Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Illegal re-entry 16-level bump error

US v. Parral-Dominguez:  Mr. Parral-Dominguez was arrested in North Carolina in 2010 in possession of more than an ounce of cocaine.  He pleaded guilty in state court to drug trafficking charges, and state authorities informed ICE of his illegal status; he had been previously deported in 2007.  He was indicted federally for illegal reentry at the end of 2013, and pleaded guilty in March 2014 without a plea agreement.

Parral-Dominguez made a single objection to the PSR, to a 16-level bump to his offense level for having been convicted previously of a crime of violence, arguing that as a matter of law, the North Carolina state offense of shooting into an occupied building (for which he had been convicted in 2007, which lead to his deportation) did not constitute a crime of violence.  The district court disagreed, and imposed the enhancement, and in its sentencing order, it relied heavily on an unpublished decision to conclude that the state offense was a crime of violence.  Parral-Dominguez appealed.

The Fourth Circuit resolved the issue in Parral-Dominguez’s favor, finding that the North Carolina state offense of discharging a firearm into an occupied building does not constitute a crime of violence for federal sentencing purposes.  The Fourth Circuit applied the categorical approach, finding that the statute at stake does not require that an offender use force against another person in order to complete the crime.

The Fourth Circuit found that this procedural error was not harmless because it could not say that regardless of the calculated Guidelines range, 65 months is the “only” sentence the defendant would have received, and the district court gave no indication that it would have imposed a similar sentence regardless of any procedural error.

Divided panel vacates dismissal

US v. Vinson:  The government appealed the district court’s order that granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment in this case; the defendant had been indicted for being a felon in possession after a consensual search of his residence revealed a rifle and ammunition, and in 2004, he had been convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence in North Carolina.  At issue is whether the prior conviction qualified Vinson as a person not to possess a firearm under 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(9).

This case arose from a January 2013 incident in which police received information that Vinson allegedly threatened his wife and children’s lives, and then fled.  The police put the kids’ school on lock-down and Vinson’s wife permitted the police to search their home, wherein the gun and ammo were discovered.  In making its determination on the motion to dismiss, the district court stated that, under the law, assault and battery charges don’t necessarily connote acts of violence.  The district court concluded that Vinson’s prior conviction did not qualify as a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence under the categorical approach.  The government appealed.

On appeal, the government argued that contrary to the district court’s conclusion, the modified categorical approach may be applied in this case, as the state statute of Vinson’s prior conviction is divisible because it has elements creating several different crimes, some of which match a generic federal offense.  The Fourth Circuit agreed with the government here, vacated the order dismissing the indictment, and remanded with instruction to reinstate the indictment against Vinson.

Judge Gregory dissented, arguing that the majority relied upon “tenuous suppositions, inapposite jury instructions, and the decision of a state intermediate appellate court (at odds with the state supreme court) to hold that assault is a divisible offense in North Carolina.”

Reversal of order requiring medication by force

US v. John Watson, Jr.:  In this appeal, the Fourth Circuit reversed the district court’s order that granted the government’s request to forcibly medicate Watson to attempt to make him competent to stand trial.  A divided panel concluded that the government had not met its burden of proving that forcibly medicating Watson, in particular, was substantially likely to restore his competency.  Watson had been indicted with several charges after he shot at a Coast Guard helicopter with a handgun.

The issue of whether to forcibly medicate a defendant to render them competent to stand trial is controlled by the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Sell v. United States.   In Sell, the Supreme Court developed a four-part test; each part must be proven to the “deliberately high” standard of clear and convincing evidence.

On appeal, the first two parts of the Sell test were at issue: whether the government showed important governmental interests at stake; and whether the government showed that involuntary medication would significantly further its interests, requiring proof that the medication is substantially likely to render the defendant competent to stand trial and substantially unlikely to have side effects which would interest significantly with the defendant’s ability to assist counsel at trial.

The Fourth Circuit held that because the district court had clearly erred in finding that the government met its burden on the second prong of the test, it did not decide whether the district court erred with respect to its conclusions on the first prong of the Sell test.  With regard to the second part of the test, the Fourth Circuit discussed the lack of findings below that assessed the likely success of the government’s proposed treatment plan in relation to Watson and his condition in particular; the Fourth Circuit stated that the proper enquiry for courts is not whether the proposed treatment plan will work in general, but whether it will work as applied to a particular defendant.  The Fourth Circuit held that the district court did not undertake the searching and individualized assessment of Watson’s likely susceptibility to forcible medication that is required by law.

Further, by resolving the appeal issues in this case by deciding that the government has not justified forcible medication in this case, the Fourth Circuit determined that the district court’s order be reversed, rather than remanding the case to the district court for further proceedings.  The Fourth Circuit concluded that the district court had ample opportunity to assemble and defend the evidence necessary to meet its burden here, and it failed to do so.

Monday, July 13, 2015

Former Virginia Governor's convictions affirmed

US v. McDonnell:  Despite an impressive group of amici in support of his appeal, the former governor of Virginia, Robert McDonnell, lost the appeal of convictions he received following his five-week trial.  The Fourth Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Two most important issues on appeal: 1) McDonnell argued that the district court’s jury instructions misstated fundamental principles of federal bribery law; and 2) the government’s evidence was insufficient to support his convictions pursuant to the honest-services wire fraud statute and the Hobbs Act.  The Fourth Circuit was unpersuaded by each of McDonnell’s jury instruction claims, e.g. the instructions were over-inclusive, broad, incomplete, misleading, or unprecedented. Further, McDonnell claimed one instruction was a misstatement of the law, a statement with which the Fourth Circuit disagreed, finding the instruction “indisputably correct,” and “not erroneous with respect to the Hobbs Act extortion charges."  Further, one instruction that may have been debatable to the Fourth Circuit, that the subjective beliefs of a third party in an honest-services wire fraud case cannot “convert non-official acts into official ones,” was found to be harmless, if indeed an error occurred.    The Fourth Circuit held that McDonnell failed to show that the “official act” instructions, taken as a whole, were anything less than a “fair and accurate statement of law.”

McDonnell’s claim about the sufficiency of the evidence also failed on appeal, with the Fourth Circuit finding ample “official acts” of McDonnell exploiting the power of his office in furtherance of an ongoing effort to influence state university researchers.  The Fourth Circuit found his corrupt intent was evidenced by expensive vacations, accepting loans, etc., as well as shopping sprees, cash, golf outings and vacations, all free to McDonnell and his family.  These were not goodwill gifts from one friend to another, but gifts in exchange for official acts to help a pharmaceutical company secure independent testing for its product, Anatabloc, and that McDonnell acted in the absence of good faith in receiving them.  Thus, McDonnell failed in his efforts to sustain the burden of bringing a sufficiency of the evidence challenge.

Supervised release term of illegal re-entry sentence affirmed

US v. Aplicano-Oyuela:  Appellant Aplicano-Oyuela pleaded guilty to illegal re-entry via plea letter he submitted to the court, rather than plea agreement.  The PSR included a calculated guidelines range of 10 to 16 months, with the possibility of a supervised release term of up to three years.   Aplicano requested that the court impose a sentence of 8 months, but he did not address the suggested supervised release term in the PSR.  At sentencing, the district court repeatedly expressed its perceived belief of the likelihood of Aplicano’s recidivism, as well as his likely return to the US after deportation, and it imposed a 13-month term of imprisonment, to be followed by three years of supervised release, so that he could be punished for a long time should he choose to come back to the US and/or commit any further crimes.

On appeal, Aplicano challenged his 3-year term of supervised release, arguing that it is both procedurally and substantively unreasonable, and that his guilty plea was “fatally flawed.”  Since Aplicano did not object to his supervised release term until his appeal, the Fourth Circuit reviewed his issues for plain error only.  The Fourth Circuit began its analysis with a review of the supervised release system, pertinently how the Guidelines were amended in 2011, so that when an alien is facing post-incarceration removal and supervised release is not required by statute, courts should ordinarily not impose a term of supervised release.  While imposing a term of supervised release on removable aliens is not forbidden, the public is “ordinarily” and “adequately” served by a new prosecution alone.

The Fourth Circuit, in non-precedential unpublished decisions, has generally affirmed the imposition of supervised release on aliens likely to be removed post-incarceration.  The Fourth Circuit found the imposition of a term of supervised release procedurally reasonable, as the district court believed that it would deter Aplicano from committed future crimes, curb his desire to return to the US again, to protect US citizens, and that Aplicano’s need to be deterred was a great concern than punishing him.  Next, the Fourth Circuit held the imposition of supervised release was substantively reasonable because of the district court’s intention to provide deterrence and protection for the community.  Finally, with regard to Aplicano’s guilty plea, the Fourth Circuit decided that even if the district court had erred in advising Aplicano of the nature of supervised release, Aplicano did not show that such error affected his substantial rights, nor that but for the error, he would not have entered the plea.  The judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Wednesday, July 01, 2015

Erroneous Simmons Fueled ACCA Designation Can Be Attacked In 2255

US v. Newbold: Once again, we have a question of how the Fourth Circuit's decision in Simmons impacts a sentence imposed before that case was decided. In this case, Newbold pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced under ACCA to a 225-month sentence. After a convoluted procedural path (the Fourth calls it "miraculous"), Newbold was present before the Fourth Circuit after filing a timely 2255 motion seeking the vacation of his sentence, based on the retroactivity of Simmons.

The Fourth Circuit vacated Newbold's sentence. Although the Government agreed that Simmons was retroactive, the court nonetheless had to "ensure that the sentencing error Newbold seeks to challenge is cognizable on collateral review." It was because, unlike the recent cases involving retroactive Simmons challenges to career offender calculations, the application of ACCA in this case increased Newbold's statutory sentence. Thus this was one of the limited universe of "fundamental defects" that could be corrected in 2255 proceedings. The court then examined Newbold's priors, found that he could not have received sentences of more than one year for them, and concluded he should not have been sentenced under ACCA.


Failure To Disclose SEC Fraud Investigation of Key Witness Requires Vacation of Convictions

US v. Parker: Parker, his codefendant/appellee Taylor, and his son Brett (a codefendant below, but not coappellee - he's serving two life terms in South Carolina for multiple murder) were convicted of illegal gambling in an operation including at least five people. Parker and Taylor stipulated that they were engaged in a gambling business and that it included a related operation run by Brett and another man. The key issue at trial was whether there was a fifth person involved. The Government sought to meet that burden via other individuals related to Brett, most critically his (now murdered) wife, Tammy. A witness named Staples provided testimony that Tammy was involved in the gambling operation by managing and spending its proceeds. There was some physical evidence corroborating that testimony. The Government also presented evidence that other individuals ("layoff bookies") were involved in the operation. Finally, there was evidence that Brett received "lines" from a separate bookmaker who could be the fifth person.

On the Friday before trial began, Staples told the Government that he was being investigated by the SEC in Utah for fraud. That information was not disclosed to the defense, who did not cross examine Staples when he testified. The day he testified the Government's civil division received a draft complaint from the Utah SEC office alleging fraudulent conduct on Staples's part. The complaint was filed two days after the jury convicted Parker and his codefendants, who finally learned of the SEC investigation the next day. They moved for a new trial on Brady grounds, which the district court denied because the SEC report "was not material to the jury's determination of the defendants' guilt" because Staples's testimony only related to Tammy's role in the operation and the Government's case didn't rely on her to be the fifth person.

On appeal, the Fourth Circuit reversed. The court found that the SEC investigation constituted impeachment evidence (as well as evidence of untruthfulness under FRE 608) that was material because while the jury could have found that someone other than Tammy was the fifth person in the operation, the evidence most strongly linked Tammy to the operation and thus there was "a reasonable probability that at least one juror would have viewed Tammy as the fifth participant." Aside from Staples's testimony, the other evidence linking Tammy to the operation was "minimal." Furthermore, it rejected the Government's arguments that it was under no duty to disclose evidence of an investigation by another agency and that the defendant's knew or should of known of the conduct underlying the SEC investigation. Having said all that, the court made clear that it was vacating the convictions and remanding for further proceedings, not entering judgments of acquittal, as the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to convict.

Sentence Consecutive to Any Future Federal Sentence Error, But Not Plain

US v. Obey: Obey was initially convicted of multiple drug counts and sentenced to 540 months in prison. His convictions were vacated on Giglio grounds and, on remand, he entered into a plea agreement. He agreed to plead guilty to a single count with a 20-year statutory maximum and the Government would argue for a sentence of 18 years. Sentencing came and the Government argued for an 18-year sentence. However, the Government (in response to the district court's questions) advised the court about Obey's pending state murder trial, confirmed that he was a career offender, but reiterated the 18-year recommendation. The district court denied the Government's "request for a variance" (it's unclear what the actual Guideline range was) and sentenced Obey to 240 months in prison, to be served consecutively to any other sentence, including any federal or state sentence he might receive.

The Fourth Circuit affirmed Obey's sentence on appeal. First, it rejected (reviewing for plain error) his argument that the Government breached its promise in the plea agreement by not being more forceful in its assertion of the 18-year recommendation or by providing sufficient reasons as to why that sentence was appropriate. The court concluded that the Government repeatedly restated its recommendation, did not criticize or undermined that recommendation, and that the plea agreement didn't call for the Government to do any more than make the recommendation. Second, it rejected the argument that the district court erred by ordering Obey's sentence to be served consecutively to any future state or federal sentence. The court concluded that the Supreme Court's holding in Setser that allowed sentences to be consecutive to future state sentences did not extend to future federal sentences as well (per prior Fourth Circuit precedent). However, Obey was stuck with review for plain error and the court found, in light of Setser, that the district court's error was not "plain."