Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant filed a 28 U.S.C. 2255 petition seeking to vacate his conviction and sentence based on the ineffective assistance of counsel. Defendant alleged that trial counsel failed to notify him of a sentencing enhancement that ultimately increased his sentence and, but for this failure, he would have accepted a plea agreement with the government and received a reduced sentence. The district court denied the petition. In this case, the district court rejected the magistrate judge’s credibility findings, made after an evidentiary hearing, in holding that defendant was not prejudiced by counsel’s ineffective assistance without holding its own evidentiary hearing. Therefore, the court vacated and remanded for the district court to conduct its own evidentiary hearing or to accept and draw the appropriate inferences from the magistrate judge's credibility findings. View "United States v. Scribner, II" on Justia Law

Petitioner applied for a certificate of appealability (COA) to appeal the denial of his habeas petition, claiming that Martinez v. Ryan and Trevino v. Thaler entitled him to relief from his death sentence based on the ineffective assistance of his trial counsel (IATC) in failing to investigate and develop evidence of intellectual disability. The court concluded that, given trial counsel’s investigation and reliance on reasonable expert evaluations, petitioner cannot overcome the strong presumption that counsel’s representation fell within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance. Thus, the court held that petitioner fails to present a substantial IATC claim and the court denied the COA. View "Segundo v. Davis" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for conspiracy to commit a drug trafficking crime, felon in possession of a firearm, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. The court affirmed the denial of the three motions to suppress, concluding that the good faith exception applies to the disputed dog sniffs where they were "close enough to the line of validity" that an objectively reasonable officer would not have realized that the Gray Wolf Trail and Winterwood Lane warrants were tainted. The court also concluded that there was sufficient evidence to convict defendant of all three counts. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Holley, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to illegal reentry and was sentenced to 48 months in prison. On appeal, defendant contends that his Florida conviction of attempted second degree murder cannot be the basis of a sixteen-level crime-of-violence (COV) sentence enhancement. Concluding that defendant preserved error, the court applied de novo review to his claim of procedural error. On the merits, the court concluded that the Florida offense does not qualify as an enumerated offense under USSG 2L1.2 cmt. n.1(B)(iii) and may not serve as the basis of a COV enhancement. Because the error was not harmless, the court vacated and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Hernandez-Montes" on Justia Law

Petitioner, an American citizen and national, was convicted of homicide and injuries in Mexico. Pursuant to the Treaty on Execution of Penal Sentences, petitioner was transferred from Mexico to the United States. At issue is the USPC's contest of the court's jurisdiction and petitioner's assertion that the USPC’s determination of his release date was substantively unreasonable, in light of his claim that it failed to account for the abuse he suffered while imprisoned in Mexico. Because petitioner challenges the substantive reasonableness of his sentence based on the USPC’s refusal to vary downward, the court concluded that it has jurisdiction to review his claim. On the merits, the court concluded that petitioner failed to overcome the presumption of reasonableness for his within-Guidelines sentence of 204 months in prison. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Gomez v. USPC" on Justia Law

Petitioner conceded removeability, but cancellation as a nonpermanent resident under 8 U.S.C. 1229b(b)(1). At issue is whether petitioner's conviction for a prior Texas misdemeanor assault qualifies as a "crime of moral turpitude" that makes him ineligible for cancellation. The Supreme Court held in Mathis v. United States that, under the modified categorical approach, a court may look to certain documents, including the indictment and the judgment, to narrow an offense that otherwise would not be a categorical match with an enumerated offense. With Mathis holding that a statute like Texas’s assault offense that merely offers alternative means of committing an offense does not allow application of the modified categorical approach, the court is back to the general categorical inquiry about which the parties, the immigration judge, and the Board agree. Texas’s assault statute can be committed by mere reckless conduct and thus does not qualify as a crime involving moral turpitude, which requires a more culpable mental state. Therefore, the court vacated and remanded for reconsideration. View "Gomez-Perez v. Lynch" on Justia Law

Petitioner seeks a certificate of appealability (COA) to challenge the district court's dismissal, on the pleadings and without an evidentiary hearing, of his habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. 2254. Petitioner claimed that he was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel when his trial counsel allegedly failed to adequately investigate and present mitigation evidence at the punishment phase of his capital murder trial. The court concluded that reasonable jurists could debate whether the district court correctly dismissed his habeas claim with respect to potential evidence of his fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) or, more broadly, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD); reasonable jurists would agree that the district court erred in prematurely dismissing that claim; but no reasonable jurist could debate whether the district court erred in dismissing his habeas claim with respect to his additional character witness testimony that is not relevant to an FASD diagnosis or whether the district court erred by failing to hold an evidentiary hearing before its dismissal on the pleadings. Accordingly, the court granted in part and denied in part the COA. View "Trevino v. Davis" on Justia Law

Defendant plead guilty to being an alien who knowingly and unlawfully entered and was found in the United States following deportation. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court committed reversible error by applying a sixteen-level sentencing enhancement based on his prior conviction of child molestation. The court rejected defendant's contention that this appeal is not controlled by the court's precedent in United States v. Olalde-Hernandez. The court held that Clemens v. State does not prohibit conduct that is otherwise permitted under the court's interpretation of USSG 2L1.2, nor does it alter the court's reading of Ga. Code Ann. 16-6-4(a) or require the court to reconsider its holding in Olalde-Hernandez. Therefore, the court found that the district court’s application of section 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) does not constitute error and the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Puga-Yanez" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty without a plea agreement to possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. Defendant argued that the district court plainly erred when it accepted his plea because there was an inadequate factual basis for the conviction. In this case, defendant possessed the firearms in his residence along with a substantial amount of drugs. Furthermore, defendant's possession of the firearms was illegal because he was a convicted felon at the time. In light of these facts, as well as the number and type of firearms seized from defendant’s residence combined with the fact that he was a methamphetamine supplier with a large amount of methamphetamine at his residence, the district court's acceptance of defendant's guilty plea was not clear error. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Walker" on Justia Law

The opinion issued June 29, 2016 is withdrawn by the panel, and the following is issued in its place. Defendant appealed his 34-month sentence after pleading guilty to harboring undocumented aliens for financial gain. The court concluded that it is unnecessary to resolve whether the plain error standard of review applies in the present circumstances because defendant fails to demonstrate error even under the less stringent clear error standard; it is unnecessary to resolve whether Amendment 794 was a substantive change or instead only clarifying because even if it were applied retroactively, it would not affect defendant's sentence; and, even assuming, without deciding that Amendment 794 is “clarifying” and should be considered on appeal, it does not affect the outcome in this case. Therefore, the court concluded that the district court did not err in concluding that defendant was neither a “minor” nor a “minimal” participant eligible for an USSG 3B1.2 reduction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Gomez-Valle" on Justia Law