Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The government appealed the district court's grant of defendant's motion to suppress evidence found in a search of his residence. The warrant application sought authorization to search all vehicles and outbuildings located on or around the property. It identified the evidence to be seized as synthetic cannabinoids, also known as the controlled substance “K-2.” The court concluded that the magistrate had a substantial basis for determining probable cause existed, and the search warrant was valid. In this case, the court found support in United States v. Sibley for the Government’s argument in a case in which a district court upheld the lawfulness of a search of a defendant’s residence based on the applicability of the good faith exception. As in Sibley, the trash receptacle in the present case was not on defendant's property and was accessible to a number of individuals besides defendant. Temporal proximity between when the information in an affidavit is obtained and the issuance of the warrant is relevant indicia of probable cause. All of the officer's inspections revealed the same evidence and the affidavit included details about security cameras at the apartment and defendant's previous drug convictions. Those facts corroborated the belief that defendant was engaged in criminal activity at his residence, and are relevant in determining the existence of probable cause. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "United States v. Moore" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud, four counts of wire fraud, five counts of mail fraud, one count of conspiracy to obstruct a SEC investigation, one count of obstruction of an SEC investigation, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Defendant's convictions stemmed from his role as a banker in Antigua. On appeal, defendant raised ten issues. The court rejected defendant's claim that the district court lacked jurisdiction; the indictment was defective and was constructively amended at trial; the district court erred in denying his request for continuance; simultaneous civil and criminal proceedings constituted double jeopardy; authorities seized certain evidence in violation of the Fourth Amendment; the trial court erred in instructions to the jury; his sentence was based on improper enhancements; the district court was not impartial and showed favoritism to the government; cumulative error denied him a fair trial; and the government failed to provide exculpatory evidence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Stanford" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death, filed a motion for a certificate of appealability (COA) as to three issues. The court denied a COA for petitioner's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel regarding an expert witness where there is no reasonable probability that the expert's testimony would have helped the defense; denied a COA for petitioner's challenge to the denial of a jury instruction regarding the absence of mitigating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt because the argument is foreclosed by precedent; and denied a COA for petitioner's challenge to jury instructions that ten jurors must agree to a sentence of life imprisonment because binding circuit also forecloses this challenge. View "Carter v. Stephens" on Justia Law

Movant, convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death, requests authorization to file a successive 28 U.S.C. 2254 application to assert claims that he is intellectually disabled and ineligible for execution under Atkins v. Virginia, and that the Mississippi courts denied due process to him in the adjudication of his Atkins claim. The court concluded that movant has satisfied the prima facie standard for filing a successive section 2254 application. Atkins had not been decided when movant first filed his federal habeas petition and the court concluded that his first federal habeas petition was not an Atkins claim. In his state habeas proceedings, movant presented evidence that his IQ scores are within the range of significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning, as well as evidence of deficits in adaptive functioning and of the onset of intellectual disability before the age of 18. Accordingly, the court granted the motion. View "In Re: Ricky Chase" on Justia Law

Defendant, an alderman for the City of Canton, appealed his conviction and sentence for soliciting or accepting a bribe. The jury found that defendant agreed to accept several thousand dollars in exchange for influencing the award of a city ditch-spraying contract in 2012. The court rejected defendant's evidentiary challenges and concluded that the district court did not err in admitting the revenue ledger; even assuming that the ledger was inadmissible, however, the other evidence was sufficient to support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant received over $10,000 in federal funds in 2012; because the court determined that evidence of the land-sale bribe was relevant to defendant’s intent and met the requirements of Federal Rule of Evidence 403, the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting it; and the district court did not err by imposing a two-level sentencing enhancement for obstruction of justice based on defendant's alleged perjury at trial. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction and sentence. View "United States v. Smith" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed her conviction for illegal reentry in the United States as a previously removed alien. The court rejected defendant's claim that the IJ’s failure to make an express determination of voluntariness constituted a due process violation and concluded that such failure did not render her proceedings fundamentally unfair. Further, the court rejected defendant's contention that an ICE agent's misinformation about the possibility of obtaining relief rendered her waiver unknowing and involuntary because the court's precedent precludes defendant from demonstrating plain error. Therefore, defendant has not carried her burden of showing that the agent’s advice rendered her proceedings fundamentally unfair. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Cordova-Soto" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence after pleading guilty to possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. The district court sentenced defendant under the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1), to the mandatory-minimum sentence of 180 months of imprisonment and two years of supervised release. The court vacated and remanded for resentencing in light of the Supreme Court's intervening decision in Johnson v. United States, which held that the residual clause is unconstitutionally vague. View "United States v. Munoz-Navarro" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of murder, appealed the district court's denial of his petition for habeas relief. At the hearing for petitioner's application for habeas relief, petitioner's counsel asserted for the first time that three trial court errors combined to deprive petitioner of a fundamentally fair trial. The court held that petitioner's newly raised ground for relief from conviction was unexhausted in the state courts and procedurally barred from review in the federal courts. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief. View "Nickleson v. Stephens" on Justia Law

Defendants appealed the district court's order certifying a class of some 150,000 plaintiffs. Plaintiffs filed suit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1961-68, alleging that defendants induced plaintiffs to participate in an illegal pyramid scheme by misrepresenting that Ignite is a legitimate business opportunity, causing them to suffer monetary losses. The court vacated and remanded, concluding that the district court erred in certifying the class because common questions of law and fact will not predominate over individualized inquiries into causation and knowledge. View "Torres v. S.G.E. Management, L.L.C." on Justia Law

Defendants Haines, Porter, and Iturres-Bonilla were convicted of charges related to their involvement in a heroin ring. The court concluded that there was sufficient evidence to convict defendants of one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin and one count each of using a communication facility in facilitating the commission of that crime. Further, the court concluded that the challenged portions of the DEA agent's testimony that were admitted in error were harmless. The court also concluded that the district court did not plainly err in sentencing Iturres-Bonilla. However, the court concluded that the district court improperly sentenced Haines and Porter based upon the conspiracy-wide drug quantity. Accordingly, the court affirmed defendants' convictions and Iturres-Bonilla's sentence. The court vacated Haines' and Porter's sentences and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Haines" on Justia Law