Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting murder and aiding and abetting in the carrying and use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence causing death. The district court imposed a high-end guideline sentence of 322 months, which was forty-six months longer than the term of imprisonment recommended by the parties in the plea agreement. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the district court did not commit plain error in failing to apprise Defendant of the consequences of his guilty plea at the change-of-plea hearing; and (2) Defendant’s sentence was both procedurally and substantively reasonable. View "United States v. Rivera-Clemente" on Justia Law

Appellant was civilly committed as a sexually dangerous person. When a forensic psychologist concluded that Appellant was no longer sexually dangerous, Appellant moved for a hearing to determine whether he satisfied the criteria for release under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. After a hearing, the district court concluded that Appellant remained sexually dangerous and, thus, subject to continued civil commitment. At issue on appeal was whether the government or the committed person bears the burden of proof at a release hearing held pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 4247(h). The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the burden of proof rests on the committed person to show by a preponderance of the evidence that he has achieved the capacity to safely reenter the community; and (2) in this case, Appellant failed to carry his burden of proof. View "United States v. Wetmore" on Justia Law

Eurie Stamps, Sr., an innocent, elderly, African-American man, was shot by Paul Duncan, a local police officer, during a SWAT team raid executing a search warrant for drugs and drug-related paraphernalia belonging to two drug dealers thought to reside in Stamps’s home. The co-administrators of Stamps’s estate sued the Town of Framingham and Duncan, arguing that Duncan violated Stamps’s constitutional right against unreasonable seizure when he pointed a loaded semi-automatic rifle at Stamps’s head, with the safety off and a finger on the trigger, even though Stamps was compliant and posed no known threat to the officers. Duncan filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that he was entitled to qualified immunity because the shooting was an accident and not a violation of clearly established law. The district court denied the motion, ruling that a reasonable jury could find that Duncan had violated Stamps’s Fourth Amendment rights and that the law was sufficiently clearly established to put Duncan on notice that his actions were not constitutionally permissible. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that Duncan, in the situation at issue, was on notice that his actions could be violative of Stamps’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force. View "Stamps v. Town of Framingham" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of conspiring to possess and aiding and abetting to possess with intent to distribute five kilos or more of cocaine. Defendant was sentenced to 240 months in prison and ten years of supervised release. Defendant appealed, arguing that the government failed to present sufficient evidence that Defendant knowingly joined a conspiracy or knowingly aided and abetted other individuals in committing a crime. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that there was sufficient evidence in the record to allow a rational factfinder to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant committed the charged crime. View "United States v. Maymi-Maysonet" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of possession of child pornography. Defendant appealed, arguing that the district court erred in refusing to suppress evidence that had been gathered in a police search of his home and computer. The search was conducted pursuant to a warrant issued by a magistrate, who found probable cause based on the affidavit of a state trooper that relied on information obtained from an informant. The First Circuit withheld and final ruling on the denial of the motion to suppress and remanded the case for further findings, holding that the district court erred in ruling as a matter of law that a police officer affiant never has a duty to make further inquiry into the credibility of an informant before presenting to a magistrate a warrant application. After conducting further proceedings on remand, the district court made additional findings and again denied Defendant’s motion to suppress, concluding that the warrant affidavit established probable cause. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the showing of probable cause was not vitiated when the district court further reformed the trooper’s affidavit. View "United States v. Tanguay" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of the first-degree murder of his wife. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) affirmed. Thereafter, Defendant filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court, alleging that the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction and that the admission of statements that the victim made to her father violated Defendant’s rights under the Confrontation Clause. The district court denied the petition. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that Defendant did not prove that the SJC acted “contrary to” or unreasonably applied “clearly established Federal law” under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. View "Linton v. Saba" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute narcotics. Defendant was sentenced to seventy months in prison and eight years of supervised release. While Defendant was on supervised release, he violated the terms of his release by engaging in conduct that would warrant a Grade C violation of his conditions of supervised release. The government countered that Defendant had also engaged in more serious offenses which would constitute a Grade A violation. The district court concluded that there was sufficient evidence to find a Grade A violation but nonetheless classified Defendant’s conduct as a Grade C violation, which entitles a district court to exercise its discretion to revoke supervised release. The court subsequently imposed a three-year term of imprisonment. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the district court did not commit plain error in admitting hearsay testimony at the show cause hearing; (2) the district court did not err in revoking the term of Defendant’s supervised release; and (3) Defendant’s three-year sentence was reasonable. View "United States v. Mulero-Diaz" on Justia Law

Richard Schiffmann and Stephen Cummings were officers of ICOA, Inc. (ICOA), a corporation that struggled to stay current on federal trust fund tax - or payroll tax - obligations. After Schiffmann and Cummings were fired, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) made trust fund recovery penalty assessments against Schiffmann and Cummings. Schiffman filed suit seeking to recover the sums previously seized from him and to nullify the assessments. The government counterclaimed against Schiffman, Cummings, and others seeking to recover the remainder of the overdue taxes and penalties. Cummings, in turn, counterclaimed against the government seeking to nullify the assessments against him. The district court entered summary judgment for the government on its counterclaims and on the claims asserted by Schiffmann and Cummings, concluding that, as a matter of law, Schiffmann and Cummings were responsible persons who had acted willfully in not paying ICOA’s trust fund taxes. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in concluding that Schiffmann and Cummings were responsible persons who had willfully caused ICOA to shirk its payroll tax obligations. View "Schiffmann v. United States" on Justia Law

Defendant was the mastermind of a Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 230 investors out of over $22 million. Defendant pled guilty to bank fraud and to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The district court sentenced Defendant to concurrent terms of sixty months’ imprisonment on the wire fraud conspiracy count and 242 months on the bank fraud count. Restitution was also ordered in the amount of $10,629,021. Defendant appealed, arguing that his 242-month sentence was too high. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the 242-month sentence was both procedurally and substantively reasonable. View "United States v. Reyes-Rivera" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted of first degree murder, armed assault with intent to murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and the unlicensed possession of a firearm. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed the convictions. Defendant subsequently filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in a federal district court, claiming, inter alia, that evidence provided by an expert witness who relied on and tendered work done by a non-testifying witness violated his right to confrontation under the Sixth Amendment. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the admission of the expert witness’s opinion did not provide a basis for habeas corpus relief; and (2) the admission of the disputed evidence provided by the expert witness violated clearly established law under the Confrontation Clause, but the error was harmless because the evidence was cumulative and because the properly admitted evidence against Defendant was overwhelming. View "Barbosa v. Mitchell" on Justia Law