Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant pled guilty to intent to distribute cocaine base. As part of the agreement, the Government said it would recommend defendant be sentenced at the bottom of the applicable Guidelines range. Because the Government failed to make that recommendation, defendant appealed. The court held that, when the Government breaches a plea agreement, a defendant has the right (with a caveat the court discussed) to have his chosen remedy accepted, either specific performance of the plea agreement and resentencing before a different judge, or withdrawal of the guilty plea. Regardless of whether a breach must be material before a defendant is allowed to elect a remedy, the court concluded that the breach here was material. The court vacated and remanded for defendant to decide whether to withdraw his plea or be resentenced. View "United States v. Williams" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to possession with the intent to distribute a controlled substance and was sentenced to 63 months in prison, followed by four years of supervised release. Defendant filed a pro se motion for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2) based on the retroactive Amendment 782 to the Sentencing Guidelines. The district court denied the motion. Because defendant's sentence was not “based on” the quantity of cocaine involved or the advisory guideline range, the district court had no authority to reduce it under section 3582(c)(2). Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's section 3582(c)(2) motion. The court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Benitez" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the DEA, seeking to set aside the 2006 forfeiture of more than $7,000, and citing 28 U.S.C. 1331 and Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41. The district court granted summary judgment and dismissed the action as untimely under the statute of limitations period of 18 U.S.C. 983(e). The court then liberally construed plaintiff's motion to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP) on appeal as raising equitable tolling. The court concluded, however, that it need not decide whether equitable tolling applies to a statute such as 18 U.S.C. 983(e) that itself seems designed to cut off rights in full after a lengthy period of time for a person who failed to receive the requisite statutory notice. In this case, plaintiff was not diligent in pursuing his rights where he waited over two years before inquiring into the status of the property at issue. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. The court denied the parties' motions to supplement the record. View "Vazquez v. DEA" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for attempted production of child pornography. The court need not and does not decide whether defendant properly preserved his objection to the sufficiency of the evidence because the court concluded that his challenge fails even under the less deferential standard of de novo review. In this case, the jury had sufficient evidence to infer that defendant sought to encourage the victim to take and send newly-created pictures of his genitalia, which would satisfy the statute. Therefore, there was sufficient evidence to convict defendant. Even assuming that the FBI agent's testimony stating that defendant sexually exploited children was impermissible, defendant failed to show plain error. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. McGee" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine and conspiracy to possess and distribute pseudoephedrine. Defendant filed a pro se 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion, arguing that he did not intelligently waive his right to appellate counsel and seeking a new direct appeal. Adopting the recommendation of the magistrate judge, the district court granted the motion. The court vacated the district court's section 2255 judgment and dismissed this second direct appeal. The court concluded that a criminal defendant is not entitled to two appeals. In this case, the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation failed to identify any jurisdiction or authority for its review and abrogation of the court's preceding order, which found that defendant “clearly and unequivocally waived his right to appellate counsel.” Neither the district court nor defendant point to any authority that would authorize the district court to grant his motion based on an asserted error in the court's prior determination that defendant could proceed pro se on appeal. Therefore, the court dismissed the appeal View "United States v. Rodriguez" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of sex trafficking of children in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1591. The court joined the Second Circuit in concluding that, under the version of section 1591(c) applicable to defendant, the Government “need not prove any mens rea with regard to the defendant’s awareness of the victim’s age if the defendant had a reasonable opportunity to observe the victim.” Given that Congress can - and often does - reduce or eliminate scienter requiring knowledge of a minor victim’s age in sex crimes, the court held that defendant's conviction under section 1591(c) did not violate his due process rights. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Copeland" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence after pleading guilty to one count of transportation of an alien within the United States by means of a motor vehicle for purposes of financial gain. The court affirmed the district court’s assessment of the enhancement under USSG 2L1.1(b)(5)(B) for use of a dangerous weapon based on defendant’s deployment of caltrops (metal spikes that alien and drug traffickers often deploy during pursuits to puncture the tires of police units). Because the court concluded that the district court properly applied the adjustment under section 2L1.1(b)(5)(B), the court also concluded that the district court was right to correct its error in calculating defendant’s total offense level and advisory guidelines range by vacating the initial sentence and resentencing him. View "United States v. Olarte-Rojas" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for sixteen counts of wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. 1343. Defendant's conviction stemmed from his involvement in a scheme to obtain government procurement contracts set aside by the Small Business Administration for minority-owned small businesses. The court concluded that sufficient evidence supports the convictions. However, the court concluded that government contracts awarded through an affirmative action contracting program are not “government benefits” under USSG 2B1.1 cmt. n.3(F)(ii), such that procurement frauds involving those contracts are properly treated under the special government benefits rule for loss calculation rather than under the general rule. Therefore, the district court should have applied the general rule for loss calculation in this case. The court concluded that the loss amount should have reflected not the total contract price, but rather the contract price less the fair market value of services rendered by the Joint Venture to the procuring agencies. By treating the entire face value of the contracts as loss for purposes of section 2B1.1 and not deducting the fair market value of services rendered by the Joint Venture, the district court procedurally erred in calculating the Guidelines range in this case. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Harris" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine. Because he agreed to waive his right to appeal, the government recommended that the district court grant a one-level reduction of his offense level under U.S.S.G. 5K2.0. The Sentencing Commission then amended the Sentencing Guidelines to reduce most drug-related base offense levels by two; that amendment later became retroactively applicable to inmates, like defendant, who were sentenced before the amendment took effect. The district court granted defendant's motion to modify his sentence to take advantage of the amendment, finding that his total offense level was now 33 and sentenced defendant to 135 months. Defendant appealed, arguing that the district court not only should have reduced his total offense level to 33 but also should have re-imposed the downward departure under USSG 5K2.0. The court rejected defendant's argument, concluding that the Sentencing Guidelines make clear that, in granting his 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2) motion, the district court was not authorized to re-impose the downward departure. Because defendant did not receive a reduction for substantial assistance, the district court could not reduce his sentence further by applying the section 5K2.0 departure it had previously applied. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Contreras" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to illegal reentry after deportation and subsequently challenged the district court's application of a sixteen-level sentence enhancement under USSG 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) based on his prior Georgia aggravated assault conviction. The court has held in a series of unpublished decisions that the Georgia offense of aggravated assault is a crime of violence under section 2L1.2 where each decision, upon comparison of the Georgia crime and the generic crime under the common sense approach, confirms that defendant’s conviction qualifies as a crime of violence under section 2L1.2. Therefore, the court court affirmed the judgment, concluding that defendant's conviction under Georgia Code 16-5-21(a)(2) constitutes a section 2L1.2 enumerated crime of violence. View "United States v. Torres-Jaime" on Justia Law