Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The First Circuit remanded Appellant’s case for resentencing, holding that the district court erred by ordering a twelve-month term of home detention as part of Appellant’s sentence.Appellant was convicted, pursuant to a plea agreement, and sentenced on drug and firearms charges. On appeal, Appellant argued, among other things, that the district court improperly ordered a twelve-month term of home detention on the drug count, to be served after his mandatory minimum five-year term of imprisonment on the firearms count. The First Circuit agreed, holding (1) the appellate waiver provision in Appellant’s plea agreement may not be construed to bar his challenge to his term of home confinement where the term was twice as long as the high end of the applicable imprisonment range and the parties had recommended a sentence at the low end of the range; and (2) the twelve-month term of home confinement was an unjustified variance from the applicable guidelines range of zero-to-six months’ imprisonment. View "United States v. Lopez-Pastrana" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the sentence imposed following the revocation of Defendant’s supervised release term, holding that Defendant’s claims of sentencing error were unavailing.Defendant admitted to violating his supervised release conditions. The district court imposed a term of two years’ incarceration, to be followed by an additional thirty-four months of supervised release. The First Circuit affirmed the sentence, holding (1) the notification requirement of Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(h) did not obligate the district court to provide him advance notice of its intention to impose a sentence above the peak of the guideline range; (2) the district court did not err either in its treatment of the relevant sentencing factors or in its choice to give heavy weight to the gravity of the violations committed by Defendant; and (3) Defendant’s sentence was substantively reasonable. View "United States v. Daoust" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s convictions of arson, wire fraud, and the use of fire in furtherance of a federal felony, holding that any alleged errors during trial were, whether individually or collectively, harmless.On appeal, Defendant argued that the prosecution violated his Confrontation Clause rights when an investigator testified that the cause of the fire was incendiary, rather than electrical, because the investigator relied on conclusions drawn by Defendant’s insurer’s electrical expert without calling that expert to the stand. Defendant also argued that this was a violation of Fed. R. Evid. 703. The First Circuit held (1) any such violation, if one occurred at all, of Defendant’s Confrontation Clause rights was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt; and (2) any error under Fed. R. Evid. 703 was harmless. View "United States v. Saad" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court sentencing Defendant, who pled guilty to a charge of illegal possession of a machine gun, to thirty months in prison to be followed by supervisory release, with the condition that, for the first year, Defendant would be subject to electronic monitoring and curfew restrictions. The Court held (1) the district court properly imposed a stolen weapon enhancement; (2) Defendant’s sentence was reasonable; and (3) the imposed conditions as to curfew and monitoring were not an abuse of the district court’s discretion. View "United States v. Pinet-Fuentes" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court determining that probable cause existed for the arrest of Appellant and refusing to suppress evidence seized during a warrant-back search of Appellant’s hotel room, despite the officers’ earlier unlawful entry into that room.The Court held (1) the district court did not err in determining that Appellant’s de facto arrest comported with the strictures of the Fourth Amendment; and (2) the district court did not err in applying the independent source doctrine to validate the warrant-backed search of Appellant’s hotel room, thus permitting the government to use the evidence obtained as a result of that search, notwithstanding the earlier warrantless entry into that room. View "United States v. Flores" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed in all respects Defendant’s conviction of distribution and possession of child pornography and his sentence of seventeen years of imprisonment followed by ten years of supervised release. The Court held (1) Defendant waived his argument that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress the evidence seized as a result of a search warrant; (2) the district court did not err in denying Defendant’s motion to suppress (i) statements he made to the police during his arrest because his statements were not the product of an interrogation, (ii) statements he made during a police interview at the station house because Defendant’s Miranda waiver and consent were knowing and intelligent and made voluntarily, and (iii) statements he made during an interview because Defendant did not unambiguously request counsel; (3) the district court did not err in admitting certain evidence under Fed. R. Evid. 414(a); (4) the district court’s decision to give an aiding and abetting instruction was not in error; and (5) Defendant’s sentence was constitutional. View "United States v. Sweeney" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s convictions for one count of conspiracy to convert government property, fourteen counts of conversion of government property, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and Defendant’s sentence to a term of imprisonment of fifty-four months.Defendant’s convictions stemmed from his role in using bank accounts that he owned or controlled in order to negotiate fraudulently-obtained federal tax refund checks. The First Circuit held (1) Defendant’s argument that the district court erred in permitting a prior settlement with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office to be used at trial failed; (2) the district court did not err in permitting the government to introduce expert testimony at trial regarding the Massachusetts rules about Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts (IOLTA) accounts for attorneys; and (3) the district court did not err in imposing three sentencing enhancements in calculating Defendant’s sentencing range under the Sentencing Guidelines. View "United States v. Cohen" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment convicting Defendant, after he pleaded guilty, to two counts of conspiring to possess with intent to distribute narcotics and sentencing him to 121 months’ imprisonment. Contrary to Defendant’s contentions on appeal, the Court held (1) the district court did not err at the change of plea hearing in concluding that Defendant was competent to plea without further inquiry into his mental state or whether the medications he was taking would affect the voluntariness of his plea; and (2) the district court did not abuse it discretion by denying Defendant’s third motion for substitute counsel after his plea was entered. View "United States v. Mejia-Encarnacion" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court sentencing Defendant to a 202-month term of immurement on the charge of conspiring to possess with intent to distribute cocaine base and to a sixty-month term of immurement on the charge of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime and stipulating that those prison terms would run consecutive to one another and to the undischarged portions of multiple Puerto Rico sentences that Defendant was then serving. On appeal, Defendant primarily challenged the district court’s determination to run the federal sentences consecutive to the Puerto Rico sentences previously imposed. The First Circuit held (1) the district court’s decision to impose a consecutive sentence was not an abuse of discretion; and (2) Defendant’s claim that running the federal drug-conspiracy sentence consecutive to the state sentences rendered the federal sentence substantively unreasonable was unproven. View "United States v. Rentas-Muniz" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s convictions for conspiring to commit access-device fraud, holding that the district court did not err in denying Defendant’s motion to suppress wiretap evidence and that Defendant’s sentence was both procedurally and substantively reasonable. Specifically, the Court held (1) the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to suppress court-approved wiretaps, authorized during a separate investigation into a drug trafficking organization, which exposed Defendant’s involvement in a scheme to produce and make purchases with fraudulent credit cards because the affidavits supporting the wiretap applications provided facts that were minimally adequate to support the wiretap authorizations; and (2) Defendant’s sentencing challenges were unavailing. View "United States v. Delima" on Justia Law