Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant pleaded guilty to capital murder, capital kidnaping, and first-degree rape, the statutory aggravating circumstance for the murder. At the penalty phase, the trial court denied defense counsel’s request to instruct the jury not to draw any adverse inference from defendant’s decision not to testify. He was sentenced to death. The Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed, finding that the Fifth Amendment’s requirement of a no-adverse-inference instruction to protect a non-testifying defendant at the guilt phase is not required at the penalty phase. The district court granted federal habeas relief. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Kentucky Supreme Court’s rejection of the Fifth Amendment claim was not objectively unreasonable. The high standard of 28 U.S.C. 2254(d) permits federal habeas relief only if adjudication on the merits in state court “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an [objectively] unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by” the Supreme Court. After examining its own precedent, the Court stated that the Kentucky Supreme Court’s conclusion was not an unreasonable application of the holdings in those cases, which cannot be read to require the type of blanket no-adverse-inference instruction requested and denied here. The defendant’s own admissions of guilt had established every relevant fact on which Kentucky bore the burden of proof. Section 2254(d)(1) does not require state courts to extend Supreme Court precedent or license federal courts to treat the failure to do so as error. The appropriate time to consider, as a matter of first impression, whether the cited cases require a penalty-phase no-adverse-inference instruction would be on direct review, not in a section 2254(d) habeas case. View "White v. Woodall" on Justia Law

The victim was sexually abused as a young girl during production of child pornography. When she was 17, she learned that images of her abuse were being trafficked on the Internet. Paroline pleaded guilty to possessing images of child pornography, 18 U.S.C. 2252, including two of the victim, who sought restitution under section 2259--about $3 million in lost income and $500,000 for future treatment and counseling. The district court declined to award restitution, citing failure to prove proximate cause. The Fifth Circuit held that each defendant who possessed the victim’s images should be held liable for the victim’s entire losses. The Supreme Court reversed. Section 2259 restitution is proper only to the extent the defendant’s offense proximately caused a victim’s losses. The prosecution has the burden of demonstrating the amount of the loss and proximate cause. Victims should be compensated and defendants should be held liable for the impact of their conduct on those victims, but not for the conduct of others. In this case, it is simple to prove aggregate losses: the victim’s costs of treatment and lost income resulting from the trauma of knowing that images of her abuse are being viewed over and over are direct and foreseeable results of child-pornography crimes. It is not possible, however, to prove that the victim’s losses would be less “but for’ one possessor’s individual role in the large, loosely connected network through which her images circulate. While it would be anomalous to deny redress to a person harmed by the combined acts of many wrongdoers simply because no wrongdoer alone caused the harm, aggregate causation logic should not be adopted incautiously for criminal restitution. The victim’s proposed theory would pose problems because there is no general federal right to contribution and no specific statutory authorization in this case; her approach could also raise questions under the Eighth Amendment Excessive Fines Clause. A court should order restitution that comports with the defendant’s relative role in the causal process underlying the victim’s general losses. A variety of factors may serve as guideposts in arriving at the relative causal significance of the defendant’s conduct. Congress has not promised victims full and swift restitution at the cost of holding a defendant liable for an amount drastically out of proportion to his individual causal relation to those losses. View "Paroline v. United States" on Justia Law

A California Highway Patrol officer stopped a pickup truck that matched the description of a vehicle that a 911 caller had recently reported as having run her off the road. As officers approached the truck, they smelled marijuana. They searched the truck’s bed, found 30 pounds of marijuana, and arrested defendants, who moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the traffic stop violated the Fourth Amendment. The motion was denied. They pleaded guilty to transporting marijuana. The California Court of Appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed. The Fourth Amendment permits brief investigative stops when an officer has “a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of ... criminal activity.” Reasonable suspicion considers “the totality of the circumstances,” and depends “upon both the content of information possessed by police and its degree of reliability.” The totality of the circumstances indicated that the officer had reasonable suspicion that the truck’s driver was intoxicated. The 911 call bore adequate indicia of reliability for the officer to credit the caller’s account. The caller claimed an eyewitness basis of knowledge. The apparently short time between the reported incident and the 911 call suggests that the caller had little time to fabricate the report. A reasonable officer could conclude that a false tipster would think twice before using the 911 system. The tip created reasonable suspicion of drunk driving. Reasonable suspicion “need not rule out the possibility of innocent conduct.” The officer’s failure to observe additional suspicious conduct during the short period that he followed the truck did not dispel the reason able suspicion of drunk driving. View "Navarette v. California" on Justia Law

Castleman was indicted under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9), for possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.” He argued that his Tennessee conviction for “intentionally or knowingly caus[ing] bodily injury to” the mother of his child did not qualify as a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” because it did not involve “use or attempted use of physical force.” The district court dismissed, reasoning that “physical force” must entail violent contact and that bodily injury can be caused without violent contact, e.g., by poisoning. The Sixth Circuit affirmed on different reasoning: that the degree of physical force required for a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” is the same as that required for a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminal Act, violent force, and that Castleman could have been convicted for causing slight injury by nonviolent conduct. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that section 922(g)(9)’s “physical force” requirement is satisfied by the “offensive touching” degree of force that supports a common-law battery conviction. Congress presumably intends to incorporate the common-law meaning of terms and nothing suggests a different intention here. While the word “violent” or “violence” standing alone “connotes a substantial degree of force,” “domestic violence,” is a term of art encompassing acts that one might not characterize as “violent” in a nondomestic context. There is no anomaly in grouping domestic abusers convicted of generic assault or battery offenses with others disqualified by section 922(g) from gun ownership. Application of the modified categorical approach—consulting the indictment to determine whether Castleman’s conviction entailed the elements necessary to constitute the generic federal offense—is straightforward. The “knowing or intentional causation of bodily injury” necessarily involved use of physical force. The common-law concept of “force” encompasses even its indirect application; the knowing or intentional application of force is a “use” of force. View "United States v. Castleman" on Justia Law

Rosemond participated in a drug deal in which either he or one of his associates fired a gun. Because the shooter’s identity was disputed, the government charged Rosemond with violating 18 U.S.C. 924(c) by using or carrying a gun in connection with a drug trafficking crime, or, in the alternative, aiding and abetting that offense under 18 U.S.C. 2. The judge instructed the jury that Rosemond was guilty of aiding and abetting the section924(c) offense if he “knew his cohort used a firearm in the drug trafficking crime” and “knowingly and actively participated in the drug trafficking crime.” The instruction deviated from Rosemond’s proposed instruction that the jury must find that he acted intentionally “to facilitate or encourage” the firearm’s use. Rosemond was convicted. The Tenth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court vacated. The prosecution establishes that a defendant aided and abetted a 924(c) violation by proving that the defendant actively participated in the underlying drug trafficking or violent crime with advance knowledge that a confederate would use or carry a gun during commission of the crime. In addition to active conduct extending to some part of the crime, aiding and abetting requires intent extending to the whole crime. An active participant in a drug transaction has the intent needed to aid and abet a 924(c) violation when he knows that a confederate will carry a gun. This must be advance knowledge. The jury instructions were erroneous in failing to require that Rosemond knew in advance that an associate would be armed, with sufficient time to withdraw. The case was remanded for consideration of whether any error was harmless. View "Rosemond v. United States" on Justia Law

After a grand jury indicted the Kaleys for reselling stolen medical devices and laundering the proceeds, the government obtained a restraining order against their assets under 21 U.S.C. 853(e)(1), to “preserve the availability of [forfeitable] property” while criminal proceedings are pending. An order is available if probable cause exists to think that a defendant has committed an offense permitting forfeiture and the disputed assets are traceable or sufficiently related to the crime. The Kaleys moved to vacate the order, to use disputed assets for their legal fees. The district court allowed them to challenge traceability to the crimes but not the facts supporting the underlying indictment. The Eleventh Circuit and Supreme Court affirmed. In challenging a section 853(e)(1) pre-trial seizure, an indicted defendant is not entitled to contest the grand jury determination of probable cause to believe the defendant committed the crimes. A probable cause finding sufficient to initiate prosecution for a serious crime is conclusive and, generally, a challenge to the reliability or competence of evidence supporting that finding will not be heard. A grand jury’s probable cause finding may effect a pre-trial restraint on a person’s liberty or property. Because the government’s interest in freezing potentially forfeitable assets without an adversarial hearing about the probable cause underlying criminal charges and the Kaleys’ interest in retaining counsel of their own choosing are both substantial, the issue boils down to the “probable value, if any,” of a judicial hearing in uncovering mistaken grand jury probable cause findings. The legal standard is merely probable cause, however, and the grand jury has already made that finding; a full-dress hearing will provide little benefit. View "Kaley v. United States" on Justia Law

After a bystander stated that Fernandez had committed a violent robbery minutes before police responded, the police saw Fernandez run into an apartment building. They heard screams coming from an apartment and knocked on the door, which was answered by Roxanne, who was battered and bleeding. When the officers asked her to step out of the apartment so that they could conduct a protective sweep, Fernandez came to the door and objected. Suspecting that he had assaulted Roxanne, the officers removed him and placed him under arrest. He was then identified as the perpetrator in the earlier robbery and taken to the police station. An officer returned to the apartment and, after obtaining Roxanne’s oral and written consent, searched and found items linking Fernandez to the robbery. The trial court denied a motion to suppress that evidence and he was convicted. The California Court of Appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed. Consent searches are permissible warrantless searches and are clearly reasonable when the consent comes from the sole occupant of the premises. When multiple occupants are involved, the rule extends to the search of the premises or effects of an absent, non-consenting occupant if “the consent of one who possesses common authority over [the] premises or effects” is obtained. When a physically present inhabitant refuses to consent, that refusal is dispositive as to him, regardless of the consent of a fellow occupant. In this case, the police had reasonable grounds for removal of Fernandez, so he was in the same position as an occupant absent for any other reason. He had been absent for some time when Roxanne consented to the search and the fact that he objected to the presence of the police when he first came to the door did not render the search unconstitutional. View "Fernandez v. California" on Justia Law

In 1985, a manager was shot to death during a robbery of his restaurant. In the following months, a second manager was murdered and another survived similar robberies. In each restaurant, the robber fired two .38 caliber bullets; all six bullets were recovered. The survivor, Smotherman, described his assailant and picked Hinton’s picture out of a photographic array. The police arrested Hinton and recovered from his house a .38 caliber revolver belonging to his mother, who shared the house. The Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences concluded that the six bullets had all been fired from the Hinton revolver. Hinton was charged with two counts of murder. He was not charged with the Smotherman robbery. The prosecution strategy was to link Hinton to the Smotherman robbery by eyewitness testimony and forensic evidence about the bullets and to persuade the jury that, given the similarity of the crimes, Hinton must have committed the murders. Hinton presented witnesses in support of his alibi that he was at work at the time of the Smotherman robbery. The six bullets and the revolver were the only physical evidence. Hinton’s attorney obtained a grant of $1,000 to hire an expert to challenge that evidence and did not request more funding, nor correct the judge’s mistaken belief that a $1,000 limit applied. Under that mistaken belief, Hinton’s attorney found only one person who was willing to testify: Payne. Hinton’s attorney believed that Payne did not have the necessary expertise. The prosecutor discredited Payne. The jury convicted Hinton; the court imposed a death sentence. In state post-conviction proceedings, Hinton alleged ineffective assistance and produced three highly credible experts, who testified that they could not conclude that any of the bullets had been fired from the Hinton revolver. The state did not submit rebuttal evidence. Following a remand by the state’s highest court, the trial court held that Payne was qualified to testify as a firearms and toolmark expert under the then-applicable standard. The Alabama Supreme Court denied review. The U.S. Supreme Court vacated and remanded, holding that Hinton’s attorney rendered ineffective assistance under its “Strickland” test. It was unreasonable to fail to seek additional funds to hire an expert where that failure was based not on any strategic choice but on a mistaken belief that available funding was limited. View "Hinton v. Alabama" on Justia Law

Long-time drug user Banka died after a binge that included use of heroin purchased from Burrage. Burrage pleaded not guilty to charges that he had unlawfully distributed heroin and that “death ... resulted from the use of th[at] substance,” which carries a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence under the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(C). Medical experts testified that Banka might have died even if he had not taken the heroin. The court instructed the jury that the prosecution had to prove only that heroin was a contributing cause of death. The jury convicted Burrage, and the court sentenced him to 20 years. The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed. Where use of the drug distributed by the defendant is not an independently sufficient cause of death or serious bodily injury, the penalty enhancement does not apply unless such use is a “but-for” cause of the death or injury. The Court declined to address cases in which multiple sufficient causes independently, but concurrently, produce death, because there was no evidence that Banka’s heroin use was an independently sufficient cause of his death. Congress could have written the statute to refer to a “substantial” or “contributing” factor in producing death, but instead used language that imports but-for causality. View "Burrage v. United States" on Justia Law

After Cheever was charged with capital murder, the Kansas Supreme Court found the state death penalty scheme unconstitutional. State prosecutors dismissed their charges to allow federal authorities to prosecute Cheever, who filed notice of intent to introduce expert evidence that methamphetamine intoxication negated his ability to form specific intent. The district court ordered Cheever to submit to a psychiatric evaluation. The federal case was eventually dismissed. In the meantime, the Supreme Court found the Kansas death penalty scheme constitutional. The state brought a second prosecution. Cheever raised a voluntary intoxication defense, offering expert testimony regarding his methamphetamine use. The prosecution sought to present testimony from the expert who had examined Cheever by the federal court order. Defense counsel argued that since Cheever had not agreed to the examination, introduction of the testimony would violate the Fifth Amendment. The trial court allowed the testimony. The jury found Cheever guilty and imposed a death sentence. The Kansas Supreme Court vacated the conviction. A unanimous Supreme Court vacated and remanded. If a defense expert who has examined the defendant testifies that the defendant lacked the requisite mental state, the prosecution may present psychiatric evidence in rebuttal. The rule is not limited to situations where the evaluation was requested jointly by the defense and the prosecution, nor does it matter whether state law referred to extreme emotional disturbance as an affirmative defense. The Court rejected an argument that Cheever did not waive his Fifth Amendment privilege because voluntary intoxication is not a mental disease or defect under state law. Mental status, rather than “Mental disease or defect” is the salient issue. When a criminal defendant chooses to testify, the Fifth Amendment does not allow him to refuse to answer related cross-examination questions. Excluding the testimony would have undermined the core truth-seeking function of trial. View "Kansas v. Cheever" on Justia Law