Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief to petitioner where he was convicted of murder with a deadly weapon and sentenced to 45 months in prison. The court held that the state court's resolution of petitioner's ineffective assistance of counsel claims were neither contrary to, nor an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court. In this case, petitioner could not prevail on his claim that counsel performed deficiently by advising him that, by pleading guilty, he would be eligible for court-ordered community supervision, when he was in fact ineligible. The court held that petitioner failed to allege that going to trial would have given him a reasonable chance of obtaining a more favorable result and thus he failed to demonstrate prejudice. Furthermore, petitioner's second ineffective assistance of counsel claim, based on counsel's alleged failure to inform him that the State offered a 15-year plea deal, failed to demonstrate that counsel performed deficiently. View "King v. Davis" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for three counts of conspiracy to kill in a foreign country and four counts of conspiracy to cause travel in foreign commerce in the commission of murder-for-hire. Defendant was the leader of the Velasco Gurrola Criminal Enterprise (VCE). The court held that defendant's Sixth Amendment rights were not violated during voir dire; the court rejected defendant's evidentiary rulings on hearsay objections; the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the government's evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 403; the district court did not err by denying defendant's motion for a judgment of acquittal and/or a new trial where the government presented ample proof of overt acts supporting all seven convictions; the district court's omission of an explicit overt act instruction was not plain error; the court declined to invoke the cumulative error doctrine; and the district court did not err by amending the final restitution order more than 90 days after the sentencing hearing. View "United States v. Gurrola" on Justia Law

Defendant conditionally pleaded guilty of possession of a firearm by an illegal alien and then appealed his pre-plea rulings denying his motions to dismiss the indictment, to admit evidence relevant to his immigration status, and to suppress evidence. After determining that defendant had preserved all his appellate rights, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's refusal to dismiss the indictment because an illegal alien must first refute that status before obtaining a firearm. The court affirmed the district court's refusal to admit evidence of his immigration status because the evidence he sought to introduce was irrelevant and potentially confusing to a jury. The court affirmed in part and reversed in part the denial of the motion to suppress, holding that an exigency existed only as to the pistol discovered in the bedroom, but not as to the rifle in the laundry room. Finally, the court vacated defendant's conviction where defendant's pre-Miranda answers should have been excluded, and remanded to allow defendant the option to withdraw his guilty plea. View "United States v. Chhay Lim" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence after he pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography. The court held that the district court erred by adding a five-level enhancement under USSG 2G2.2(b)(3)(B) for distributing in exchange for any valuable consideration, but not for pecuniary gain. In this case, the district court erred by applying the court's holding in United States v. Groce, 784 F.3d 291 (5th Cir. 2015), instead of an intervening amendment of the Guidelines. However, the procedural error was harmless because the record reflected that the district court would have imposed the same sentence with a significant downward variance in light of his age and his lack of criminal history. The court also held that the district court did not err by awarding $50,317.00 of restitution to six known victims; the district court did not err by denying an additional one-level reduction to defendant's base offense level for acceptance of responsibility; and defendant's special condition of supervised release, preventing access to the internet, survived plain-error review. View "United States v. Halverson" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit granted defendant's motion for reconsideration of the denial of his application for a certificate of appealability (COA). The court withdrew the prior order and substituted the following opinion.The court held that jurists of reason would not find it debatable that the district court was correct in its determining that his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion was time-barred because Welch v. United States, 578 U.S. —, 136 S. Ct. 1257 (2016), made Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. —, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), in which the Supreme Court invalidated the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984, 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), retroactive to cases on collateral review. The court held that section 924(c)(3)(B) remained valid, even in light of Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U.S. —, 138 S. Ct. 1204 (2018), and related precedent. Accordingly, the court denied the certificate of appealability. View "United States v. Williams" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of defendant's motion to suppress evidence from a traffic stop. The court held that the initial traffic stop was valid; and when the license check began, the officer had already developed reasonable suspicion that another crime was afoot. In this case, defendant's answers to some of the officer's questions were suspicious and there were modifications to the vehicle's trailer that could, and did, contain a hidden compartment containing contraband. Therefore, the totality of the circumstances led the officers, based on their training and experience, to conclude that the trailer contained a hidden compartment—a conclusion that, with all the other circumstances, supported probable cause. View "United States v. Villafranco-Elizondo" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess, with the intent to distribute, cocaine while aboard a vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, in violation of 46 U.S.C. 70503(a)(1), 70506(a) & (b) and 21 U.S.C. 960. The court followed its precedent in strictly construing the safety valve provision and holding that section 70503 was not specifically provided for under 18 U.S.C. 3553(f), but also was not an offense under section 960. Therefore, the district court did not err by denying defendant safety valve relief. The court further held that the district court did not clearly err by denying defendant a two-level sentencing reduction in his offense level for playing a minor role in the conspiracy. View "United States v. Anchundia-Espinoza" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for bringing methamphetamine from Mexico into the United States. The court held that, although the government engaged in misconduct where the prosecution used drug profiling evidence and bolstered witnesses' credibility, defendant failed to meet the heavy burden of obtaining reversal for the errors because he did not object to them during trial. The court also held that there was no clear Confrontation Clause violation when an agent mentioned a tip implicating defendant. Finally, there was no cumulative error in this case. View "United States v. Sosa" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit vacated the district court's judgment and dismissed defendant's 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion for lack of jurisdiction. Defendant argued that his sentence should not have been enhanced under the Armed Career Criminal Act. The court held that Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), was not a jurisdictional predicate for defendant's motion and thus the district court did not have jurisdiction to reach the merits of the motion. View "United States v. Wiese" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his guilty-plea conviction and sentence for illegal reentry after deportation following an aggravated felony conviction. The Fifth Circuit held that, to the extent defendant challenged the reliability of the presentence report's determination that he admittedly reentered the United States illegally on November 23, 2010, he has forfeited that argument by raising it for the first time in his reply brief. Even if the claim were not forfeited, the district court did not err by relying on defendant's admitted date of entry. The court also held that defendant's contention that his prior convictions should not have been used to enhance his sentence under USSG 2L1.2(b) was without merit, because defendant's prior convictions were within the requisite time period from his illegal reentry date in order to receive criminal history points under USSG 4A1.2(e)(1). Finally, the court held that defendant failed to show that the extent of the district court's downward departure based on the age of his 1996 conviction constituted an abuse of discretion. View "United States v. Solis Ponce" on Justia Law