Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The Fifth Circuit granted petitioner a certificate of appealability (COA) to challenge the denial of two of his habeas claims. Petitioner's first claim alleged that his trial counsel was constitutionally deficient during the penalty phase of trial by failing to correct a potentially misleading impression created by one of his experts. Petitioner's second claim alleged that the State suppressed material impeachment evidence of a pretrial conversation between a State witness and the lead prosecutor in his case.The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying petitioner an evidentiary hearing and it properly denied petitioner's Strickland claim on the merits; the district court correctly held that petitioner's Brady claim was both procedurally defaulted and without merit; and the court rejected petitioner's claim of cumulative error. View "Murphy v. Davis" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for evading arrest or detention while using a motor vehicle in violation of the Assimilative Crimes Act. The court held that security force officers on a military installation were included in the definitions of "peace officer" or "federal special investigator" and thus the factual basis for defendant's guilty plea supported a conviction under the Texas evading arrest or detention statute, as assimilated by the Act. In this case, defendant drove onto Fort Sam Houston, a military installation, without stopping at the entry gate for inspection. Security forces officers eventually forced defendant to stop by boxing in his vehicle. View "United States v. Hopkins" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for one count of transportation of child pornography. The court held that defendant waived any challenge to the factual sufficiency of his guilty plea; the district court did err by applying a cross reference to USSG 2G2.1; the district court properly applied an obstruction of justice enhancement under USSG 3C1.1; and defendant waived his argument that his sentence was disproportionate to the severity of the offense. View "United States v. Richard" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for various immigration crimes stemming from his participation in efforts to recruit and retain undocumented immigrants for employment at WMI in Houston. The court held that there was sufficient evidence to support defendant's conviction for conspiring to hire and for aiding and abetting in hiring undocumented aliens, for conspiracy to encourage or induce unlawful aliens to reside in the United States; and for aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft. View "United States v. Martinez" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's imposition of an above-Guidelines revocation sentence of 32 months' imprisonment for defendant. In this case, while serving a term of federal supervised release, defendant killed someone with a knife. The court affirmed the district court's judgment, holding that the district court did not sentence defendant for retributive purposes. Rather, the district court's entire focus at the revocation hearing was relitigating the dismissed murder case so it could make its own determination whether defendant acted justifiably. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing defendant where it considered the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors, and concluded that defendant's conduct created a significant risk of harm to the public and to deter defendant's future criminal conduct. View "United States v. Sanchez" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of defendant's motion for two sentence reductions under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2) based on Amendment 782 of the Sentencing Guidelines. The court held that no jurisdictional or procedural hurdle barred defendant's consolidated appeal, and the district court erred in determining that it lacked authority to reduce her sentence pursuant to Amendment 782. In this case, the district court erred in concluding that defendant was ineligible for a sentence reduction because of its incorrect determination that defendant was sentenced under the career offender provisions rather than under the drug-quantity provisions. Accordingly, the court remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Calton" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit reversed defendant's sentence, holding that the district court relied on the wrong version of the Sentencing Guidelines. The court held that because defendant's burglary conviction was not an aggravated felony or a crime of violence, sentencing under the 2015 edition of the Guidelines would have generated a sentencing range lower than the one generated from the 2016 edition. The court also held that the error affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings and should be reversed. Accordingly, the court remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Urbina-Fuentes" on Justia Law

After Angus McGinty, a former Texas state court judge, pleaded guilty to Honest Services Wire Fraud after accepting bribes for favorable rulings, he sought to vacate his conviction under 28 U.S.C. 2255. McGinty argued that his attorneys' potential criminal liability created a conflict that infringed his Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of McGinty's motion to vacate on an alternative basis. The court held that McGinty knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived the purported conflict. In this case, if McGinty's attorneys had a conflict, the uncontested facts show that McGinty opportunistically knew, even took advantage of, that fact better than anyone. View "Sealed Appellee v. Sealed Appellant" on Justia Law

At issue in this appeal was whether and when the use of hash values by law enforcement is consistent with the Fourth Amendment. The Fifth Circuit held that, under the private search doctrine, the Fourth Amendment is not implicated where the government does not conduct the search itself, but only receives and utilizes information uncovered by a search conducted by a private party.The court affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress child pornography found in his home. In this case, a private company determined that the hash values of files uploaded by defendant corresponded to the hash values of known child pornography images and passed this information on to law enforcement. The court held that this circumstance qualified as a private search for Fourth Amendment purposes because the government's subsequent law enforcement actions in reviewing the images did not effect an intrusion on defendant's privacy that he did not already experience as a result of the private search. View "United States v. Reddick" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction of making a false statement in an immigration document in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1546(a) (Count 1); conspiracy to encourage and induce an illegal alien to reside in the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1324(a)(1)(A)(v)(I) (Count 2); and encouraging an illegal alien to reside in the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) (Counts 3-6). The court held that defendant's threshold challenges to section 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) failed to establish reversible error and the evidence was sufficient to convict him of Counts 3-6; the evidence was sufficient to convict defendant of Count 1; defendant's challenges to the search warrants were rejected; and there was no error in the order of forfeiture. View "United States v. Anderton" on Justia Law