Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioner, convicted of murdering his infant daughter, appealed the district court's grant of the state's motion to dismiss his second federal habeas petition. In regard to petitioner's claims of ineffective assistance of counsel concerning errors related to the use of expert testimony, the court concluded that these claims have already been adjudicated and petitioner's new arguments failed to present a distinct claim for relief. In regard to petitioner's due process challenge based on false testimony, the court concluded that petitioner cannot obtain relief under 28 U.S.C. 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii) on the theory that the prosecution introduced false testimony at trial where he presents a battle between experts who have different opinions about how the baby died. Finally, in regard to claims based on changes in scientific knowledge, the court joined the Third Circuit in recognizing that habeas petitioners can allege a constitutional violation from the introduction of flawed expert testimony at trial if they show that the introduction of this evidence “undermined the fundamental fairness of the entire trial.” In this case, petitioner failed to show that permitting the prosecution’s experts to testify based on a triad-only theory of shaken baby syndrome (SBS) was so extremely unfair that it violated the fundamental conceptions of justice. Petitioner failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable factfinder would have found him guilty but for the introduction of purportedly flawed SBS testimony. Nor could petitioner obtain relief if the court were to decouple his claim of actual innocence from any due process violation and repackage it as a freestanding “actual innocence” claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Gimenez v. Ochoa" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss an information charging him with being found in the United States after removal, in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326. Petitioner argued that his underlying deportation was invalid because his prior conviction for possession for sale of a controlled substance in violation of California Health & Safety Code 11378 was not an aggravated felony. The court concluded that petitioner's removal order was validly premised on his conviction for violating Section 11378 where the district court properly applied the categorical approach to section 11378 and petitioner's overbreadth arguments are unavailing. The court correctly concluded that although section 11378 was not categorically an aggravated felony, application of the modified categorical approach resulted in a determination that petitioner was indeed convicted of an aggravated felony. Petitioner’s reliance on the federal regulation excluding a particular product containing L-meth from inclusion in the federal schedules is not persuasive, because petitioner failed to show a “realistic probability” of prosecution for possession of the excluded product. The court also concluded, for the same reasons, that the district court correctly imposed a sentencing enhancement for drug trafficking. Accordingly, the court affirmed the criminal judgment and remanded for correction of the judgment. View "United States v. Vega-Ortiz" on Justia Law

A jury convicted petitioner of unlawful possession but acquitted him on two charged counts of second degree assault. The jury, however, impliedly acquitted petitioner on the first degree assault, and convicted him instead of the lesser-included offense of second degree assault. The Washington Court of Appeals reversed the conviction and, on remand, petitioner pled guilty to second degree assault. Petitioner subsequently filed a 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas petition, arguing that he did not validly waive counsel and that the State violated double jeopardy principles on remand. The district court initially dismissed the habeas petition, but then granted a motion for reconsideration, vacated its prior judgment, and granted habeas relief. The court held that a motion for reconsideration pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) filed within twenty-eight days of judgment that raises a new claim, including one based on newly discovered evidence or an intervening change in substantive law, is subject to AEDPA’s second-or-successive petition bar. However, a timely motion for reconsideration that asks the district court to reconsider a previously adjudicated claim on grounds already raised should not be construed as a second or successive habeas petition subject to AEDPA’s additional restrictions. In this case, the court held that petitioner's motion for reconsideration properly asked the district court to reconsider the merits of two claims that were raised in his initial habeas petition. Therefore, the court concluded that the district court had jurisdiction to consider petitioner's post-judgment motion in the first instance without seeking pre-certification by the Court of Appeals under 28 U.S.C. 2244(b)(3)(A). On the merits, the court held that the district court abused its discretion by granting reconsideration and awarding habeas relief on his waiver of counsel claim. Finally, the district court erred by granting petitioner habeas relief on his double jeopardy claim. Accordingly, the court reversed, vacated, and remanded with instructions. View "Rishor v. Ferguson" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence after being convicted of distributing crack cocaine. The court vacated the sentence because it found that the district court erred by imposing a career offender enhancement under USSG 4B1.1(a)(3) in light of his two prior California drug convictions. The court concluded that neither of his two prior convictions was for a crime of violence as defined by the residual clause because the convictions do not qualify under the case law that predated Johnson v. United States. Therefore, the court need not address whether the residual clause in USSG 4B1.2(a)(2) is unconstitutionally vague. Because defendant has only one qualifying conviction, the career offender enhancement is not warranted. The court remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Lee" on Justia Law

After signing a plea agreement admitting to drug distribution, but before sentencing, defendant disappeared and lost contact with his lawyer. The district court proceeded with sentencing in absentia and imposed a prison term of 120 months. Defendant was subsequently arrested and appealed his sentence as violating the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Due Process Clause to the Constitution. Assuming for purposes of this opinion that due process and Rule 43 are coextensive, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it sentenced defendant in abstentia. In this case, the district court made a fact finding that is supported by the record that defendant had "absented himself" from the proceedings, which is a finding of voluntary absence required by Rule 43. Taken together, the facts in the record support both the district court’s determination that defendant was voluntarily absent from the hearing and its decision to proceed with sentencing. Because defendant concedes that due process provides only the protections of Rule 43 and no more, the district court's actions likewise did not violate defendant's constitutional rights. The court rejected defendant's remaining arguments and enforced the appeal waiver, dismissing the appeal. View "United States v. Ornelas" on Justia Law

Patrick Sogbein was convicted of running a conspiracy to defraud Medicare by providing power wheelchairs to people who did not need them. Sogbein’s wife, Adebola Adebimpe, was convicted of participating in the conspiracy by supplying many of the wheelchairs through a medical equipment company that she owned. The court affirmed the district court's application of a two-level enhancement under USSG 3B1.3 for abusing a position of trust with respect to Medicare. The court held that medical equipment suppliers can have the requisite “professional or managerial discretion” for the abuse-of-trust adjustment to apply, if they are responsible for determining the need for the equipment they provide and personally certify the validity of their claims to Medicare. In this case, the district court’s conclusion that Sogbein and Adebimpe’s abuse of their positions of trust significantly furthered the offense was not clearly erroneous. View "United States v. Adebimpe" on Justia Law

Defendant, charged with allegedly making phone calls to authorities at LAX instructing them to evacuate the airport, appealed the district court's order authorizing the BOP to forcibly medicate him to restore his competency to stand trial. In Sell v. United States, the Supreme Court recognized that the government may involuntarily medicate a defendant charged with a serious crime to restore that defendant to competency to stand trial. The court held that the district court clearly erred in finding that the proposed course of treatment was in defendant’s best medical interests. The court concluded that the fourth Sell factor is lacking, and the district court clearly erred in finding that the proposed treatment was in defendant’s best medical interest. The record demonstrates that the proposed treatment includes dosages higher than are generally recommended and that the use of a long-acting medication does not conform to the standard of care. Furthermore, the court could not credit the expert's testimony that the medication and dosage was appropriate without exploring and answering the questions posed by contradictory evidence in the record. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "United States v. Onuoha" on Justia Law

Jesse Vasquez was convicted of drug-related crimes for his part in a gang's drug trafficking operations. The district court sentenced Vasquez to life imprisonment because his two prior California felonies qualified him for a mandatory sentence enhancement under 21 U.S.C. 841. Vasquez then successfully petitioned a California court to reclassify one of his prior California felonies as a misdemeanor pursuant to Proposition 47. In this appeal, Vasquez argues that his federal enhancement should be invalidated because he no longer stands convicted of two prior felonies as section 841 requires. The court has previously held that a state granting postconviction relief from a state conviction cannot undermine a federal sentence enhancement based on that conviction. The court has upheld this rule even where a state dismisses or expunges the underlying state conviction the federal enhancement is based on. Therefore, the court affirmed Vasquez's sentence of life imprisonment under section 841. View "United States v. Diaz" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of attempted carjacking, appealed the district court's dismissal of his habeas petition, contending that his conviction was tainted because the jurors' verdict was influenced by something other than evidence admitted during the trial. At trial, the victim professed not to be able to identify defendant and testified that he was drunk and angry at the time of the initial identification. While he testified, a woman sat as a spectator shaking her head. Some of the jurors observed that action, and later said that they believed that the woman was the victim’s mother and that she was directing him not to identify defendant. The court concluded that there is no clearly established federal law sufficiently related to the facts of defendant's case upon which he can rely to support his claim. Therefore, the California Court of Appeal’s decision in defendant's case could not have unreasonably applied clearly established federal law given the lack of holdings from the Supreme Court regarding the potentially prejudicial effect of spectators' courtroom conduct of the kind involved here. The general principles that a jury decides a case based on the evidence produced at trial, and that the rights of confrontation and cross-examination are fundamental to a fair trial, are not sufficient to support a conclusion that the California Court of Appeal unreasonably applied clearly established Supreme Court precedent in concluding that juror misconduct did not occur in this case. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of habeas relief. View "Turner v. McEwen" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to both bringing an unlawful alien into the United States and aiding and abetting an offense against the United States. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's application of a six-point upward adjustment to his offense level for “recklessly creating a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to another person" under USSG 2L1.1(b)(6). The court concluded that the district court did not clearly err in finding that transporting a person by strapping her inside a dashboard was neither safe nor comfortable but rather “extremely precarious” and dangerous, and that this conduct met the criteria of Application Note 5, which indicates that section 2L1.1(b)(6) applies to a “wide variety of conduct,” including but not limited to the listed examples. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Bernardo" on Justia Law