Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's 92 month sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm, holding that the district court's imposition of a higher penalty was not outside its significant discretion.The court held that defendant's sentence was procedurally reasonable where the district court adequately explained its chosen sentence by taking into account defendant's extensive record and emphasizing that defendant started a violent confrontation that led to death. Furthermore, the district court acknowledged that it had considered defendant's salutary post-offense conduct. The court also held that defendant's sentence was not substantively unreasonable where the district court did not abuse its discretion in weighing the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors, giving greater weight to defendant's criminal history and the seriousness of the offense conduct while giving relatively less weight to his post-offense conduct. View "United States v. Harris" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motions for preliminary discovery in anticipation of an as-yet unfiled 28 U.S.C. 2255 petition. The court held that a defendant who has not yet filed a section 2255 motion to vacate a conviction or sentence is not entitled to discovery. The court wrote that its case law has long established that there is no legal basis for defendant to seek discovery from the district court before filing his motion to vacate his conviction. View "United States v. Rodriguez Cuya" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for conspiracy to commit access device fraud, access device fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Defendant's conviction stemmed from his involvement, with his brother, in fraudulently using identities to collect unemployment benefits and to intercept preloaded debit cards he and his brother had requested while posing as residents on his brother's mail delivery route. Defendant raised numerous claims of error on appeal.The court rejected defendant's challenges to the admissibility of the images derived from surveillance video taken by PNC Bank ATMs on three fronts; the district court did not abuse its discretion by improperly limiting defendant's ability to present a full and fair defense; there was no error in admitting the lay identification testimony; there was no error in admitting defendant's booking photograph; and there was no cumulative error. View "United States v. Clotaire" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit sua sponte vacated its previous opinion and substituted the following option.The court affirmed the denial of habeas relief to petitioner, rejecting petitioner's claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and that he is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. The court held that the state court did not unreasonably determine that petitioner failed to establish objectively incompetent performance by his counsel during the penalty phase of his trial for failing to present mitigation evidence. Even if petitioner had demonstrated that counsel's performance was deficient, he failed to demonstrate prejudice. The court also held that the state court did not unreasonably determine the facts or unreasonably apply Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), with respect to the intellectual component of intellectual disability; the record supports the state court's conclusion that petitioner does not have substantial deficits in adaptive behaviors; and the ample record of petitioner's childhood does not point to intellectual disability before age 18. View "Jenkins v. Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction of twenty counts of health care fraud. Defendant's convictions stemmed from his involvement in a fraud scheme conducted through his ophthalmology office that resulted in a loss of nearly $7 million.The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by not allowing defendant's expert to testify, under Daubert and Federal Rule of Evidence 702, about the use of subthreshold micropulse photostimulation as a treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting rebuttal evidence showing that defendant billed Medicare for performing services on a patient's blind left eye. Even if the district court erred in partially limiting defendant's surrebuttal evidence, and that error violated the Sixth Amendment, the court held that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Finally, the court vacated defendant's sentence on each count and remanded the case for the limited purpose of letting the district court modify defendant's sentence structure to bring it in line with USSG 5G1.2(d). View "United States v. Ming Pon" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for attempting to export 303 Ubiquiti NanoStation M2 Network Modems to Cuba without a license. Although the court agreed with defendant that the government was required to prove he knew of the facts that made the NanoStations subject to prohibitions on export to Cuba without a license, the court held that the jury instructions the district court gave correctly explained the level of knowledge required to convict, and the evidence admitted at trial established defendant's knowledge beyond a reasonable doubt.The court held that the evidence was sufficient to establish that defendant took a substantial step towards exporting the NanoStations in violation of the law. Finally, the court held that the district court did not err in applying the two-level sentencing enhancement for obstruction of justice. View "United States v. Singer" on Justia Law

In these separate appeals, the Eleventh Circuit held that defendants adjudicated guilty before but sentenced after the effective date of the First Step Act of 2018 may not qualify for relief under the amended statutory safety-valve provision. The court explained that the First Step Act states that its amendment of the statutory safety-valve provision "shall apply only to a conviction entered on or after the date of [its] enactment" on December 21, 2018. In this case, defendants had their convictions entered when the district court accepted their pleas of guilty before December 21, 2018, and thus they are ineligible for relief from the statutory mandatory-minimum sentence under the amended statutory safety-valve provision. The court also held that any error in the district court's denial of Defendant Castro's sentence for his minor role was harmless. View "United States v. Eulogio Ramiro Yoza Tigua" on Justia Law

The en banc court overruled United States v. Sparks, 806 F.3d 1323, 1341 n.15 (11th Cir. 2015), to the extent that it holds that abandonment implicates Article III standing and is therefore a jurisdictional issue that the government cannot waive and that courts should raise sua sponte. To the contrary, the court held that a party's abandonment of a place or thing runs to the merits of his Fourth Amendment challenge and thus if the government fails to argue abandonment it waives the issue.In this case, the district court denied defendant's motion to suppress evidence found in two separate, warrantless searches of his motel room. A gun was found in the first search and drugs and associated paraphernalia was found in the second search. The government asserted for the first time on appeal that defendant had abandoned his room and any privacy interest therein and thus he lacked standing to assert his Fourth Amendment rights. The court held that the government waived its abandonment argument by failing to raise it in the district court. View "United States v. Ross" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's convictions for five armed bank robbery and firearm offenses. The court held that the district court did not clearly err in finding that a bank teller's identification was sufficiently reliable and in allowing the government to introduce her out-of-court show-up identification; the district court did not err in denying defendant's Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29 motion for judgment of acquittal on one count where a reasonable jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that the BOA branch was FDIC-insured at the time of the 2016 robbery; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's Rule 33 motion for a new trial where, even without the DNA evidence, the jury had more than sufficient evidence that defendant robbed both the BOA and Noa branches. View "United States v. Caldwell" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit joined the Fifth and Eighth Circuits in concluding that the First Step Act does not require district courts to hold a hearing with the defendant present before ruling on a defendant's motion for a reduced sentence under the Act.The court affirmed defendant's sentence for distributing more than 5 grams f crack cocaine and held that the district court did not err in reducing defendant's prison sentence on his drug conviction to 188 months, followed by 6 years of supervised release, without first holding a hearing in his presence. To the extent defendant contends that the First Step Act itself gives him a statutory right to attend a hearing, the court agreed with the Fifth and Eighth Circuits, which have concluded that the plain text of the First Step Act does not give a defendant seeking a sentence reduction such a right. Furthermore, defendant's motion is governed by Rule 43 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which expressly provides that defendant's presence is not required in a 18 U.S.C. 3582(c) proceeding. The court also held that defendant's due process claim failed because Rule 43 did not require defendant's presence at a section 3582(c)(1)(B) sentence reduction hearing, and he had no corresponding due process right to be present at such a hearing. Finally, the court held that United States v. Brown, 879 F.3d 1231 (11th Cir. 2018), actually shows that a section 3582(c)(1)(B) proceeding is not a "critical stage" that requires the defendant's presence at a hearing and why Brown undermines defendant's due process claim here. View "United States v. Denson" on Justia Law