Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

After defendant pled guilty to one count of illegal reentry after deportation, the district court applied a sixteen-level sentencing enhancement to defendant's base offense level because of his prior manslaughter conviction under Florida law. The court held that, in light of United States Supreme Court guidance, manslaughter, as defined by Florida Statute 782.07, does not constitute a crime of violence under USSG 2L1.2(b)(1)(A). Under Florida's jurisprudence, manslaughter, which does not require a mens rea of at least recklessness, punishes more than only generic contemporary manslaughter. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Mendoza-Padilla" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Defendant argued that the district court improperly excluded 81 days that he maintains amounted to an “unreasonable” delay under the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. 3161(h)(1)(F), which governs the exclusion of transportation-related periods of delay. The court concluded that all of the days were properly excluded because defendant was incompetent to stand trial during the relevant period. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Romero" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and his 120-month sentence. The court rejected defendant's contention that the district court erred by denying his request for an evidentiary hearing on his motion to suppress, denying his Batson challenge without conducting an appropriate Batson analysis, and denying a minor-role reduction. The court also rejected defendant's contention that the government withheld evidence, resulting in prejudice both at trial and at sentencing. The court agreed with defendant, however, that the district court plainly erred by applying an obstruction of justice enhancement to his sentence without making the express findings required by United States v. Castro-Ponce. Finally, the court concluded that there is no basis to reverse on direct appeal where counsel opted to chose not to raise a valid objection regarding defendant’s contention that the government failed to disclose its suspicion that the defendant was a longtime pedestrian narcotics smuggler, resulting in prejudice at trial and at sentencing. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Herrera-Rivera" on Justia Law

William Washington, a California state prisoner, filed suit against defendants, alleging violations of his Eighth Amendment right to adequate medical care and safe prison conditions. At issue is the application of the Prison Litigation Reform Act's (PLRA), 28 U.S.C. 1915(g), three-strikes rule to Washington's suit. The court held that a dismissal pursuant to Heck v. Humphrey may constitute a PLRA strike for failure to state a claim when Heck's bar to relief is obvious from the face of the complaint, and the entirety of the complaint is dismissed for a qualifying reason under the PLRA. Applying this legal framework to the instant case, the court concluded that the Heck dismissal in No. 2:09-CV-3052, does not constitute a PLRA strike. The court held that a dismissal due to Younger v. Harris abstention, similar to a dismissal under Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, is not a strike under the PLRA. As a result, Washington’s two prior dismissals under Younger, Nos. 2:12-CV-5873 and 2:12-CV-7429, do not constitute strikes. In Washington’s case, his two mandamus petitions, Nos. 2:10-CV-54 and 2:10-CV-964, directly challenged underlying criminal proceedings, and are more properly construed as appeals of criminal case habeas claims challenging a criminal conviction and lie outside the scope of the PLRA. Because the district court improperly assessed the existence of prior strikes against Washington, the court reversed and remanded for the district court to assess whether Washington is otherwise entitled to proceed with his action in forma pauperis. View "Washington v. LA Cnty. Sheriff's Dep't" on Justia Law

Adonai El-Shaddai, while incarcerated in California, filed at least eleven lawsuits against prison officials prior to filing this case. At issue is whether these previous cases amount to at least three “strikes” under the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), 28 U.S.C. 1915(g), such that El-Shaddai is barred from proceeding in forma pauperis (IFP) in this and future cases. The court held that El-Shaddai has not incurred three strikes because only one of the prior actions was dismissed on the grounds that it was frivolous, malicious, or failed to state a claim. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's contrary decision and remanded for the district court to assess whether El-Shaddai is otherwise entitled to proceed in forma pauperis. View "El-Shaddai v. Wang" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of two counts of first degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder to collect life insurance proceeds, challenged the district court's denial of his petition for habeas relief. While the California Supreme Court concluded that trial counsel rendered deficient performance by failing to investigate and present evidence that Calvin Boyd, a key prosecution witness at petitioner's trial, was likely the actual killer, the state court determined that petitioner was not prejudiced under Strickland v. Washington because there was substantial evidence to convict him under an aid-and-abet or conspiracy theory. The court concluded that the petition satisfies the “contrary to” clause of 28 U.S.C. 2254(d)(1) because the California Supreme Court employed a standard of review which was significantly harsher than the clearly established test from Strickland. Because the state court used the wrong standard, the court need not defer to that decision. Under de novo review, the court concluded that petitioner was clearly prejudiced in the guilt phase by counsel's deficient performance. Had counsel properly investigated and presented evidence that Boyd actually committed the murders, there is a substantial probability the jury would have come to a different conclusion. Therefore, petitioner is entitled to habeas relief because the California Supreme Court applied a standard contrary to clearly established law and because his attorney’s deficient performance was prejudicial at the guilt phase. Assuming, however, that the California Supreme Court did correctly conceptualize and apply the Strickland prejudice standard but simply camouflaged that understanding with a different - and incorrect - phrasing of the legal standard, the court still concluded that its application was unreasonable. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded with instructions to grant habeas relief. View "Hardy v. Chappell" on Justia Law

Defendant plead guilty to one count of unauthorized use of access devices for his use of fraudulent credit cards at a Target store in Colorado and at Nordstrom stores in California to buy items worth almost $150,000. The district court imposed restitution under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A, without objection, for both the Nordstrom charges and the Target charges. Defendant argued for the first time on appeal that the district court improperly ordered restitution with respect to the Target charges. Applying plain error review to non-jurisdictional arguments raised for the first time on appeal, the court concluded that the Target charges occurred in July 2011 - within the indictment period. In this case, defendant did not plead guilty only to the Nordstrom allegations, he plead guilty to Count One of the indictment. The fraudulent Target charges fit within the scope of that count, and defendant does not contest that he actually engaged in criminal conduct at the Target store in Colorado that meets the terms of the indictment. Because the Nordstrom charges indisputably were sufficient to establish a factual basis for defendant’s crime, the government was not required to mention the Target charges at the plea colloquy. But the court need not and did not decide definitively whether the district court erred, because any error was not plain. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's restitution order. View "United States v. Zhou" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of murdering two teenage boys with intent to inflict torture, appealed the denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for habeas relief. Petitioner committed the murders when he was 15 years old. Petitioner contends his counsel performed deficiently by failing to challenge the prosecution’s statements as either improper comments on petitioner's decision not to testify, in violation of Griffin v. California, or improper shifting of the burden of proof to the defense. The court concluded that, because there was no actual prosecutorial error, defense counsel’s decision to rebut the prosecution’s comments directly rather than object at trial or on appeal was adequate, and this strategy did not undermine the reliability of petitioner’s conviction. Petitioner also contends that his sentence violates the Eighth Amendment because it is the "functional equivalent" of a mandatory life-without-parole sentence, and he was a juvenile offender. The court concluded that there is a reasonable argument petitioner’s sentence is constitutional because it actually allows for the possibility of parole. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "Demirdjian v. Gipson" on Justia Law

Defendant plead guilty to soliciting the murders of two of his associates. The district court granted the government's motion under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(b) to reduce defendant's sentence because he provided substantial post-sentencing assistance to the government. The district court did not rule explicitly on which version of the facts - the admissions in Doe’s plea agreement or the various accounts Doe later provided to the government - was accurate when it granted the government’s Rule 35(b) motion. Doe did not object to the court’s evaluation of the evidence during the Rule 35(b) hearing. On appeal, defendant argues that the district court committed plain error by failing to explicitly determine the true facts under Rule 32(i)(3). The court concluded that there was no error, let alone plain error, because Rule 35 does not incorporate Rule 32’s requirement that the court make findings on disputed or controverted matters. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Doe" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the denial of his petition for habeas relief, challenging his 2007 second-degree murder conviction. The court concluded that petitioner correctly alleged that the prosecution concealed evidence that could have bolstered his self-defense claim, in violation of Brady v. Maryland. However, the court concluded that the extremely deferential standard of review does not mandate relief because petitioner was not sufficiently prejudiced. The court also concluded that there was no Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) error in rejecting a claim under Napue v. Illinois. Even when combined with the Brady violations, there is no reasonable probability that the result of the proceeding would have been different. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of habeas relief. View "Reis-Campos v. Biter" on Justia Law