Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

While working for Vanguard, Capps fraudulently caused funds from dormant accounts to be mailed to co-conspirators, one of whom then wrote checks conveying back to him some of the proceeds. Capps received at least two checks, one for $555,200 and another for $29,750, and did not report the income on his federal tax returns. Capps pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1349, money laundering, sections 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) and 2, and filing a false tax return, 26 U.S.C. 7206(1). At sentencing, he did not raise any objections to the PSR and the court adopted its calculation of the applicable guidelines range (63-78 months), including two separate 2-level adjustments based on abuse of trust and gross receipts. The court sentenced Capps to 48 months’ imprisonment and ordered Capps to pay $2,137,580.81 in restitution.The Third Circuit vacated, finding that the district court plainly erred in applying the abuse of trust adjustment. As to the application of the gross receipts adjustment, the court reasoned that, while the district court did not plainly err in deciding the adjustment could be applicable, it is not clear on this record whether Capps met the threshold for the adjustment to actually apply. View "United States v. Capps" on Justia Law

An individual arrested in Philadelphia typically is brought before an Arraignment Court Magistrate for a preliminary arraignment. If an arrestee seeks review of the magistrate’s decision, an emergency municipal court judge is available to conduct an immediate review by telephone. The hearings are open to the public, but transcripts of the hearings are not made and audio recordings are not available to the public. Following a hearing, the public may obtain copies of court documents, including the bail bond, the criminal complaint, the bail hearing subpoena, and a bail appeal report if applicable. Those documents do not include the parties’ arguments or the magistrate’s reasoning. Bail Fund sends volunteers into Philadelphia bail hearings to observe and report on the proceedings and produces reports to educate Philadelphia citizens and officials. Bail Fund sought permission to create its own audio recordings, and later filed suit raising an as-applied First Amendment challenge to Pennsylvania Rules: Criminal Procedure 112(C); Judicial Administration 1910(B); and Philadelphia Municipal Court Arraignment Court Magistrate 7.09.4 The district court granted Bail Fund summary judgment.The Third Circuit reversed, declining to extend the First Amendment right of access to the courts into a right to make or require the creation of audio recordings. Bail Fund can attend bail hearings and take handwritten notes; that its volunteers may not be able to capture every word does not meaningfully interfere with the public’s ability to inform itself of the proceedings. View "Reed v. Devlin" on Justia Law

Tyson handed his gun to Powell and waited in the getaway car while Powell shot and killed two men in a stopped van. A Monroe County, Pennsylvania jury convicted Tyson of two counts of first-degree murder as an accomplice. In seeking post-conviction relief in state court, Tyson claimed his trial counsel was ineffective for not objecting to the court’s erroneous instruction, which he argued allowed the jury to find him guilty without finding he possessed the requisite intent to kill.In federal habeas proceedings, the district court held the state court reasonably applied federal law in finding his trial counsel was not ineffective and denied relief. The Third Circuit reversed, finding a strong likelihood the jury convicted Tyson as an accomplice to first-degree murder without finding he possessed the specific intent to kill. There was no language in the instruction that would lead the jury to connect the requisite intent to kill to the role of an accomplice. In light of the instruction’s “profound impropriety,” the court concluded that trial counsel acted unreasonably in failing to object. Counsel’s failure to object to the court’s instruction led to the likelihood that the jury interpreted the law in a way that lessened the Commonwealth’s burden of proof. View "Tyson v. Superintendent Houtzdale SCI" on Justia Law

In 2008, Easter was convicted of drug offenses involving crack cocaine and one firearms offense. The drug counts each carried a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment. The gun charge carried a mandatory consecutive minimum of five years’ imprisonment. The court determined that the guideline range for the drug offenses was 168-210 months, finding that Easter was responsible for possessing 343.55 grams of crack cocaine. The court added two levels because Easter obstructed justice and sentenced Easter to 228 months’ imprisonment--168 months on the drug offenses, consecutive to 60 months for the firearms offense. In 2014, Sentencing Guidelines Amendment 782 reduced the base offense levels of various drug quantities. The district court granted Easter a retroactive sentence reduction and imposed a sentence at the bottom of this range—135 months for the drug offenses and 60 consecutive months for the gun charge.In 2018, the First Step Act made the Fair Sentencing Act retroactive so that an offense must involve 280 grams or more of crack cocaine to trigger the 10-years-to-life range. Easter sought resentencing. The government argued that eligibility turns not on the drug weight for which Easter was convicted (50 grams) but on the weight for which he was held responsible at sentencing (343.55 grams). The court explained that Easter was held responsible for 343.55 grams of crack cocaine so that his sentencing range is identical to the range he had following Amendment 782 and declined to exercise its discretion to resentence Easter without addressing Easter’s request that it consider his post-sentence rehabilitation or other section 3553(a) factors. The Third Circuit vacated. In considering a motion for a sentence reduction under the First Step Act, a court must consider anew all of the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors. View "United States v. Easter" on Justia Law

Twenty-one men from the South Side of York, Pennsylvania were charged on counts of racketeering conspiracy, drug-trafficking conspiracy, and drug trafficking. Four were also variously charged with federal firearms offenses related to the alleged trafficking. The indictment alleged that South Side had, since 2002, constituted the identity of a criminal enterprise associated with the Bloods, a national street gang, and ran an extensive drug-trafficking operation, conducted across a defined territory and nurtured by sporadic episodes of gang violence. Nine defendants pleaded guilty. Twelve proceeded to a joint trial, with more than 100 witnesses, including some of the original defendants. All 12 defendants were convicted of various charges and were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from 60 months to life.The Third Circuit affirmed the convictions, rejecting arguments that the closure of the courtroom to the public during jury selection violated the Sixth Amendment right to a public trial and that the district court’s in camera disposition of a “Batson” challenge violated the defendants’ constitutional right to personal presence at all critical phases of their trial and was sufficiently prejudicial to warrant reversal. The court rejected challenges to the denial of motions to suppress evidence collected from the defendants’ residences pursuant to search warrants and to the admission and use of evidence at trial. The evidence was sufficient to support the verdicts. The court vacated certain sentences. View "United States v. Williams" on Justia Law

In 2008, State Trooper DiLillo stopped a car for speeding. Allen was the passenger. His uncle, Andrew, was driving. Allen had rented the vehicle. Each man was subject to an outstanding warrant. They were placed under arrest. Allen admitted that he had marijuana on his person. DiLillo discovered baggies of marijuana in Allen’s shoes. Trooper Nugnes arrived; DiLillo left with the men. When a tow truck arrived, the driver attempted to unlock the car and accidentally opened the trunk. Nugnes told the truck driver not to do anything and pulled out something wrapped in black plastic, which Nugnes correctly believed to be a bundle of heroin.The court denied Allen’s motion to suppress the heroin, finding that the evidence was in plain view. Allen pled guilty, admitting in court that: there was heroin in the car and that he intended to distribute it. On remand, the trial court heard testimony from the tow truck driver and Nugnes and was “not persuaded, by even the preponderance of the evidence, that the mannitol or the heroin was visible prior to the trooper’s incursion into the trunk.” The Supreme Court of New Jersey vacated Allen’s conviction because of Nugnes’s warrantless search.Allen filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 suit. The Third Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the defendants. Allen did not establish a malicious prosecution claim because he failed to show that his case was terminated in a way indicative of his innocence. With respect to claims against the state police, New Jersey has not waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity. View "Allen v. New Jersey State Police" on Justia Law

Jabateh was a rebel commander during the Liberian civil war. He later fled to the United States seeking asylum. His conduct in Liberia, characterized by brazen violence and wanton atrocities, made honest immigration application impossible. He concealed his crimes and portrayed himself as a persecuted victim. Jabateh’s fraud succeeded for almost 20 years.In 2016, Jabateh was charged with the fraud in his immigration documents, 18 U.S.C. 1546(a) and perjury, 18 U.S.C. 1621. The five-year limitations period for misconduct related to Jabateh's 2001 application for permanent residency had passed, leaving only Jabateh’s oral responses in a 2011 Interview affirming his answer of “no” to questions related to genocide and misrepresentations during his immigration applications. The district court noted “the force of the prosecution’s trial evidence,” establishing that Jabateh personally committed or ordered his troops to commit murder, enslavement, rape, and torture “because of race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin or political opinion.”The Third Circuit affirmed, rejecting challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence and to Jabateh’s 360-month sentence. The court acknowledged that section 1546(a) criminalizes fraud in immigration documents and that Jabateh was not charged with fraud in his immigration documents, only with orally lying about those documents. Jabateh, however, failed to raise this argument at trial. “Given the novelty of the interpretative question, and the lack of persuasive" guidance, the court declined to hold that this reading of section 1546(a) meets the stringent standards for “plain error” reversal. View "United States v. Jabateh" on Justia Law

The statutes, 18 U.S.C. 2257 and 2257A, require producers of pornography to verify the age and identity of each person portrayed, to keep records of the age verification, and to label each depiction with the location where law enforcement may obtain those records. In 2009, the plaintiffs filed suit. Their First Amendment challenges have resulted in three prior Third Circuit opinions. In 2016, the court remanded for the evaluation of those claims under strict scrutiny.The Third Circuit affirmed the resulting order in part. The two association plaintiffs lack standing to bring as-applied First Amendment claims on behalf of their members. The age verification, recordkeeping, and labeling requirements violate the First Amendment as applied to plaintiffs who are at least 30 years old. The government conceded that the requirements need not apply when sexually explicit depictions show performers who are at least 30 years old because, at that age, an adult performer could not reasonably appear to be a child. For these plaintiffs, the requirements are not the least restrictive way to protect children. The requirements are not facially invalid under the First Amendment overbreadth doctrine; the plaintiffs failed to prove that those provisions improperly restrict a substantial amount of protected speech relative to their plainly legitimate sweep. A nationwide injunction was broader than necessary to provide full relief to those plaintiffs who prevailed on their as-applied claims. View "Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Attorney General United States" on Justia Law

Porter was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1986. Since then, he has been incarcerated in solitary confinement on death row. In 2003, the district court granted, in part, Porter’s 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition, determining that his penalty phase verdict form was unconstitutional. The order vacated Porter’s death sentence. Appeals from the order were held in abeyance pending the Pennsylvania courts' ruling on another petition and remain in abeyance.Porter then claimed violations of his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments rights by continuing to confine him on death row even though his death sentence had been vacated. Porter alleged that his solitary confinement has caused “irreversible damage” to his mental health. The district court held that Porter does not have a procedural due process interest in avoiding solitary confinement because Porter’s death sentence remains active; Porter has not offered evidence of actual injury or deliberate indifference so he cannot succeed on an Eighth Amendment claim; and Porter cannot make a substantive due process claim based on the same allegations at issue in his Eighth Amendment claim.The Third Circuit reversed in part. The existence of the stay does not extinguish procedural due process rights. While 33 years of solitary confinement may violate the Eighth Amendment, the claimed Eighth Amendment right has not been clearly established so representatives of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections are entitled to qualified immunity. View "Porter v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

Harvard gave Mazzetti (a stranger) a ride home because Mazzetti was afraid of her boyfriend (Sutton). Upon their arrival, Sutton made threats, tried to get Mazzetti out of the vehicle, and used racial slurs against Harvard, a Black male. Harvard called 911 and proceeded to leave with Mazzetti. Sutton jumped onto the hood of Harvard’s moving vehicle, making death threats. Harvard believed Sutton had a firearm and a knife. Harvard informed the 911 operator of the situation and drove onto the highway. The operator instructed Harvard to take a specific exit.At the police roadblock, Trooper Cesnalis did not respond to Harvard’s explanation, made no effort to locate the knife or the firearm, and asked Harvard to take a Breathalyzer test. Harvard agreed. After six tries, Harvard completed the test, which indicated that his blood alcohol content was below the legal limit. Cesnalis nonetheless inferred that Harvard was under the influence because he was sweaty, speaking rapidly, and not directly answering questions. Harvard was handcuffed and taken to the police station. Cesnalis was aware that Sutton had a criminal record but accepted Sutton’s explanation that Harvard had hit him with his vehicle. Sutton was not charged. Mazzetti corroborated Harvard’s statements. Despite negative results from additional testing, Cesnalis charged Harvard with DUI, recklessly endangering another person, reckless driving, simple assault, aggravated assault, and disorderly conduct, referring to Sutton as “the victim.” He omitted several exculpatory facts from the affidavit and referred to Harvard’s criminal history, although there was no evidence that Harvard had a criminal history.Harvard, exonerated, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The Third Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment for Cesnalis as to false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and Equal Protection but affirmed as to the remaining claims and as to another officer. View "Harvard v. Cesnalis" on Justia Law