Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of unlawfully possessing a firearm and was sentenced as an armed career criminal under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e), based on his prior South Carolina drug convictions. The court affirmed its holding in United States v. Williams, directing that courts evaluating whether a prior conviction qualifies as a predicate for a federal sentence enhancement look to the statutory penalty for the prior conviction. In Williams, Youthful Offender Act (YOA), S.C. Code Ann. 24-19-50, offenses can qualify as ACCA predicates because the maximum statutory penalty for the prior conviction is unaffected by the state court’s exercise of its discretion to impose a sentence of six years or less in custody. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Sellers" on Justia Law

Kamal Zaki Qazah and his uncle Nasser Kamal Alquza appealed their convictions and sentences for conspiring to receive and transport stolen cigarettes in interstate commerce, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. In addition, Qazah was convicted of receiving cigarettes purportedly stolen in interstate commerce. The court affirmed the convictions, rejecting Alquza's challenge to the denial of his motion to suppress evidence recovered from a search of his house, as well as several other evidentiary rulings made at trial. However, the court vacated defendants’ sentences and remanded for resentencing, allowing the district court to expand its inquiry into the intended victim or victims of the relevant offenses and to recalculate defendants’ sentencing ranges based on its findings and conclusions about the amount of loss that they intended to result from their commission of the offense or offenses. View "United States v. Qazah" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction of knowingly employing, using, persuading, inducing, enticing, or coercing a minor in sexually explicit conduct, for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of that conduct, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2251(a). The court held that the government adduced insufficient evidence to show that defendant acted for the purpose of producing a visual depiction. In this case, defendant's use of a cell phone to take pictures does not support a finding of purpose. Therefore, the district court erred in denying defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal. The court reversed and vacated the conviction. View "United States v. Palomino-Coronado" on Justia Law

Defendant plead guilty to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and was sentenced to 188 months' imprisonment under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e). On appeal, defendant argued that because the predicate offenses were not charged in the indictment in this case, his conviction for simply violating section 922(g)(1) did not support the sentence imposed, violating his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. Defendant also argued that his 1998 South Carolina convictions for second-degree burglary did not qualify as “violent felonies” under the ACCA. Although the court concluded that defendant's first argument is foreclosed by Almendarez-Torres v. United States, the court concluded that the evidence that the government offered with respect to at least four of his five burglary convictions did not show that they qualified as “violent felonies” under ACCA because the government was unable to demonstrate that the object of each conviction was necessarily a building or structure, as distinct from a vehicle, boat, or airplane. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction but vacated the sentence, remanding for resentencing. View "United States v. McLeod" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of crimes related to his armed robbery of a Domino's Pizza, challenged the district court's application of a sentencing enhancement for obstructing the administration of justice under U.S.S.G. 3C1.1. The court concluded that the district court did not erroneously find that defendant knowingly presented false testimony at his trial. In this case, the district court found that the alibi testimony from defendant's girlfriend and her mother, placing him in a different location than the crime scene, could only have been patently false. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's application of the sentencing enhancement. View "United States v. Andrews" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the police department and three of its former detectives for damages under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the police and prosecution withheld evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland during plaintiff's 1982 murder trial. The district court dismissed the case under Heck v. Humphrey. The court affirmed the judgment, concluding that this case involves section 1983 claims that are predicated on alleged Brady violations which would, if proven, necessarily imply the invalidity of plaintiff's convictions. Those convictions have not been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal, or called into question by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus. Therefore, under Heck, they may not be collaterally attacked through section 1983 now. The court concluded that the fact that plaintiff is no longer in custody does not change this result. Finally, plaintiff has identified no impediment to habeas access warranting an expansion of the Heck exception. View "Griffin v. Baltimore Police Dept." on Justia Law

The Government appealed the district court's grant of defendant's motion to suppress evidence stemming from a warrantless search of defendant's vehicle. The court concluded that the absence of probable cause to arrest defendant for any offense at the moment the trooper decided to continue the search without defendant's consent renders the search incident to arrest exception inapplicable in this case. The court also concluded that the automobile exception is inapplicable in this case because the exception requires that the police have probable cause, not just reasonable articulable suspicion. Finally, the same credibility determination by the district court that precludes application of the search incident to arrest exception also thwarts the Government’s collective-knowledge argument. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Patiutka" on Justia Law

After defendant plead guilty to a three-count indictment for drug-related offenses, defendant appealed the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence. The court concluded that, viewed in their totality, the factors cited by the district court do not amount to reasonable suspicion to justify defendant’s seizure. In this case, the officer did not articulate why defendant's explanation for his presence in the parking lot and the activity accompanying it - both seemingly innocent acts - were likely to be indicative of some more sinister activity. Ultimately, this seizure had no connection with the individual seized, the activity he was involved in, his mannerisms, or his suspiciousness; rather the seizure was a mere happenstance of geography. Therefore, the district court erred in denying the motion to suppress and the court reversed the judgment, vacated the conviction and sentence, and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Slocumb" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of three counts including capital murder for intentionally killing a police officer, appealed the district court's dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254. Petitioner alleged several claims, including a claim that a juror was "actually biased," in violation of his right to trial by an impartial jury. The court concluded that the district court's decision was not a final order over which the court has jurisdiction because the district court did not resolve this claim. Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal and remanded. View "Porter v. Zook" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. On appeal, he challenged his 188-month sentence as substantively unreasonable. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in considering defendant's violent juvenile crimes; the increase in the criminal history category does not raise the issue of “unwarranted sentencing disparities” identified in United States v. Howard; the record does not support defendant's argument that the third sale was a replacement, nor would the district court have abused its discretion by basing the base offense level calculation on seven kilograms even if it did constitute a replacement; and the proper avenue for a request for application of Amendment 782 is a motion under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2), which would allow the district court to assess in the first instance whether and to what extent the amendment may affect defendant’s sentence. Accordingly, the court concluded that the sentence was substantively reasonable and affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. McCoy" on Justia Law