Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant appealed his conviction for conspiring to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance on board an aircraft registered in the United States and possessing with intent to distribute a controlled substance on board an aircraft registered in the United States. The court held that defendant's conduct falls squarely within the ambit of 21 U.S.C. 959 and that the district court's exercise of jurisdiction was consistent with due process. In this case, a sufficient nexus existed between defendant's extraterritorial conduct and the United States, and defendant's ignorance of the aircraft's registration in the United States does not implicate due process. The court concluded that the remainder of defendant's arguments do not warrant significant explanation and are resolved by a separate Summary Order. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Epskamp" on Justia Law

Defendants Jiamez-Dolores and Degante-Galeno were convicted of crimes related to their involvement in a prostitution ring, which involved four separate brothels and a delivery service by which women would be driven directly to customers' residences. The court concluded that Degante-Galeno’s 60 month sentence was substantively reasonable where the district court considered the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors. In addition to considering his role in the offense, the district court based the sentence on his complicity in the coercion applied to the victims - some of whom were forced into prostitution, the duration of his participation in the conspiracy, and his failure to acknowledge fully the seriousness of the offense. The court also concluded that Jiamez-Dolores's 60 month sentence was procedurally and substantively reasonable. In this case, the record reflects the district court’s thorough, individualized consideration of the section 3553(a) factors and its justifications for imposing an upward variance in Jiamez-Dolores’s case. The court considered defendants' remaining arguments and found them to be without merit. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Jiamez-Dolores" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for a firearm-related murder committed in the course of a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. 924(c), in this case, Hobbs Act robbery, as defined in 18 U.S.C. 1851(b)(1). The court held that Hobbs Act robbery is a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(3). The court found that Hobbs Act robbery qualifies categorically as a crime of violence under the statute’s "force clause," and the court rejected defendant's argument that the Supreme Court in Johnson v. United States effectively rendered the “risk‐of‐force clause,” under section 924(c)(3)(B), void for vagueness. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction. View "United States v. Hill" on Justia Law

Years after Steven Greenfield was implicated in tax evasion as a result of a document leak, the Government issued a summons for Greenfield’s records, including documents relating to all of Greenfield’s financial accounts and documents pertaining to the ownership and management of offshore entities controlled by Greenfield. Greenfield opposed production and moved to quash the summons based on his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The district court granted enforcement as to a subset of the records demanded by the summons. The court found that, for all but a small subset of the documents covered by the order, the Government has not demonstrated that it is a foregone conclusion that the documents existed, were in Greenfield’s control, and were authentic even in 2001. Second, the court found that the Government has failed to present any evidence that it was a foregone conclusion that any of the documents subject to the summons remained in Greenfield’s control through 2013, when the summons was issued. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's order and remanded, because the Government has not made the showing that is necessary to render Greenfield’s production of the documents non-testimonial and, hence, exempt from Fifth Amendment challenge. View "United States v. Greenfield" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for conspiring to distribute cocaine base, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, and causing the death of Melissa Barratt. Defendant contends that the "pinging" of his cell phone was a search that violated the Fourth Amendment and that, as a result, the district court’s failure to suppress evidence recovered upon his arrest requires reversal of his conviction. In this case, officers investigating Barratt's death asked Sprint, defendant's cell-phone provider, to track the GPS coordinates of defendant's cell-phone over a two-hour period. The court found that the officers reasonably believed that defendant posed an exigent threat to the undercover officers and confidential informants involved in his drug operation. This threat justified the pinging of defendant's phone, a) which at most constituted a limited intrusion into his privacy interests, b) which objectively could be viewed as plausibly consistent with existing law, and c) which the officers used in the most limited way to achieve their necessary aim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Caraballo" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of assaulting a federal officer and sentenced as a career offender principally to 180 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. The court concluded that, after the Supreme Court's decision in Johnson v. United States, a conviction for first‐degree robbery in New York is not in every instance a conviction for a “crime of violence.” Therefore, the district court plainly erred in sentencing defendant as a career offender based on its conclusion that a conviction for first‐degree robbery is necessarily a conviction for a “crime of violence” within the Career Offender Guideline. The court need not address defendant's argument that his sentence was substantively unreasonable. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Jones" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the denial of his motion to suppress 145 pounds of marijuana discovered in his vehicle by border patrol agents. Defendant argued that the agents seized him and searched his vehicle in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The court affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress, agreeing with the district court that the agents had reasonable suspicion to conduct a Terry v. Ohio stop of defendant. In this case, the Terry stop did not actually begin until an agent ordered defendant and his brother back in the vehicle and the stop was reasonable in duration. View "United States v. Compton" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of rape and sodomy in the first degree, appealed the denial of his amended 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for habeas relief. The petition is based on the grounds that the prosecution suppressed a psychiatric record of an evaluation of the complainant, in violation of petitioner's due process rights under Brady v. Maryland, and that petitioner's trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to prepare cross-examination or call expert witnesses to counter expert testimony introduced by the prosecution. The court concluded, without need to assess the ineffective assistance of counsel claim, that the petition should have been granted with respect to the Brady claim pursuant to Kyles v. Whitley. In this case, the contents of the suppressed psychiatric record provided information with which to impeach the complaining witness and to support defendant's version of the events. The state court concedes that it misread the psychiatric record and the court concluded that the error was not harmless. View "Fuentes v. Griffin" on Justia Law

Petitioner pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to distribute five grams or more of cocaine base and was sentenced to 130 months in prison. The district court found that petitioner qualified as a career offender under USSG 4B1.1 because he had two previous convictions for a crime of violence. Petitioner moved for leave to file a successive 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion and argued that his sentence enhancement under USSG 4B1.1 was rendered unconstitutional by Johnson v. United States. The court noted that there is substantial disagreement among other circuits on the question on which the Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Beckles v. United States. The court concluded that petitioner has made a prima facie showing that his claim satisfies section 2255(h) and warrants fuller exploration by the district court. The court granted the motion and instructed the district court to hold petitioner's section 2255 motion in abeyance pending the outcome of Beckles. View "Blow v. United States" on Justia Law

Defendant, a licensed physician, appealed convictions stemming from her participation in a broad scheme involving a number of medical services professional corporations (PCs) to defraud insurance companies in connection with claims submitted under New York’s No Fault Comprehensive Motor Vehicle Insurance Reparation Act, N.Y. Ins. Law 5102 et seq. Defendant held herself out as the owner of a PC and represented herself as such on claims. The jury found that, while defendant was the owner on paper, the true owners of the clinic were coconspirator nonphysicians. Defendant principally contends that the jury should have been instructed, in determining the question of ownership, to consider only the formal indicia of ownership, and not the economic realities. The court concluded, however, that New York law is clear that ownership for purposes of New York insurance law is based on actual economic ownership. The court held that, as in the civil context, a factfinder in a criminal case may properly consider factors beyond formal indicia of ownership in determining ownership under New York’s no‐fault insurance laws. The court rejected all of defendant's arguments and affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Gabinskaya" on Justia Law