Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance; possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime; being a felon in possession of a firearm; being a fugitive in possession of a firearm; possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance; and distribution of a controlled substance. The court rejected defendant's argument that the district court erred in denying him access to discovery and the government improperly selectively preserved evidence by saving only inculpatory material; the district court carefully protected defendant's right to access adequate resources to prepare his own defense; the court rejected defendant's argument under Arizona v. Youngblood because he raised it for the first time on appeal and he failed to present any evidence of bad faith; there was no abuse of discretion in the district court not ordering another competency evaluation or holding another competency hearing when defendant sought to represent himself at trial; the district court did not violate defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel by permitting him to proceed pro se at trial; under the plain language of the relevant statute the information was timely filed; without any evidence to support the allegation, the court is unwilling to attribute bad faith to the government in its decision regarding when to file the notice; and, to the extent defendant argues that he was incompetent prior to January 4, 2012, he presented no evidence to support such a finding. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Olivares" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 30 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. The district court subsequently revoked his supervised release, imposing a 24 month sentence followed by a year of supervised release. The court concluded that the evidence was sufficient to find defendant had violated his supervised release by possessing a weapon, alcohol, and cocaine. The court also concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying a continuance where defendant failed to show he was unable to participate in his own defense due to surgery and thus did not present a compelling reason for a continuance. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Long" on Justia Law

Defendant was sentenced to a year and a half in prison for escaping from a halfway house where he was serving federal time. On appeal, defendant argues for the first time that the district court did not have authority to make his sentence consecutive to another federal sentence that had not yet been imposed. The court concluded that Setser v. United States left open the question of whether the district court could make defendant's prison term for the escape consecutive to any sentence arising from the other federal charges pending against him. Because that means any error in this case is not plain, the court affirmed the judgment. The court left resolution of the issue for a case in which it is properly raised and preserved. View "United States v. Watson" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud arising from a scheme in which he overpaid for commodities to the benefit of certain customers while managing a grain elevator for Bunge. The district court ordered defendant to pay $1,561,516.25 in restitution to Bunge, which included $87,536.65 in attorney's fees and expenses Bunge paid to an outside counsel during the investigation of defendant's fraudulent scheme and his prosecution. The court affirmed the portion of the district court's restitution award which does not include attorney's fees; vacated the portion awarding attorney's fees and expenses; and remanded to the district court to specifically address whether the attorney's fees incurred after the government initiated its own investigation were "necessary" under 18 U.S.C. 3663A(b)(4). View "United States v. Carpenter" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to one count of possession of a firearm and ammunition by an unlawful drug user in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3) and 924(a)(2). On appeal, defendant challenged the denial of his motion to dismiss because 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3) was unconstitutionally vague as applied to the facts of his case. The court concluded that a trial on the merits was needed to decide defendant's pretrial motion to dismiss where the parties dispute what evidence the district court could consider in its ruling. In this case, the district court could not rule on defendant's as applied constitutional challenge without resolving factual issues related to his alleged offense, such as the extent of his drug use, and therefore the district court should have deferred ruling until trial. The court concluded that this premature ruling prejudiced defendant's ability to obtain appellate review of his constitutional challenge, for he conditionally pled guilty under his mistaken assumption that he could "have an appellate court review an adverse determination" of his motion to dismiss. The court explained that had the district court informed defendant that it would have to defer a final ruling on his motion, defendant could have moved to vacate his guilty plea and proceeded to trial on the original charges. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "United States v. Turner" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and sentenced to 120 months in prison. The court concluded that the district court did not err by denying defendant's motion to suppress the firearm where there was no Fourth Amendment seizure here until the officers removed defendant from the idling car. The court also noted that the wig wag lights activated by the officers are different from the full light bar which is used to notify motorists in moving vehicles that they are required to stop. Here, officers activated the wig wag lights in order to identify themselves as police for the safety of all parties involved. A reasonable person seeing the wig wag lights under these circumstances would have thought that he was still "at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his business." Because defendant was not unlawfully seized, the district court did not err in denying his motion to suppress. The court also concluded that the district court did not err by admitting circumstantial evidence that connected defendant to a shooting death involving the gun because it was highly probative of defendant's possession of the weapon. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Cook" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed her sentence and conviction for two counts of producing child pornography. The court rejected defendant's argument that the district court erred by denying her motion to suppress 47 photographs of her hands, and concluded that the manner in which the officers carried out the search here did not exceed the scope of the warrant. In this case, the warrant specified that law enforcement could search defendant's person, specifically body views and photography of her hands. Furthermore, the court concluded that the photography process did not exceed the bounds of reasonableness required by the Fourth Amendment, and her due process rights were not violated. The court also concluded that any error in failing to exclude an agent's testimony was harmless where substantial evidence other than the testimony supported the jury's verdict. The court rejected defendant's claims of error relating to the exclusion of the videotaped interview of the minor where any probative value was substantially outweighed by the videotape's potential to confuse the issues. The court further concluded that the district court did not err with respect to the jury instruction on lascivious exhibition. Finally, the district court committed no procedural sentencing error and adequately considered the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors. Accordingly, the court affirmed the sentence. View "United States v. Merrell" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and the district court sentenced him to 180 months in prison pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e). On appeal, defendant argues that his prior conviction under Minn. Stat. 609.713, subd. 1 for making terroristic threats does not qualify as an ACCA predicate offense. The court concluded that the Minnesota terroristic threats statute's definition of "crime of violence" is not divisible. Minnesota's definition of "crime of violence" is broader than the ACCA requirement that a prior conviction have "as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another." Therefore, defendant's prior conviction for terroristic threats was not an ACCA predicate offense, and he does not qualify as an armed career criminal because he had only two prior ACCA predicate convictions. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. McFee" on Justia Law

Defendant was sentenced to 80 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess fifteen or more counterfeit access devices and conspiracy to commit mail fraud, possession of fifteen or more counterfeit devices, and false statements to a federal official. The court concluded that the $500 minimum in USSG 2B1.1 cmt. n.3(F)(i) may be applied to fraudulent cards which have been merely possessed rather than used. Therefore, the district court did not err when it concluded that a loss amount of $500 may be attributed to fraudulent cards that are unused. The court concluded that the district court did not err by increasing defendant's base offense level by eight under USSG 2B1.1 after finding that the total loss amount for which he was responsible exceeded $95,000. The court also concluded that the district court did not clearly err by applying an organizer or leader enhancement under USSG 3B1.1(a); the district court did not err in finding that defendant obstructed both his investigation and prosecution and thus increasing his base offense by two for obstruction of justice; and the district court did not clearly err in assessing three criminal history points for defendant's 1999 conviction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the sentence. View "United States v. Thomas" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and sentenced to a mandatory minimum of fifteen years’ imprisonment under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e). As an initial matter, defendant's proximity to the stolen vehicle and his demeanor when the officer approached him provided the officer with reasonable suspicion to frisk defendant for weapons. The court concluded, however, that the officer’s seizure of the key fob in defendant's pant pocket exceeded the appropriate scope of a Terry frisk, and it should have been suppressed. In this case, while defendant was relatively close to the stolen vehicle and behaving nervously, circumstances which make this question close, feeling an unidentified key fob in defendant's pocket did not provide the officer with probable cause to conclude that the key fob belonged to the stolen Pontiac. Accordingly, the court vacated the conviction and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Craddock" on Justia Law