Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

In 2005, Trimble shot and killed his girlfriend and her seven-year-old son with an assault rifle. Later that night, he broke into the apartment of a female college student, held her hostage, and eventually killed her with a handgun. He admitted his guilt to two family members and the police; there was significant forensic evidence tying him to the murders, and eyewitness testimony. A jury convicted him of the three murders and the judge, upon the jury’s recommendation, imposed three death sentences. The district court conditionally granted Trimble habeas relief because it determined that an alternate juror who was later empaneled during the penalty phase of Trimble’s trial could not set aside his personal views on the death penalty and apply the law. The Sixth Circuit reversed, concluding that the alternate juror was not an automatic-death-penalty juror, and that Trimble’s other claims of prejudicial admission of weapons and prosecutorial misconduct were without merit. View "Trimble v. Bobby" on Justia Law

Hodge’s 15-year-old stepdaughter found a micro video recording device that had recorded her exiting the shower naked and wrapping a towel around herself. She also saw that Hodge had setting up a camera on one of her bedroom shelves. The girl called her mother, Hodge’s wife, who came home. Hodge told her he had destroyed the recording. Hodge’s wife called the police, who obtained a search warrant. A police forensic investigation of Hodge’s laptop computer uncovered multiple child pornography images. Hodge pleaded guilty to one count of receipt of child pornography. 18 U.S.C. 2252(a)(2). At sentencing, the district court declined to give him a two-point base-offense-level reduction under USSG 2G2.2(b)(1) that applies when “the defendant’s conduct was limited to the receipt or solicitation of material involving the sexual exploitation of a minor” with no intent “to traffic in, or distribute, such material.” The Sixth Circuit affirmed, reasoning that Hodge was also secretly recording videos of his stepdaughter naked, so his “conduct” was not “limited to” the receipt or solicitation of child pornography. The court rejected Hodge’s argument that his video voyeurism was not conduct that was “relevant” to his “offense conduct” under USSG 1B1.3. View "United States v. Hodge" on Justia Law

From 2006 to 2008, Andrews asked friends and colleagues to loan him money, roughly two million dollars in total, explaining that he needed money to purchase property in Indianapolis or to improve property that he owned in the area. Andrews never owned, bought, or improved property in Indianapolis. Andrews mostly used the money to fund a day-trading account with TD Ameritrade. Most of the money vanished. Andrews’s victims lost over 1.4 million dollars. Andrews was convicted of wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1343, sentenced to 87 months in prison and ordered to repay the full amount his victims had lost. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, finding that all of the loans were part of a single “scheme . . . to defraud.” The court noted a common false statement of a need for funds, usually related to nonexistent Indianapolis property; a common group of victims, usually friends or colleagues, who loaned money to Andrews repeatedly; and a common purpose for the funds, usually the need to fund Andrews’s day-trading account. The final loan occurred on September 25, 2008, fewer than five years before the government indicted Andrews, so prosecution of the entire scheme was not time-barred. View "United States v. Andrews" on Justia Law