Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The plaintiff, a long-term tenant of a triplex, entered into a lease in 1995 and was paying below-market rent. In 2020, the property was acquired by a new owner, Connie, LLC, which hired a property management company. The new owners and the management company misrepresented to their attorney that the plaintiff was a property manager receiving discounted rent, and, based on this misrepresentation, concluded that the rent control protections of the Tenant Protection Act of 2019 did not apply. Relying on this advice, they terminated the plaintiff’s supposed management role and raised his rent to market rate, which the plaintiff paid for 11 months. The plaintiff later learned that the rent increase was illegal under the Act and sued to recover the overpaid rent, asserting, among other claims, a cause of action under Penal Code section 496 for receiving stolen property.The Superior Court of Orange County conducted a jury trial. After the close of evidence, the court granted a directed verdict against the plaintiff on all claims except for breach of contract, finding that the evidence did not support a claim under section 496 because the defendants’ conduct was based on a mistake rather than theft. The court entered a nominal judgment in the plaintiff’s favor on the contract claim.On appeal, the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division Three, reviewed whether the directed verdict on the section 496 claim was proper. The appellate court held that sufficient evidence existed for a jury to find that the defendants’ receipt of the illegally increased rent constituted receiving property obtained by false pretenses, as defined by section 496, and that the issue should have been submitted to the jury. The court reversed the judgment as to the section 496 claim and remanded for further proceedings, awarding the plaintiff his costs on appeal. View "Johnson v. Connie, LLC" on Justia Law

The case concerns a criminal prosecution in which the defendant was charged with assault with a deadly weapon after allegedly pointing a firearm at another person and making threatening statements. The prosecution charged that the defendant intentionally placed the victim in reasonable apprehension of immediate bodily harm by brandishing the firearm. During trial preparation, the defense requested, and the district court approved, a jury instruction requiring the State to prove that the defendant had the present ability to use the weapon, specifically that the firearm was both loaded and operable.The Eighth Judicial District Court of Nevada granted the defense’s request for this instruction over the State’s objection. The State then filed an emergency petition for a writ of mandamus or prohibition with the Supreme Court of Nevada, arguing that the instruction misstated the law because the current statutory definition of assault with a deadly weapon does not require proof that the firearm was loaded and operable or that the defendant had a present ability to injure.The Supreme Court of Nevada reviewed the petition and determined that the relevant statute, NRS 200.471, had been amended since earlier case law to remove the requirement of a present ability to injure. The statute now defines assault as either an unlawful attempt to use physical force or intentionally placing another in reasonable apprehension of immediate bodily harm. The court held that the jury instruction was legally inaccurate and misleading because it imposed requirements not found in the current statute. The court granted the State’s petition for a writ of mandamus and directed the district court to vacate its order approving the challenged jury instruction. View "State v. District Court" on Justia Law

The case concerns the fatal shooting of Angel Rodriguez outside his home. Surveillance footage showed a silver Cadillac SUV near the scene, and eyewitnesses described the shooter as matching the build of Xavier Acosta. Acosta was identified as a suspect after a domestic violence incident involving his spouse, Rebecca. During the investigation, Acosta’s mother-in-law reported that Acosta confessed to killing Rodriguez out of love for Rebecca, who was Rodriguez’s ex-boyfriend. Police seized two cell phones belonging to Acosta and, after obtaining a search warrant, extracted their contents, which included a photograph of Rodriguez’s house taken minutes before the shooting. DNA evidence also linked Acosta to a Cadillac similar to the one seen in the surveillance footage.The Eighth Judicial District Court, Clark County, presided over Acosta’s trial. Acosta moved to suppress evidence obtained from his cell phones, arguing the warrant was overbroad and unsupported by probable cause, but the court denied the motion. The court also admitted certain letters between Acosta and his wife and evidence of a prior domestic violence incident. The jury found Acosta guilty of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon, and he was sentenced accordingly.The Supreme Court of Nevada reviewed the case. It held that the warrant authorizing the search of Acosta’s cell phones was constitutionally deficient because it lacked specific facts establishing probable cause that evidence of the murder would be found on the phones. The court found that the district court erred in denying the motion to suppress this evidence and that the good-faith exception did not apply. However, the court concluded that the error was harmless due to overwhelming other evidence of guilt. The Supreme Court of Nevada affirmed the judgment of conviction. View "Acosta v. State" on Justia Law

Greg Wright was recorded on video robbing a gas station convenience store at gunpoint. The cashier, who was present during the incident, testified that Wright showed no signs of intoxication—he did not smell of alcohol, slur his words, or appear confused. The robbery was carried out efficiently, with Wright taking money, a lighter, and his own dollar before leaving. Police arrested Wright the next day and found a loaded pistol in his car. At trial, Wright represented himself and argued that he was too intoxicated to form the intent to rob, but the evidence from both the cashier and the surveillance video contradicted this claim.The Superior Court of Los Angeles County presided over the trial. The jury convicted Wright of robbery, possession of a firearm by a felon, and unlawful possession of ammunition, and found true the firearm use and prior conviction allegations. The trial court sentenced Wright to 36 years and four months to life, including enhancements for firearm use and prior convictions. Wright challenged the jury instructions regarding intoxication, the prosecutor’s closing argument, and the imposition of multiple punishments for related offenses, as well as the process for determining aggravating sentencing factors.The California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Eight, reviewed the case. The court held that the trial court erred by using the term “specific intent” in the intoxication defense instruction, but found the error harmless given the overwhelming evidence that Wright was not impaired. The court also found any assumed prosecutorial error and cumulative error to be harmless. However, the appellate court agreed that sentencing errors occurred: multiple punishments for the firearm and ammunition offenses violated Penal Code section 654, and Wright was denied his right to a jury trial on aggravating sentencing factors as required by Erlinger v. United States. The convictions were affirmed, but the case was remanded for full resentencing. View "People v. Wright" on Justia Law

A government agency responsible for marketing hydroelectric power operated a warehouse in Colorado, where an employee, Jared Newman, orchestrated a fraudulent procurement scheme from 2014 to 2017. Newman arranged for the agency to purchase supplies from vendors owned by friends and family, including the defendant, who owned two such companies. The vendors submitted invoices for goods that were never delivered, received payments from the agency, and then funneled most of the money back to Newman, keeping a portion as a commission. The defendant received nearly $180,000 through 59 fraudulent payments, writing checks back to Newman and taking steps to conceal the scheme.A grand jury indicted the defendant in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado on six counts of wire fraud, each corresponding to a specific transfer, and sought forfeiture of all proceeds. At trial, the government introduced evidence of a co-participant’s guilty plea and the district court instructed the jury that it could infer the defendant’s knowledge of the fraud if he was deliberately ignorant. The defendant was convicted on all counts. The district court limited forfeiture to the six charged transfers, totaling about $20,000, but ordered restitution for the full amount received, for which the defendant and Newman were jointly and severally liable.The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reviewed the case. It held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence of the co-participant’s guilty plea, as it was used to assess credibility and not as substantive evidence of guilt, and the jury was properly instructed on its limited use. The court also held that, because there was sufficient evidence of the defendant’s actual knowledge, any error in the deliberate ignorance instruction did not warrant reversal. On the government’s cross-appeal, the Tenth Circuit vacated the forfeiture order, holding that forfeiture should include all proceeds obtained through the fraudulent scheme, not just the charged transactions, and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Cline" on Justia Law

A defendant was charged with possession of a controlled substance, specifically Delta-9 Tetrahydrocannabinol, and possession of drug paraphernalia. The suspected drug was sent to the state health lab for testing shortly after the charges were filed. Over the following months, the defendant’s attorney requested several delays in the trial and plea deadlines, citing the absence of a plea offer and the need for time to discuss the offer once received. Eventually, the parties reached a plea agreement, but at the change of plea hearing, the State had still not received the drug test results. The defendant then moved to dismiss the charges, arguing that the nearly seven-month delay in obtaining the test results was excessive.The Circuit Court of the Second Judicial Circuit, Minnehaha County, granted the defendant’s oral motion to dismiss, finding that the delay in obtaining the drug test results and the State’s failure to meet court-imposed plea offer deadlines constituted unnecessary delay under SDCL 23A-44-3. The court dismissed the indictment without prejudice, basing its decision solely on the statute addressing unnecessary delay in prosecution, and not on the 180-day rule for bringing a defendant to trial.The Supreme Court of the State of South Dakota reviewed the case and reversed the circuit court’s decision. The Supreme Court held that the record did not support a finding of unnecessary delay attributable to the State, as the State had submitted the evidence for testing promptly and the prosecution had not been dormant. The Court clarified that SDCL 23A-44-3 provides discretionary authority to dismiss for unnecessary delay, but the circumstances here did not justify such a dismissal. The Supreme Court reversed the dismissal and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "State v. Bradshaw" on Justia Law

In 1999, a twenty-year-old man was involved in a fatal shooting outside a nightclub after his friend was violently attacked by a group. He fired several shots into the crowd, resulting in the death of one of the attackers. He was indicted for first-degree murder and related weapons offenses. After a mistrial, a second jury acquitted him of first-degree murder but convicted him of second-degree murder and two firearm offenses. He was sentenced to twenty-one years to life in prison, and his convictions were affirmed on direct appeal.More than two decades later, he sought a sentence reduction under the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act (IRAA), arguing that he had matured and was no longer a danger. The Superior Court of the District of Columbia denied his motion, finding he had not shown non-dangerousness or that the interests of justice warranted a reduction. The court weighed heavily his teenage criminal history, prison infractions, and concluded he had a stable, abuse-free childhood, and that no one else was involved in the offense.The District of Columbia Court of Appeals reviewed the denial for abuse of discretion. The court found three significant errors: the trial court failed to consider the mitigating role of third-party attackers in the offense; it incorrectly found the applicant had not experienced childhood sexual abuse, despite clear evidence; and it gave excessive weight to his teenage criminal history, contrary to the IRAA’s purpose. The appellate court held that these errors, in combination, undermined confidence in the trial court’s decision and were not harmless.The District of Columbia Court of Appeals vacated the Superior Court’s order and remanded the case for reconsideration consistent with its opinion. View "Bryant v. United States" on Justia Law

The case concerns a defendant who, in late 2020, concealed his young daughter from her mother in violation of a custody order and threatened the mother with violence if she contacted authorities. He was also alleged to have previously injured the mother with a pocketknife. In 2018, a jury convicted him of felony child custody violation, dissuading a witness, and inflicting corporal injury on a child’s parent. At sentencing, the court imposed an aggregate prison term of 10 years and eight months, including a consecutive term for dissuading a witness calculated as one-third the middle term, doubled under the three strikes law.Several years after sentencing, the Superior Court of Los Angeles County received a letter from a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) case records manager, noting a possible error: the sentence for dissuading a witness should have been the full middle term, not one-third. The court held hearings, some without the defendant present, and ultimately increased the sentence to 13 years and four months by imposing the full consecutive term for that count. The defendant’s motion for reconsideration was denied, and he appealed both the sentence modification and the denial.The California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Seven, reviewed the matter. It held that the superior court lacked jurisdiction to modify the sentence in response to the CDCR letter because the judgment was long final and no statutory basis for resentencing existed. The court clarified that such corrections can only occur under specific statutory authority or via habeas corpus. The appellate court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction but treated the appeal as a habeas petition, granted relief, and ordered reinstatement of the original sentence, without prejudice to future lawful efforts to correct the sentence. View "P. v. Singleton" on Justia Law

Greg Wright was recorded on video robbing a gas station convenience store at gunpoint. The cashier, who was present during the incident, testified that Wright showed no signs of intoxication—he did not smell of alcohol, slur his words, or appear confused. Surveillance footage showed Wright acting purposefully and competently throughout the robbery, from his entry and interaction with the cashier to his escape. Wright, representing himself at trial, argued that he was too intoxicated to form the intent to rob, but the evidence at trial did not support this claim.The Superior Court of Los Angeles County tried the case before a jury, which convicted Wright of robbery, possession of a firearm by a felon, and unlawful possession of ammunition. The jury also found true the firearm use allegation and 13 prior convictions. The trial court sentenced Wright to 36 years and four months to life, including an upper-term enhancement for firearm use based on the finding that his prior convictions were “numerous.” Wright appealed, arguing, among other things, that the jury was improperly instructed on the intoxication defense and that there were errors in sentencing.The California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Eight, reviewed the case. The court held that the trial court erred by using the term “specific intent” in the jury instruction on voluntary intoxication, as this term is ambiguous and not the correct mental state for robbery. However, the court found this error harmless because the evidence overwhelmingly showed Wright was not impaired. The court also found harmless error in the prosecutor’s closing argument and rejected the claim of cumulative error. On sentencing, the court agreed that Wright was improperly punished for both firearm and ammunition possession based on the same act and that he was denied his right to a jury trial on the aggravating factor for the upper-term sentence. The convictions were affirmed, but the case was remanded for resentencing. View "P. v. Wright" on Justia Law

A defendant diagnosed with schizophrenia was charged with first-degree murder and related felonies. After being found incompetent to stand trial and not restorable (“NCNR”), the trial court dismissed the charges without prejudice and ordered a civil commitment evaluation. The defendant was discharged from the treatment facility, and the State refiled the same charges, adding a new weapons charge. The defendant moved to dismiss, arguing that under a recent appellate decision, the State needed judicial approval before refiling charges against someone previously found NCNR.The Superior Court in Maricopa County initially allowed the State to refile charges, finding there was a reasonable belief the defendant’s competency might have changed. However, a different trial judge later dismissed the refiled case, concluding the State lacked sufficient basis to believe the defendant had regained competency. The Arizona Court of Appeals vacated the trial court’s orders permitting refiling, holding that the State must present sufficient information to support a reasonable belief of regained competency before refiling, as required by Johnson v. Hartsell. The appellate court also addressed whether a dangerousness trial could proceed without pending charges and whether the State could rely on a prior NCNR finding.The Supreme Court of the State of Arizona reviewed the case and vacated the appellate court’s decision. The Court held that due process does not require the State to obtain judicial approval before refiling charges against an NCNR defendant. It overruled the judicial preapproval requirement established in Johnson v. Hartsell and reaffirmed the standard from Rider v. Garcia, allowing the State to refile charges based on a reasonable belief that competency may have been restored. The Court also held that a dangerousness trial under A.R.S. § 13-4517(A)(4) requires pending charges, may rely on a prior NCNR finding for the same conduct, and that the statute applies retroactively. The trial court’s order authorizing the State to proceed was affirmed. View "CARSON v GENTRY" on Justia Law