly, the court confirmed defendant's conviction and sentence.

Petitioner, a native of India, petitioned for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") affirming the immigration judge's ("IJ") determination that he was removable for having been convicted of two or more crimes involving moral turpitude ("CIMT"). At issue was whether the BIA properly determined that petitioner's conviction for failing to register constituted a CIMT and, coupled with a conceded theft CIMT, rendered him removable. The BIA then found it unnecessary to conduct a modified categorical analysis regarding petitioner's indecent exposure convictions. The court held that, in light of significant intervening developments, the case must be remanded for the BIA to consider whether petitioner's crime constituted a CIMT under the proper definition of moral turpitude as outlined in Matter of Silva-Trevino. The court also held that should the BIA determine that petitioner's failure to register conviction did not qualify as a CIMT, it should consider the issue left open in its prior ruling regarding petitioner's indecent exposure convictions.

Defendant appealed a restitution order directing him to pay the victim's mother to cover costs that she incurred in making a series of trips between her home and the victim's boarding school 150 miles away after defendant pleaded guilty to one count of abusive sexual contact and was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment. At issue was whether the mother's travel expenses were "incurred by the victim" and subject to restitution under the applicable statute. Also at issue was whether the restitution award was issued in violation of the procedural and evidentiary requirements of 18 U.S.C. 3664. The court initially held that defendant's waiver of appeal was ineffective as to the restitution order and so would consider his challenges to that order on the merits. The court then held that the mother's travel expenses could have been "incurred by the victim" within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. 2248(b)(3) where the mother could have made trips in her capacity as a loved family member but she incurred the costs of the trips in her capacity as legal guardian, on behalf of her daughter. The court also held that the district court's restitution order violated the requirements of section 3664 where the district court set forth no explanation of its reasoning and where a spreadsheet was an inadequate evidentiary basis to support the restitution award.

Petitioner, convicted of first degree murder, filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Central District of California more than three years after his conviction for first-degree murder became final and five days after the California Supreme Court denied his final state habeas petition. At issue was whether the one-year statute of limitations for filing a federal habeas corpus petition pursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(1), was tolled during petitioner's delays between his state-court petitions for collateral review. The court held that petitioner's state petitions were untimely and that he was not entitled to statutory tolling under AEDPA where he showed no adequate justification for the eighty- and ninety-one day filing delays and there was no indication from the California courts to the contrary. The court also held that the district court did not err in denying petitioner's request for equitable tolling where he failed to demonstrate extraordinary circumstances that warranted tolling of AEDPA's one year deadline.

Petitioner was convicted of first-degree murder in the guilt phase of his trial but the jury deadlocked over his sentence in the penalty phase of his case. At issue was whether the trial court violated petitioner's constitutional right to be free from double jeopardy where the trial court failed to ask the jury if it had unanimously rejected the death penalty, and instead was deadlocked over a lesser sentence, before discharging the jury. The court held that the trial judge did not abuse her discretion or subject petitioner to double jeopardy by declining to poll the jury where the jurors were clearly deadlocked, appeared frustrated after lengthy proceedings, could have been inclined to treat preliminary compromise as a final verdict, and never indicated that they had reached a final finding acquitting petitioner. The court also held that in the retrial of the penalty phase the Double Jeopardy Clause did not preclude the state from including the death penalty as a sentencing option.

Defendant appealed his conviction for possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8) where defendant was indicted and convicted for possession of a firearm while he was subjected to a Tucson City Court order directing him to have no contact with his former girlfriend and her family. At issue was whether the district court properly denied defendant's motion for acquittal where the no-contact order did not satisfy the requirements of section 922(g)(8). The court held that the district court erred when it denied defendant's motion for acquittal where, even viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the government, the charge failed as a matter of law when it failed to contain explicit terms substantially similar in meaning to the language of section 992(g)(8)(C)(ii).

Defendants appealed a denial of qualified immunity from plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 Fourth Amendment claims against them where plaintiff's claims arose out of his arrest on suspicion of smuggling methamphetamine into the Merced County Jail and out of a subsequent search of plaintiff's law office. At issue was whether defendants qualified for immunity for arresting plaintiff after receiving information about the drug smuggling from a jailhouse informant. The court held that defendants were entitled to qualified immunity where they did not violate plaintiff's constitutional rights when, after developing probable cause to arrest plaintiff, they forthrightly applied to the same judge, acting as a neutral magistrate, for a search warrant; where they executed the warrant under the supervision of a court-appointed master to ensure the integrity of plaintiff's law office and his client's files; and where defendants did not "knowingly violate the law" and they were not "plainly incompetent."

Petitioner, a native and citizen of the Philippines, petitioned for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals' ("BIA") May 2005 order denying his claims for asylum and withholding of removal and its March 2006 order denying his claim for protection under the Convention Against Torture ("CAT"). At issue was whether the BIA properly denied petitioner asylum and withholding of removal, whether the BIA properly denied petitioner's claim for protection under the CAT, and whether petitioner's due process rights were violated. The court held that the BIA properly concluded that petitioner's drug-trafficking offense rendered him ineligible for asylum and withholding relief where the record did not compel the conclusion that probable cause was lacking. The court also held that the BIA properly denied petitioner protection under the CAT where substantial evidence supported the BIA's conclusion that he was not likely to be tortured upon return to the Philippines. The court further held that there was nothing in the record compelling the conclusion that certain witness testimony somehow precluded petitioner from presenting his claims for relief.