Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Appellant pleaded guilty to four counts of sex trafficking of children and was sentenced to imprisonment, as well as ordered to pay a total of $3,892,055 in restitution to the four victims. On appeal, appellant challenged the restitution order but the Government argued that he waived his right to appeal the order. The court concluded that appellant did not waive his right to appeal the restitution order but the court rejected appellant's arguments on the merits and affirmed the judgment. View "In re: Sealed Case, et al" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, appealed from the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Petitioner, an Afghan national, became a senior Taliban official in 1994. He asserted, however, that he was not a part of the Taliban forces. The court found no clear error in the district court's factual determinations where the evidence established that petitioner was at least more likely than not a part of the Taliban forces. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of the petition. View "Khairkhwa, et al v. Obama, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his 65-month sentence of imprisonment, arguing that it was both procedurally and substantively defective. Among other arguments, defendant contended that his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and substance abuse issues made it substantively unreasonable to sentence him to more than a brief period of incarceration, followed by a treatment at a private facility. The court disagreed with defendant's contentions and affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Warren" on Justia Law

Defendant filed a motion challenging his sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255 after he failed to obtain reversal of his conviction. The motion was filed within the one-year limitation of section 2255(f), but did not include his claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. The government therefore maintained that this later-filed claim was not properly before the court. The court held that equitable tolling applied to section 2255 motions. Here, the later-filed claim was not properly before the court because defendant was diligent in researching his claim and post-conviction counsel acknowledged that the failure to include the ineffective assistance claim in the timely section 2255 motion was due solely to his own error. On the merits, however, the court concluded that defendant failed to meet his burden under Strickland v. Washington. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. McDade" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to copyright infringement and mail fraud. Pursuant to the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A, the district court ordered him to pay restitution to Adobe Systems in an amount equivalent to the revenue he received from his sales of the pirated products. The court vacated the order because the government failed to meet its burden to present evidence from which the district court could determine Adobe Systems' actual loss as a result of the pirated sales. View "United States v. Fair" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of drug related offenses and sentenced before Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (FSA), Pub. L. No. 111-220, section 2, 124 Stat. 2372, which reduced the disparity between the treatment of crack and powder cocaine. The court rejected defendant's argument that the FSA applied to him because his case was on appeal when the Act was passed; that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to postpone sentencing until after passage of the Act; and that the district court erred substantively and procedurally by adding the additional sentence for perjury to the mandatory minimum. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Fields" on Justia Law

Appellant pleaded guilty to unlawful possession with intent to distribute five grams or more of cocaine base and was sentenced to 210 months of imprisonment, five years of supervised release, and a $100 special assessment. On appeal, defendant challenged his sentence on two primary grounds: (1) the sentence violated the ex post facto clause because the Sentencing Guidelines Manual applied by the district court was promulgated after he committed the offense of conviction and could have resulted in a harsher sentence than the one yielded by the Manual in effect at the time of the offense; and (2) the district court had an erroneously limited view of its discretion to impose a below-Guidelines sentence following the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Booker. Although the court rejected appellant's ex post facto argument, the court was persuaded by his claim as to the district court's concept of its discretion. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Terrell" on Justia Law

This case raised questions about the scope of the Executive's authority to prosecute war crimes under current federal statutes. This particular dispute involved the military commission conviction of petitioner, an al Qaeda member who worked for Osama bin Laden. The court concluded that: (1) despite petitioner's release from custody, this case was not moot; (2) consistent with Congress's stated intent and so as to avoid a serious Ex Post Facto Clause issue, the court interpreted the Military Commissions Act of 2006, 10 U.S.C. 821, not to authorize retroactive prosecution of crimes that were not prohibited as war crimes triable by military commission under U.S. law at the time the conduct occurred; and (3) when petitioner committed the relevant conduct from 1996-2001, Section 821 provided that military commissions may try violations of the "law of war." Because the court read the Act not to retroactively punish new crimes, and because material support for terrorism was not a pre-existing war crime under Section 821, petitioner's conviction for material support for terrorism could not stand. The court reversed the judgment of the Court of Military Commission Review and directed that petitioner's conviction for material support for terrorism be vacated. View "Hamdan v. United States" on Justia Law

Upon being retried after a mistrial in his criminal case, appellant had requested that two stipulations entered into during his first trial not be enforced. The court joined other circuits in applying the general rule on stipulations to criminal prosecutions and found no abuse of discretion by the district court. The district court reasonably viewed the stipulations as affirmative evidentiary admissions in the prosecution of the indicted counts. Appellant failed to demonstrate manifest injustice in being held to the stipulations; he had a full opportunity to present evidence, call witnesses, and argue to the jury that the phone records were inconsistent and thus inaccurate and due little weight. Moreover, the authenticity of the records was a peripheral issue at his trial and any error in admitting the stipulations was harmless. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Kanu" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of one count of bank robbery and two counts of attempted bank robbery and was sentenced to concurrent terms of 132 months on each count. On appeal, defendant challenged his conviction and sentence. The court concluded that under 18 U.S.C. 3162(a)(2)'s waiver provision, appellant waived his right to seek dismissal under section 3162(a)(1) based on an untimely indictment; appellant's challenge of the district court's failure to order a competency hearing ex mero motu was rejected; and the district court properly imposed a 2-point enhancement for obstruction of justice based on appellant's deliberate misrepresentations. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction and sentence. View "United States v. Hines" on Justia Law