Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant plead guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The district court categorized defendant pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e), and sentenced defendant to the the fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence in accordance with the ACCA. The court rejected defendant's contention that the sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment because defendant has lower intelligence. In this case, the sentence imposed does not fall within the purview of the Eighth Amendment where he does not face capital punishment or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, he is neither a juvenile nor mentally disabled, he was found competent to stand trial, and his sentence reflects prior convictions for violent felonies. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. McCurry" on Justia Law

After defendant plead guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, the district court determined that defendant had three prior violent felony convictions and sentenced him to 235 months imprisonment under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e). Defendant appealed, contending that his juvenile adjudication for second degree assault, Minn. Stat. 609.222, subd. 1, does not qualify as an ACCA predicate offense. The court concluded that the phrase "with a dangerous weapon" is an element of Minnesota's second degree assault statute, Minn. Stat. 609.222, subd. 1, and that the separate definition of "dangerous weapon" in 609.02, subd. 6, lists means for committing that element. The element "with a dangerous weapon" is not divisible. Minnesota's definition of "dangerous weapon" is broader than the ACCA's requirement. Therefore, defendant's juvenile adjudication was thus 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. Headbird" on Justia Law

Defendant conditionally plead guilty to five counts of production of child pornography, and five counts relating to the registered sex offender enhancement. On appeal, defendant challenged the denial of his motion to suppress child pornography evidence. The court concluded that the district court did not clearly err in finding the officers’ entry into the apartment was gained from the resident's implicit consent where he opened the door wider and stepped aside when the officers asked to come in. Therefore, the subsequent seizure of the backpack and discovery of its contents is not fruit of the poisonous tree. View "United States v. Faler" on Justia Law

Defendant conditionally plead guilty to being a felon in possession and subsequently appealed the denial of his motion to suppress the firearm seized during an investigative stop. Defendant also appealed his sentence and relied on the Supreme Court’s post-sentencing decision in Johnson v. United States, arguing that the residual clause in USSG 4B1.2(a)(2) is unconstitutionally vague, and therefore the district court erred in concluding that his prior felony conviction for violating Mo. Rev. Stat. 575.150 constituted a “crime of violence.” The court concluded that the officer had reasonable suspicion that defendant was carrying a concealed firearm and, together with other suspicious actions, the investigatory stop was consistent with the Fourth Amendment. In this case, during a Terry stop, the officer was concerned for his safety and, upon exiting the patrol car, asked if defendant was armed. Defendant replied that he was and nodded toward the bulge on his hip, giving the officer more than mere suspicion that defendant was armed and dangerous. In United States v. Taylor, the court joined other circuits and remanded sentencing appeals raising the issue whether the identically-worded residual clause in USSG 4B1.2(a)(2) is unconstitutionally vague. Therefore, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for the district court to address the issue. View "United States v. Fields" on Justia Law

Defendant plead guilty to manufacturing explosives in violation of 18 U.S.C. 842(a)(1), 844(a)(1). The court concluded that the government need not prove defendant engaged in the business of manufacturing explosives for the purpose of livelihood or profit; although defendant asserts on appeal that he was manufacturing explosives for his own personal, non-business use, the district court specifically found that the government would not have to prove that defendant intended to sell or seek livelihood or profit from the explosive manufacturing activities; and the sheer quantity of completed and partially completed IEDs (and materials) shows that defendant was engaged in the business of manufacturing explosives. Therefore, the district court reasonably determined that defendant likely committed the offense and did not err in accepting defendant's guilty plea. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Belmont" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence of 188 months in prison after pleading guilty to possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of a mixture containing methamphetamine, a mixture containing cocaine, and a mixture containing marijuana. The court concluded that it is unneccessary to address whether defendant qualifies as a career offender under USSG 4B1.2 because the district court’s alternative decision to vary upward from the advisory guideline range is sufficient to justify the sentence imposed. In this case, the district court’s above-guidelines sentence is reasonable where the district court considered the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors and found that defendant had a high risk of re-offending, and that the need to protect the public outweighed any mitigating factors. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Espinoza" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, but was acquitted of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. The court concluded that sufficient evidence exists to support the jury's guilty verdict against defendant on the conspiracy to distribute charge. Accordingly, the district court did not err in denying defendant’s motion for acquittal. The court also concluded that, because the evidence at trial was sufficient to establish that defendant either had actual knowledge of the methamphetamine or deliberately failed to inquire about it, the willful blindness instruction was appropriate. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in giving the jury a deliberate ignorance instruction. The court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Trejo" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the denial of his motion to suppress, after pleading guilty to one count of possession of child pornography. The court concluded that information about defendant’s prior child pornography conviction, and his use of a computer to purchase or download images of nude minors from the Toronto Company, even though several years old at the time of the application, was relevant to a common sense determination about whether to issue the warrant and whether there was sufficient information to establish a fair probability that child pornography would be found at defendant’s home. Therefore, the court concluded that the information was sufficient to establish probable cause, and the district court did not err in denying the motion to suppress. Even if probable cause to issue the search warrant was lacking, the Leon good-faith exception applies here. The court also concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it imposed the computer and Internet supervised release restrictions, and in imposing the camera and video recording restriction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Notman" on Justia Law

Defendants Shield and Alford appealed their sentences of 180 months in prison after being convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon and assault resulting in serious bodily injury. The district court did not abuse its discretion in applying an upward departure under USSG 5K2.21 or 5K2.0(a)(2)(B), because the government had carried its burden of showing by a preponderance of the evidence that defendants had committed the assaults and the robbery as charged in the indictment and the district court determined that upward departures were warranted to reflect the seriousness of the offenses; defendants' Sixth Amendment rights were not violated where the district court treated the guidelines as advisory and sentenced defendants below the statutory maximum; and the district court announced it would have imposed the same sentences based upon an upward variance using the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors alone, which provides an alternative proper basis for the sentences imposed. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Shield" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against employees of DMH, alleging that defendants violated his constitutional rights by forcibly collecting his fingerprints, a mouth swab, and a blood sample while he was confined at Fulton Hospital as a civilly committed sexually violent predator. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court erred when it dismissed his claim that defendants’ warrantless, forcible drawing of his blood to produce a DNA profile violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment. The court concluded that defendants reasonably could have concluded that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless collection of a civilly committed person’s DNA profile, and defendant had a reduced expectation of privacy as a civilly committed sexually violent predator; courts generally have recognized the collection of a blood sample as a minimally intrusive mechanism for obtaining information from individuals in state custody; and the district court did not err when it found that defendants are entitled to qualified immunity with respect to this claim. Furthermore, the court concluded that plaintiff's bare assertion that all of the defendants simultaneously “physically assaulted and attacked him” fails to state a claim that those defendants violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Carter v. Huterson" on Justia Law