Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioner, convicted of murder and sentenced to death, appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The court agreed with the district court that petitioner failed to establish that the Georgia trial court unreasonably rejected his claim that trial counsel failed to investigate, develop, and present mitigating evidence at sentencing, or that petitioner was prejudiced by appellate counsel's failure to investigate and adequately present that claim during the unified appeal procedure. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Butts v. GDCP Warden" on Justia Law

Petitioner was sentenced to life imprisonment and chemical castration after he was convicted of burglary, aggravated kidnapping of a child, and two counts of capital sexual battery. The state court later granted petitioner's motion to correct an illegal sentence on the ground that the trial court failed to comply with the statutory prerequisites for chemical castration. In this appeal, petitioner challenged the district court's dismissal of his petition as second or successive under 28 U.S.C. 2244(b)(1). The court affirmed the dismissal of the petition as second or successive. In this case, because petitioner was not "in custody pursuant to," section 2254(b)(1), the consent order that he not undergo chemical castration did not trigger a new round of federal collateral review. View "Patterson v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to drug and firearm offenses, entering into a binding agreement with the government. At issue is whether the court should apply the rule of Marks v. United States to the splintered opinion in Freeman v. United States to determine whether a defendant who entered into a plea agreement that recommended a particular sentence as a condition of his guilty plea is eligible for a reduced sentence, 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2). The court agreed with the district court's determination that Justice Sotomayor's concurring opinion stated the holding in Freeman because she concurred in the judgment on the narrowest grounds, and the district court's denial of defendant's motion based on the reasoning of that concurring opinion. The court explained that, in this case, defendant was ineligible for a sentence reduction because he was not sentenced "based on a sentencing range," 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2), that has since been lowered. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Hughes" on Justia Law

Petitioner filed a petition for rehearing en banc, which also served under the court's rules as a petition for rehearing before the panel. The court granted the petition for rehearing to the panel to the extent that the court vacated its previous opinion and substituted in its place this one. Petitioner, convicted of battery and sexual battery of a five-year-old in Florida, appealed the dismissal of his habeas petition. The court granted him a certificate of appealability on the the issue of whether the district court improperly determined that his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition was time-barred, based on its finding that he was not entitled to equitable tolling. The court held that an attorney's negligence, even gross negligence, or misunderstanding about the law is not by itself a serious instance of attorney misconduct for equitable tolling purposes, even though it does violate the ABA model rules as all, or virtually all, attorney negligence does. Because petitioner showed, at most, that his failure to meet the filing deadline was the product of his attorney’s good faith but negligent or grossly negligent misunderstanding of the law, the district court properly dismissed the habeas petition as untimely. View "Cadet v. Florida Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of conspiracy and drug-related charges, appealed the district court's order denying his motion to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255. The court affirmed the district court's judgment affirming petitioner's convictions on Counts 14 and 17, and its finding that petitioner abandoned any challenge to Count 11. However, the court agreed with the parties and concluded that petitioner's conviction for conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine, Count 1, should be vacated. In this case, a police officer's false testimony was material to the government's case, and the government conceded that it cannot show that the perjured testimony did not have a substantial and injurious effect on the verdict. Therefore, the court vacated petitioner's conviction on Count 1 and remanded for resentencing. View "Phillips v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Georgia state prisoner, filed suit alleging that the grooming policy enforced in Georgia state prisons violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc et seq. Specifically, plaintiff contends that the GDOC substantially burdened his exercise of a sincerely held religious belief that Islam requires him to grow an uncut beard. The district court granted summary judgment for the GDOC. The court concluded that the Supreme Court's opinion in Holt v. Hobbs rendered the district court's analysis inadequate. The court vacated and remanded for further consideration because the district court never analyzed the substantial burden, compelling interest, or least restrictive means of plaintiff's case, and because the GDOC has revised its grooming policy since the district court rendered its decision. View "Smith v. Owens" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and possession with intent to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine. On appeal, defendant challenged the denial of his motion to suppress evidence. The district court found that the traffic stop that led to the discovery of the drugs was not an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The court reasoned that, under state law, the officer had a duty not to allow the driver or defendant, who were unlicensed, to drive the vehicle at issue; preventing them from driving off without a license is lawful enforcement of the law, not unlawful detention; and what prolonged the stop was not the officer's desire to search the vehicle but the fact that both occupants of it could not lawfully drive it away. Accordingly, the court concluded that the district court correctly determined that the seizure did not violate the Fourth Amendment and affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Vargas" on Justia Law

Defendants Votrobek and Castellanos were convicted of conspiring to distribute drugs; conspiring to launder money; and substantive charges of money laundering and maintaining a place for unlawful drug distribution. Defendants' convictions stemmed from their involvement in a "pill mill" business. The court rejected Votrobek's argument that his conspiracy charges in the Northern District of Georgia arose from the same conspiracy for which he was acquitted in the Middle District of Florida and thus are barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. Rather, based on (1) the absence of temporal overlap, (2) the lack of any common co-conspirators, (3) the additional substances distributed in Georgia, (4) the different overt acts, and (5) the entirely separate locations of the clinics, the court concluded the government has established the existence of two separate conspiracies. Therefore, Votrobek's conviction was not barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. The court rejected Castellanos' claims of error based on the district court's denial of his request for a Franks v. Delaware hearing where Castellanos failed to make a substantial showing that the agent's statements were knowingly and intentionally false or made in reckless disregard for the truth, and failed to show that the affidavit lacked probable cause absent the challenged material. Finally, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Castellanos' request to instruct the jury on the entrapment-by-estoppel defense where that issue was not properly before the jury. Accordingly, the court affirmed the convictions. View "United States v. Votrobek" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his 600 month sentence after pleading guilty to one count of production of child pornography and one count of receipt of child pornography. The court concluded that the district court did not err by applying a four-level enhancement under USSG 2G2.1(b)(4) for an offense that involves sadistic or masochistic conduct. The court explained that defendant's offense involved such conduct regardless of whether the conduct (among other things, whipping and bondage) was directed at him or the minor victim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Scheels" on Justia Law

Defendant contends that a Florida conviction for aggravated assault, Fla. Stat. 784.021, does not constitute a “crime of violence” under USSG. 2K2.1(a)(2) cmt. n.1. The court concluded, however, that defendant's argument is foreclosed by Turner v. Warden Coleman FCI, where Turner addressed the elements of the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(2)(B)(i), and that clause is identical to the elements clause of section 4B1.2(a)(1). Because Turner is binding, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Golden" on Justia Law