Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioner, convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, appealed the district court's dismissal of his 28 U.S.C. 2241 petition for lack of jurisdiction. The court agreed that the district court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the petition because petitioner failed to establish jurisdiction under the savings clause in section 2255(e). Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the petition. View "McCarthan v. Warden, FCC Coleman" on Justia Law

Appellant, an Alabama death row inmate convicted of rape, burglary, and murder, challenged the district court's denial of his emergency motion to stay execution. Appellant also filed an emergency motion for a stay of execution. The court affirmed the trial court's denial of his motion for a stay where appellant had not shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of his Eighth Amendment claim because: (1) he failed to show an available and feasible alternative method of execution, as required by controlling case law; and (2) he failed to show that he brought this claim within the applicable two-year statute of limitations. The district court determined that the balance of equities weighed against granting a stay because appellant unreasonably delayed bringing his lawsuit until it was too late to resolve the merits of his claim without staying his execution. The court denied the emergency motion to stay. View "Brooks v. Warden" on Justia Law

Defendant plead guilty to possession of a firearm as a convicted felon. The district court sentenced defendant to the mandatory minimum sentence of 180 months in prison pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e). While defendant's appeal was pending, the Supreme Court invalidated the residual clause of the ACCA as unconstitutionally vague in Johnson v. United States. The government concedes that after Johnson, defendant’s prior convictions for fleeing or attempting to elude, under Fla. Stat. 316.1935, are no longer ACCA-qualifying offenses and cannot form the basis for a sentencing enhancement under the ACCA. The court agreed and concluded that the district court erred in sentencing defendant under the residual clause. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Adams" on Justia Law

Petitioner filed a pro se application seeking a second or successive 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his federal sentence. Petitioner was sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e), based in part on his prior Florida conviction for battery on a law enforcement officer. Petitioner's application relies on Johnson v. United States. However, the court recently held that Johnson has not been made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court and it cannot be the basis for a second or successive section 2255 motion. Further, petitioner's remaining claim, based on a 2010 case, Johnson v. United States, merely interprets the text of the ACCA and does not announce a new rule of constitutional law. Accordingly, the court denied the application. View "In re: Kendall Starks" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed from the district court's order denying his "Motion to Compel Compliance" with a plea agreement. The court concluded that there is no apparent jurisdictional basis for defendant's motion. Defendant brought his motion under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c), but that rule governs the procedures for negotiating plea agreements; it is not a grant of jurisdiction. Defendant's motion to compel was not an appeal from his earlier conviction, and even if it had been the district court is not an appellate court, so it had no appellate jurisdiction over the matter. Further, defendant cannot meet the requirements of a writ of mandamus. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. View "United States v. Salmona" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of capital murder in the course of first-degree rape and first-degree robbery, appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Petitioner contended that counsel was ineffective during the penalty phase of his trial by not investigating and presenting readily available mitigating evidence regarding his traumatizing childhood, mental deficiencies, and steroid abuse. In this case, the especially gruesome nature of the murder, petitioner's efforts to thwart the police investigation, and petitioner's prior double conviction convinced the court that fairminded jurists could agree with the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals that, after reweighing the aggravating factors against the totality of evidence in mitigation, there is no “reasonable probability” that at least two jurors would have changed their recommendation and the sentencing judge would have ruled differently. Therefore, the court held that the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals did not render a decision contrary to or resulting in an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law when it determined that petitioner failed to establish prejudice under Strickland v. Washington. View "Ray v. AL, Dep't of Corrections" on Justia Law

Petitioner filed an application seeking an order authorizing the district court to consider a second or successive petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2244(b)(3)(A). Petitioner alleges that his claims rely on two separate "areas" of newly discovered evidence: first, in March 2014, he learned that an Ohio inmate named Steven Kasler had confessed to the murder for which petitioner was convicted, and second, petitioner claims that a 2014 report from the DOJ demonstrated that Michael Malone, a former forensic analyst with the FBI, “likely” compromised the physical evidence in his case. The court concluded that, because petitioner's claims do not meet the statutory criteria for relief, and because he is in fact subject to the requirements of section 2244(b)(2), his application must be denied. The court also denied petitioner's motion for stay of execution. View "In re: Oscar Bolin, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to 21 counts of mail fraud, 41 counts of wire fraud, and 4 counts of filing a false tax return. On appeal, defendant challenged his 53 month sentence. The court concluded that the district court did not err in refusing to group defendant's tax offense counts with his wire and mail fraud counts under either (c) or (d) of U.S.S.G. 3D1.2. The court agreed with the majority of circuits and concluded that fraud counts and tax offense counts involving the proceeds of the fraud should not be group together under subsection (c) or (d) of U.S.S.G. 3D1.2. Accordingly, the court affirmed the sentence. View "United States v. Doxie" on Justia Law

Defendants Nelson and Snow appealed their sentences imposed under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1), after they each pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Both defendants have prior convictions for third-degree burglary under Alabama law. The court concluded that defendants' third-degree burglary convictions do not qualify as a violent felony under the elements-based definition; the court has already held that convictions under the same Alabama statute do not qualify under the enumerated-offenses definition; and the Supreme Court declared the residual clause of the ACCA to be unconstitutionally vague in Johnson v. United States. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentences and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Nelson" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the district court's dismissal of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion as untimely. The court concluded that, because petitioner did not satisfy the requirements of Rule 3(d) of the Rules Governing Section 2255 Proceedings for the United States District Courts, he cannot avail himself of the prison mailbox rule and the district court did not err in dismissing his section 2255 motion as time-barred. View "Daniels v. United States" on Justia Law