Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's 70 month sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The court concluded that, even if it accepted defendant's contention that the district court focused almost exclusively on his criminal history when crafting his sentence, the court cannot conclude that the district court gave that history an unreasonable amount of weight. In this case, when defendant was sentenced as a felon in possession of a firearm, he had already been convicted of at least five separate violent crimes. Furthermore, defendant's current conviction for a firearm offense came coupled with an admission that he had committed another firearm offense less than a year earlier. Therefore, defendant's sentence was not unreasonable. View "United States v. Riley" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas corpus petition in a case where petitioner was convicted of two murders and sentenced to death.The court concluded that petitioner's trial attorneys were not prejudicially ineffective by failing to further investigate and present to the jury evidence of his mental illness, cognitive deficits, and brain damage, and by failing to investigate and present evidence of additional mitigating family background and social history. The court concluded that the state court's rejection of these claims was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court law, nor was it based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented. The court was similarly unpersuaded regarding petitioner's procedural and substantive claims of incompetency to stand trial. Furthermore, petitioner's due process rights were not violated when he was required to wear a stun belt at trial. The court rejected petitioner's several claims of prosecutorial misconduct. Finally, the court concluded that it was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established law for the Georgia Supreme Court to have concluded, on direct review, that the prosecutor's violation of petitioner's Fifth Amendment rights by commenting on his failure to testify was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. View "Raheem v. GDCP Warden" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit vacated its previous opinion and substituted it with the following opinion.The court affirmed defendant's conviction for five counts of armed robbery and carrying a firearm in furtherance of the robberies. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied defendant's motion to continue the trial date; the district court did not err or abuse its discretion in declining to dismiss Juror 20 for cause based on her employment with the Department of Community Supervision because she did not qualify as a member of a police department; even assuming without deciding that the Google geo-location data should have been excluded as "fruit of the poisonous tree," any error in admitting that evidence was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt; the evidence sufficiently supported defendant's convictions on all five robberies; the special agent's testimony does not warrant vacatur of the convictions; and, even assuming error, cumulative error does not warrant vacatur of the convictions. View "United States v. Pendergrass" on Justia Law

The Sentencing Guidelines' enhancements under subsections 2L1.2(b)(2) and (3), for criminal convictions received before and after the defendant's previous deportation or removal, do not violate the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. Nor do they cause unlawful double-counting in violation of due process or otherwise.Defendant was convicted of illegal reentry after the 2016 United States Sentencing Guidelines went into effect. Because he had committed other offenses both before his original deportation and after it, but before his current illegal-reentry offense, he received offense-level increases under both subsections USSG 2L1.2(b)(2) and (3).The Eleventh Circuit concluded that defendant's challenge to section 2L1.2(b)(2) is foreclosed by the court's binding precedent in United States v. Adeleke, 968 F.2d 1159, 1160–61 (11th Cir. 1992). The court explained that subsections 2L1.2(b)(2) and (3) do not apply to all noncitizens convicted of any crime in the United States; rather, they apply to only those noncitizens who both have illegally reentered the United States and have been convicted of other crimes. Furthermore, this is important because, through section 1326(b), Congress has determined that illegally reentering the United States after being deported following conviction on another crime is a more serious offense than simply illegally reentering the United States, and that conduct should be deterred. The court further explained that the challenged guidelines reflect the national interests that Congress permissibly has endorsed through its enactment and amendment of section 1326(b). The court also concluded that Congress has entrusted the Sentencing Commission with direct responsibility for fostering and protecting the interests of, among other things, sentencing policy that promotes deterrence and appropriately punishes culpability and risk of recidivism—the interests the Sentencing Commission cited in issuing the challenged guidelines. Finally, the court concluded that subsections 2L1.2(b)(2) and (3) are rationally related to the Commission's stated interests in issuing them. Therefore, the court upheld the guidelines at issue and affirmed defendant's sentence. View "United States v. Osorto" on Justia Law

A majority of the active judges of the Eleventh Circuit voted to rehear this case en banc.This petition for writ of mandamus arises under the Crime Victims' Rights Act (CVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3771. Petitioner, one of more than 30 woman who were victimized by notorious sex trafficker and child abuser Jeffrey Epstein, sought mandamus relief, alleging that when federal prosecutors secretly negotiated and entered into a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein in 2007, they violated her rights under the CVRA. Specifically, petitioner alleged that federal prosecutors violated her rights to confer with the government's lawyers and to be treated fairly by them.The en banc court held that the CVRA does not provide a private right of action authorizing crime victims to seek judicial enforcement of CVRA rights outside the confines of a preexisting proceeding. The court explained that, while the CVRA permits a crime victim like Ms. Wild to move for relief within the context of a preexisting proceeding—and, more generally, to pursue administrative remedies—it does not authorize a victim to seek judicial enforcement of her CVRA rights in a freestanding civil action. In this case, because the government never filed charges against Epstein, there was no preexisting proceeding in which Ms. Wild could have moved for relief under the CVRA, and the Act does not sanction her stand-alone suit. View "In re: Courtney Wild" on Justia Law

After the district court construed defendant's pro se letter as a motion for a sentence reduction and, without giving him any opportunity to be heard, denied the motion, defendant filed a pro se motion for reconsideration. The district court also denied the motion for reconsideration.Applying the framework in United States v. Jones, 962 F.3d 1290, 1293 (11th Cir. 2020), the Eleventh Circuit concluded that defendant is eligible for a sentence reduction under the First Step Act, but the court cannot tell whether the district court understood that it had the authority to reduce his sentence. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's orders denying a sentence reduction and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Russell" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for possessing a firearm while being a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding out-of-court statements as hearsay when they were not offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. In this case, the danger of unfair prejudice carried by a third party's confession was enormous and the confession would almost certainly precipitate a trial within a trial on the adequacy of the Task Force investigation.The court also concluded that, although defendant's indictment was insufficient under Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), the insufficiency did not affect his substantial rights; the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting an unredacted copy of defendant's prior firearm conviction; and the Florida offense of armed robbery is a violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). View "United States v. Elysee" on Justia Law

After an ATF reverse sting operation caught petitioner in the midst of an effort to commit armed robbery of a house he believed held the cocaine stash of a Colombian cartel, a jury convicted petitioner of both conspiring to use and using a firearm during a crime of violence or drug trafficking offense in violation of 18 U.S.C. 924(o) and 924(c). The Eleventh Circuit affirmed his conviction and sentence. Petitioner now appeals the district court's rejection of his section 2255 collateral attack on these convictions.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment because petitioner cannot overcome the procedural default of his claim and because even if he could, he suffered no harm from the inclusion of an invalid predicate offense, Hobbs Act conspiracy, in his indictment and jury instructions. The court explained that both conclusions follow from the same feature of petitioner's case: the Hobbs Act conspiracy was inextricably intertwined with petitioner's conspiracy and attempt to possess with intent to distribute cocaine (Counts 2 and 3), convictions petitioner does not dispute are valid drug trafficking predicates for his Count 4 and Count 5 convictions. View "Parker v. United States" on Justia Law

A Florida conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm, Fla. Stat. 790.23(1)(a), is categorically an aggravated felony under the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(43)(E)(ii).The Eleventh Circuit denied the petition for review challenging the BIA's removal based on petitioner's Florida felon-in-possession conviction. The court concluded that petitioner is not entitled to relief based on exemplar prosecutions. In this case, petitioner does not assert that his own felon-in-possession conviction involved an antique firearm, but he does point to exemplar prosecutions that he says establish that Florida actually prosecutes felons for possession of federal antique firearms. However, petitioner does not point to exemplar prosecutions of felons for mere possession of federal antique firearms nor for possessing black-powder muzzleloaders. Furthermore, Florida's felon-in-possession statute is not broader than the federal statute on its face and thus petitioner is not entitled to relief based on the statutory language. View "Aspilaire v. U.S. Attorney General" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit concluded that petitioner is entitled to equitable tolling as he demonstrated that he exercised reasonable diligence in pursuing his rights and he further demonstrated extraordinary circumstances—his counsel's abdication of her duty of loyalty to petitioner so she could promote her own interests—that prevented the filing of his petition. The court explained that counsel's interests were so adverse to those of her client that counsel effectively abandoned petitioner. In this case, counsel sacrificed petitioner's guaranteed opportunity of federal habeas review in order to pursue her own novel—and ultimately meritless—constitutional argument against the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act's limitations period.On the merits of the habeas petition, the court concluded that the district court correctly ruled that petitioner procedurally defaulted on his first two claims and the state court reasonably denied relief on his third claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's order denying habeas relief on the merits. View "Thomas v. Attorney General, State of Florida" on Justia Law