Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendants Butler and Jones, serving lengthy prison sentences for drug offenses, challenge the district court's denial of sentence reductions under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2). The district court agreed that it could reduce defendants' sentences, but declined to do so after considering the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors. Determining that it has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1291, the court concluded that the district court did not substantively err in considering the section 3553(a) factors at length. In this case, the district court attached great weight to the fact that each defendant was a key player in one of the largest drug conspiracies in the history of the city. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Jones" on Justia Law

In 2013, the Department of Justice issued a guidance memorandum, the Cole Memorandum, that addresses enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), 21 U.S.C. 801 et seq., in cases involving marijuana. Plaintiff filed a pro se suit against state officials claiming that the Cole Memorandum unconstitutionally commandeers state officials and institutions, and claiming that all defendants violated the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq., by failing to prepare an environmental impact statement before publishing the memorandum. The court agreed with the district court's dismissal of the complaint based on plaintiff's lack of standing because he has not sufficiently alleged that setting aside the Cole Memorandum would redress his alleged injuries from the wider availability of recreational marijuana and new restrictions on medical marijuana, and that any adverse environmental effects of recreational marijuana on his own particularized interests are traceable to the memorandum. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "West v. Lynch" on Justia Law

This appeal stems from the United States' attempt to extradite Nizar Trabelsi from Belgium based on a grand jury indictment for various conspiracy and terrorism offenses. The district court denied Trabelsi's motion to dismiss the indictment. The court explained that its review is limited and requires deference to Belgium's decision to extradite Trabelsi. The court concluded that this deference creates a rebuttable presumption that Trabelsi’s extradition, and Belgium’s analysis in deciding to extradite him, comports with the terms of the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Belgium, Apr. 27, 1987, S. TREATY DOC. NO. 104-7. The court concluded that, although Trabelsi is correct that a Blockburger v. United States analysis is not required under the terms of the Treaty, his argument that the Treaty requires a conduct-oriented test is not supported by the text of the Treaty, which refers to “offenses.” Therefore, the court need not reach defendant's remaining arguments and affirmed the district court's order. View "United States v. Trabelsi" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of conspiracy and bank fraud stemming from a scheme to obtain mortgage loans using straw purchasers, false loan applications, and forged appraisals. The district court sentenced her to 48 months in prison, as well as supervised release and restitution. The court concluded that the district court did not misapply Federal Rule of Criminal Evidence 608(b), and its decision to disallow questioning about two prior acts by the government's witness, defendant's mortgage broker, that could reflect on his character for truthfulness was within the ample bounds of the district court’s discretion in matters of recross-examination. The court also concluded that the district court did not err by excluding testimony about an alleged invitation by the witness to participate in “shady” mortgages. Finally, the court rejected the claim that defendant's right to counsel was violated when she elected to proceed pro se at sentencing. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. O'Neal" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute heroin from the Potomac Gardens, a housing project, and was sentenced to 62 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release. Without saying why, the district court conditioned defendant's supervised release on his staying away from Potomac Gardens. The court concluded that defendant's appeal waiver contained ambiguities that the district court compounded during the plea colloquy. Construing the ambiguities against the government, the court nonetheless upheld the stay-away condition because defendant's claims fail on the merits. In this case, defendant did not object to the district court's failure to explain the condition and, to the extent there was procedural error, it was not plain and did not affect his substantial rights. Furthermore, the condition is well within the district court's wide discretion because it will keep him away from a neighborhood in which he has conducted numerous drug deals. And because he neither lives in the neighborhood nor alleges that he has family there, the condition does not unduly restrict his liberty. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Hunt" on Justia Law

Appellant challenged the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel at trial. The court concluded that it has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 2253(a) to consider the merits of the appeal because the district court issued a certificate of appealability as to appellant's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel in cross-examining a witness. On the merits, the court concluded that appellant failed to show a reasonable probability that the result of his trial would have been different without the allegedly deficient open-ended questioning by defense counsel on cross-examination. Therefore, the court rejected appellant's argument and affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Gooch, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to being a felon in unlawful possession of a firearm and was sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1). On appeal, defendant challenges the enhancement in light of Johnson v. United States. The court concluded that Maryland Robbery with a Deadly Weapon is a violent felony under the ACCA’s still-valid force clause and thus defendant's 188-month sentence remains legal and he is not entitled to a new sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Redrick" on Justia Law

After Charles Ramsey pleaded guilty to violating the conditions of his parole by committing a new drug offense in the 1990s, he filed a habeas corpus petition in which he argued that the plea agreement, as construed by the Southern District of West Virginia, terminated his parole or at least prohibited the Commission from using his 1990s offense to deny him credit for street time or for other parole-related purposes. The district court denied habeas relief. The court affirmed, rejecting Ramsey's reading of the plea agreement. In this case, the court concluded that nothing in the 2004 plea agreement or in Ramsey v. Felts terminated Ramsey’s parole, precluded revocation for future offenses or prohibited the Commission from using his 1995 cocaine offense to deny him credit for street time or to calculate his salient factor score. View "Ramsey v. USPC" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of second-degree murder and witness tampering for his role in the hazing and in covering up information about Army Sergeant Juwan Johnson’s death. Defendant was the leader of a group called "Brothers of the Struggle" (BOS), which was made up of members of the U.S. Army and Air Force at Ramstein but was not affiliated with the military. The BOS regularly initiated new members by beating them up in a ritual known as a “jump-in.” During a typical jump-in, approximately six members of the BOS hit the initiate for about six minutes. An autopsy report revealed that blunt force injuries inflicted during the initiation caused Johnson's death. The court rejected defendant's challenges to the sufficiency of the government’s evidence at trial. The court concluded, however, that the government misstated the law in its closing argument. Because the misstatement implicated a central issue - the state of mind with which defendant acted - and was not sufficiently cured, the court reversed defendant's murder conviction. Finally, the court rejected defendant's remaining claims of evidentiary errors. Therefore, the court affirmed the witness-tampering conviction. View "United States v. Williams" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for unlawful possession of 100 grams or more of PCP with intent to distribute. The court affirmed the conviction, but reversed as to the district court's imposition of the career-offender enhancement pursuant to USSG 4B1.1(a). In this case, the district court's plain error under the residual clause affected defendant's substantial rights because his sentence cannot be saved under the elements clause. The unlawfulness of his sentence necessarily affects the fundamental fairness and integrity of his conviction. Defendant is entitled to a resentencing without the career-offender enhancement. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Sheffield" on Justia Law