Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of aggravated sexual battery of a mentally incapacitated victim. Defendant began a term of supervised probation after his prison sentence which required that defendant attend a Sex Offender Treatment Program. During an interview in the program, defendant disclosed details about his sexual history, including his sexual contact with minors and commission of forcible sexual assaults, as well as his involvement in two murders. Defendant later plead guilty to violating the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 18 U.S.C. 2250, and the district court denied defendant's motion to exclude from consideration at sentencing his admissions of criminal activity made in the treatment program. Defendant argued that the statements he made were protected by the psychotherapist-patient privilege and the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The court concluded that defendant affirmatively waived any psychotherapist-patient privilege when he agreed as part of his conditions of probation in the prior case to the disclosure of any statements he made in the treatment program; the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination did not apply to those statements, because defendant voluntarily made the statements while participating in the treatment program; and therefore the district court did not err in considering defendant's statements at sentencing. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Lara" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion for post-conviction relief. Defendant's sentence included an enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1), based in part on his prior conviction for the Virginia crime of common law robbery as a qualifying predicate "violent felony." The court agreed with the district court's rejection of the government's procedural arguments because defendant sufficiently has shown that he relied on a new rule of constitutional law under Johnson v. United States. The court held, however, that defendant's conviction for Virginia common law robbery does not constitute a violent felony under the ACCA, because the full range of conduct covered by the Virginia crime does not necessarily include the use of "force capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person." Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "United States v. Winston" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his 188 month sentence after pleading guilty to four counts of possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon. Because the district court made it clear that it would have given defendant the same sentence if the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e), did not apply, and the sentence was substantively reasonable, the court concluded that any alleged guidelines calculation error was harmless. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. McDonald" on Justia Law

Defendant, a disbarred attorney, was convicted of mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft stemming from her scheme to defraud her client. On appeal, defendant argued that she was entitled to a Franks v. Delaware hearing because the client/witness's testimony called into question the validity of the warrant to search defendant's residence. The court concluded that the district court did not err in finding that defendant failed to make the requisite showing for a Franks hearing where defendant could not point to a false statement and defendant failed to establish the requisite scienter. The court also concluded that the district court did not err by applying a two-level enhancement for misrepresentation of a government agency under USSG 2B1.1(b)(9)(A); by applying a two-level sophisticated-means enhancement under USSG 2B1.1 cmt 9(B); and by sentencing defendant at the top end of the Guidelines range. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. White" on Justia Law

After defendant pled guilty to failure to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 18 U.S.C. 2250(a), the district court sentenced defendant to 15 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release. Defendant appealed the district court's imposition as a special condition of supervised release that he undergo a sex-offender evaluation. The court concluded that the district court acted well within its broad discretion by imposing the condition where it was reasonably related to the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of defendant, including his prior sex offense and the extraordinary steps he took to avoid registration and apprehension by law enforcement for many years; the condition was also reasonably related to the need to protect the public from further crimes of defendant, to provide defendant with needed treatment in the most effective manner, and to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct in the future; and the district court's approach of imposing a single condition, and declining to impose additional conditions unless the evaluation were to indicate that they are warranted, reflected the district court's measured judgment to impose conditions causing no greater a deprivation of liberty than was reasonably necessary to satisfy those factors. Because the sentence imposed was procedurally and substantively reasonable, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Douglas" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of federal drug and firearms offenses, appealed the denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion for habeas relief based on ineffective assistance of counsel. Specifically, petitioner claimed that his counsel's performance was deficient because she failed to bring to the attention of the trial court the fact that, before the trial began, a member of the jury approached petitioner's father while entering the courthouse and told him that "everything would be alright" and that he needed to give his son "a good kick in the butt," thereby allegedly demonstrating bias against petitioner. The court concluded that counsel's response fell within the range of competent representation required by the Sixth Amendment because the juror's alleged statement did not sufficiently indicate actual bias against petitioner but was instead ambiguous. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Powell" on Justia Law

Movant sought leave to file a second or successive 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition challenging his conviction for first-degree murder. The court found that when a prisoner's successful habeas petition results in a new, intervening judgment, the prisoner's first habeas petition to challenge that new judgment is not second or successive within the meaning of section 2244(b), regardless of whether the petition challenges the prisoner's sentence or underlying conviction. In this case, the petition is not second or successive because it will be the first to challenge the intervening judgment that was the basis for Movant's confinement. Accordingly, the court denied the motion to file a second or successive petition as unnecessary and directed the district court to consider Movant's second-in-time section 2254 petition as the first challenge to the new judgment. View "In Re: William Gray, Jr." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, currently confined as a sexually dangerous person, filed suit against BOP, alleging various claims related to BOP's failure to provide American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters for medical appointments and other important interactions, its refusal to provide him with access to a videophone, and its failure to otherwise accommodate his deafness. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of BOP. The court concluded that plaintiff's evidence was sufficient to satisfy the objective and subjective components of the deliberate-indifference inquiry. Therefore, the district court erred by granting summary judgment on plaintiff's claim that BOP failed to provide him with constitutionally adequate medical care. The court also concluded that the district court erred by granting summary judgment as to plaintiff's claim that he was unreasonably denied access to the TTY device. Finally, the court agreed with plaintiff that the district court erred by relying on BOP's voluntary, post-litigation actions to reject his remaining claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. View "Heyer v. U.S. Bureau of Prisons" on Justia Law

Defendants Hill and Dodwell pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute at least 500 grams of cocaine. On appeal, defendants challenged the district court's denial of their motion to suppress. The court affirmed the judgment based on the narrow ground that the traffic stop did not violate the court's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence at the time it occurred. The court concluded that the district court did not err in finding that, under existing precedent, any pre-ticket delay did not warrant suppression. The court also concluded that defendants waived their challenge to any post-ticket extension by failing to specifically object on those grounds before the district court. View "United States v. Hill" on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought an as-applied Second Amendment challenge to Maryland's firearms regulatory scheme, arguing that the scheme is unconstitutional as applied to him. Plaintiff is a convicted felon in Virginia who has had his civil rights restored by the Governor of Virginia and his firearms rights restored by the Virginia courts. Currently a resident of Maryland, plaintiff wants to obtain a permit for a handgun and possess a long gun, both of which he is unable to do in Maryland absent a full pardon from the Governor of Virginia. The district court dismissed his complaint for failure to state a claim. The court held that a state law felon cannot pass the first step of the United States v. Chester inquiry when bringing an as-applied challenge to a law disarming felons, unless that person has received a pardon or the law forming the basis of conviction has been declared unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful. The court further held that evidence of rehabilitation, the likelihood of recidivism, and the passage of time may not be considered at the first step of the Chester inquiry as a result. Therefore, the court concluded that plaintiff failed at step one of the Chester analysis. The court affirmed the judgment. View "Hamilton v. Pallozzi" on Justia Law