Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

An FBI task force identified Brewer as being present at banks just before robberies, determined that Brewer lived with Pawlak, in Gary, Indiana, and observed a Toyota matching the one from the robberies parked outside their residence. An officer obtained a state court warrant, which permitted the use of a “tracking device … in any public or private area ... within the State of Indiana.” An officer monitored Brewer's car until it arrived in Los Angeles, unaware of the limitation, saw it circling a Los Angeles bank, and notified local officers, who observed Brewer and Pawlak near the bank. When they returned, Pawlak got out of the car, approached the tellers, held up a robbery note, and ran out of the bank with about $1,000. Officers stopped their car, arrested Brewer and Pawlak, and found a bag of cash. Brewer was charged in Indiana with three counts of bank robbery, 18 U.S.C. 2113(a) and lost a motion to suppress regarding the tracking device. The government presented evidence of the Ohio and California robberies, eyewitness testimony identifying Brewer as present before the robberies, and surveillance footage. Convicted, Brewer was sentenced to 137 months in prison. He had been convicted in California; the Indiana sentence added 12 months in custody. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The in-state limitation did not reflect a probable-cause finding or a particularity requirement; the Fourth Amendment is unconcerned with state borders. The evidence of the unindicted robberies was directly probative of Brewer’s identity, modus operandi, and intent, and fell within the bounds of Federal Rule 404(b)(2). View "United States v. Brewer" on Justia Law

In 1993, Carey was a security guard at a night school. Carey arrived for his shift, traversed the premises, then returned to his car to read. The parking lot was not well lit. Around 7:00 p.m., Carey saw three black men walking toward his vehicle. About two feet from Carey’s car one man grabbed a gun from his coat and fired it through the window. Carey, shot in the face, made his way into the school. Help was summoned; 15-20 minutes after the shooting, the Elkhart police found Sims near about 20 feet from Carey's car. Carey’s identification of Sims in the photographic lineup was not unequivocal but Carey identified him at trial as the shooter. The police never found the gun. Sims was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 35 years’ imprisonment. In 2012, during a post-conviction evidentiary hearing, Sims learned the prosecution withheld evidence that Carey, the only identification witness, was hypnotized before trial to enhance his recollection. After the Indiana courts denied habeas relief, Sims filed a federal petition. The district court held that the Indiana court did not unreasonably apply established federal law. The Seventh Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court recognizes that suppression of strong, non-cumulative evidence related to the credibility of a witness who is critical to the prosecution's case, is material under Brady. The fact that Carey had been hypnotized would have undermined his credibility and changed his cross-examination dramatically. View "Sims v. Hyatte" on Justia Law

On trial for bank robbery, Books chose not to testify in his own defense. He was found guilty and sentenced to 180 months’ imprisonment. He challenged the district court’s decision to allow eyewitness testimony from two bank tellers; Books alleged they based their identification of him as the robber not on personal knowledge, but rather on information improperly supplied by a police detective. He also challenged a ruling that would have allowed the government, had Books chosen to testify, to impeach him with physical evidence directly tying him to the robbery—evidence the police learned of (and recovered) only as a result of a confession the district court separately had determined was unlawfully coerced. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the conviction. The district court did not err in finding the eyewitness identifications reflected the tellers’ firsthand knowledge of Books; allowing their testimony at trial was entirely proper. Nor does the district court’s conditional impeachment ruling, even if wrong on the law, mandate reversal in light of the overwhelming weight of evidence against Books. View "United States v. Books" on Justia Law

In 2010 Phillips began serving an eight-year term of supervised release stemming from a 2003 conviction for possession of cocaine base with intent to distribute. In October 2017, Quincy police officers stopped him as he drove out of the parking lot of the Amtrak station. A dog alerted that drugs might be present in the car. The officer conducted a search, discovered approximately 196 grams of heroin, and arrested Phillips for possession with intent to distribute. Phillips moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that there was no violation of any traffic law, so the police lacked probable cause for the stop. The district court concluded that the exclusionary rule does not apply to supervised-release-revocation hearings. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Two of the Supreme Court’s rationales for declining to extend the exclusionary rule to the parole context equally apply to hearings for the revocation of supervised release. The exclusionary rule would “alter the traditionally flexible, administrative nature of parole revocation proceedings.” View "United States v. Phillips" on Justia Law

Police conducted a traffic stop of Cook's car, approached the car and noticed a strong odor of marijuana. Cook was driving on a suspended license and without a license plate on the front of his vehicle, so the officers ordered him to step out of the vehicle and removed a loaded, .40-caliber pistol from a holster under Cook’s shoulder. The gun had an extended 22-round capacity magazine with 19 bullets remaining. In purchasing the firearm, Cook completed an ATF form, answering “no” to the question, “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?” During a recorded interview, Cook acknowledged that he had used marijuana almost daily for nearly 10 years and had smoked two “blunts” that day. Cook ultimately produced a small packet containing a half ounce of marijuana. Cook was convicted of being an unlawful user of a controlled substance in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3). The Seventh Circuit affirmed. A defendant whose conduct is clearly prohibited by a statute cannot make a facial vagueness challenge. There is a substantial relationship between the government’s legitimate interest in preventing violent crime and the statute’s ban on gun possession by unlawful drug users. The court also rejected a challenge to the jury instructions. View "United States v. Cook" on Justia Law

Coleman, a former Chicago police officer, was friends with cousins Davis and Conway. In 2014, Coleman served on the Operation Five Leaf Clover drug investigation task force, which began to focus on people whom Coleman knew, including Davis. The Operation was preparing to execute search and arrest warrants but, before the bust, the targets learned about it. Conway testified that on June 9, 2014, he received a call from an unknown woman who told him to call Coleman, who warned him about the impending searches and told him to pass the message along to Davis. Conway did so. The Operation had wiretapped numerous phones and heard two men say that someone “on the task force” had given them a warning call. The contraband was moved to a house that the Operation had not known about but officers were monitoring the person Davis called. The Operation then obtained a search warrant for the new house and recovered the contraband. Coleman was convicted of obstruction of justice, 18 U.S.C. 1512(c)(2), and sentenced to 60 months’ imprisonment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting claims of evidentiary errors, that the prosecution used perjured testimony, and that the court committed errors in selecting his sentence. View "United States v. Coleman" on Justia Law

In September 2013, Chicago police officers searched an apartment where they encountered Lewis and two others and discovered a handgun. Lewis alleges that the officers had no basis to believe the gun was his; that he didn’t live at the apartment and never told the officers otherwise; and that the officers never found anything in the apartment indicating that he lived there. Lewis spent more than two years in pretrial detention on charges of unlawfully possessing a firearm. After the charges were dropped, Lewis sued the city and police officers under 42 U.S.C. 1983 seeking damages. The district court dismissed the suit, ruling that both claims were time-barred. Days later the Supreme Court decided Manuel v. City of Joliet, clarifying that detention without probable cause violates the Fourth Amendment “when it precedes, but also when it follows, the start of legal process in a criminal case.” The Court declined to decide when such claims accrue, remanding the case to the Seventh Circuit, which held that a Fourth Amendment claim for wrongful pretrial detention accrues on the date the detention ends. The Seventh Circuit then held that Lewis had filed a viable, timely Fourth Amendment claim for unlawful pretrial detention. Lewis filed it within two years of his release from detention. The court affirmed the dismissal of the due-process claim. View "Lewis v. Chicago" on Justia Law

Lund and 30 others were charged with conspiracy to distribute heroin. The indictment alleged that the conspiracy resulted in overdose deaths of five individuals, 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(A). Lund pleaded guilty but denied responsibility for two deaths, arguing that he had withdrawn from the conspiracy before those deaths. The district court judge rejected that argument and sentenced him in accordance with the 20-year mandatory minimum (“death results” enhancement). The Seventh Circuit affirmed. His sentence became final in 2013. In 2016, Lund filed a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255 based on changes in the law occurring after his conviction. In Burrage, the Supreme Court held that finding a defendant guilty of the “death results” penalty “requires proof ‘that the harm would not have occurred in the absence of—that is, but for—the defendant’s conduct.’” This but-for causation rule applies retroactively. Lund argued that under Burrage, he is actually innocent of the “death results” enhancement because the heroin he provided to two individuals was not the but-for cause of their deaths. The district court found that there was no statutory basis to find his petition timely; it was filed more than a year after the Supreme Court decided Burrage and more than a year after the evidence he presented could have been discovered, The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Even assuming actual innocence can be premised on a change in the law, Lund cannot take advantage of the exception because he rests both his actual innocence claim and his claim for relief on Burrage. View "Lund v. United States" on Justia Law

Eight men entered a Chicago rail-yard, broke into a parked cargo train, and discovered firearms being shipped to a distributor. They stole over 100 guns. The government claimed, and one robber (Turner) testified, that another robber (Walker), contacted Driggers to sell the guns. Turner and Walker took 30 stolen firearms to Driggers’s store and consummated the sale. Turner received $1,700 for six guns that comprised his share. Driggers was not on the lease but the store was his. Police searched Driggers’s store. An ATF Agent testified that the agents found a hodgepodge of merchandise (some apparently stolen), personal documents and items belonging to Driggers, and a gun hidden in the backroom--its serial number matched a gun stolen during the train robbery. Trial testimony and phone records showed that after Driggers allegedly purchased the 30 stolen guns, he contacted Gates. Before Driggers’s trial, Gates confessed. Gates’s storage units contained six stolen guns. Gates confessed to purchasing them, plus 11 others from the train robbery. In his own case, Gates stated that he purchased those guns from Lipscomb and Peebles; in Driggers’s case, the prosecution argued that Gates had bought them from Driggers. The Seventh Circuit affirmed Driggers’s conviction for possession of a firearm as a felon, 18 U.S.C. 922(g). He was acquitted of possession of a stolen firearm. The court rejected arguments that the district court improperly allowed testimony about Gates and gave an erroneous jury instruction on joint possession. View "United States v. Driggers" on Justia Law

Rainsberger was charged with murdering his elderly mother and was held for two months. He claims that the detective who built the case against him, Benner, submitted a probable cause affidavit that contained lies and omitted exculpatory evidence. When the prosecutor dismissed the case because of evidentiary problems, Rainsberger sued Benner under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court denied Benner’s motion, in which he argued qualified immunity. Benner conceded, for purposes of his appeal, that he knowingly or recklessly made false statements in the probable cause affidavit, arguing that knowingly or recklessly misleading the magistrate in a probable cause affidavit only violates the Fourth Amendment if the omissions and lies were material to probable cause. The Seventh Circuit rejected that argument. Materiality depends on whether the affidavit demonstrates probable cause when the lies are taken out and the exculpatory evidence is added in. When that is done in this case, Benner’s affidavit fails to establish probable cause to believe that Rainsberger murdered his mother. Because it is clearly established that it violates the Fourth Amendment “to use deliberately falsified allegations to demonstrate probable cause,” Benner is not entitled to qualified immunity. View "Rainsberger v. Benner" on Justia Law