First Circuit: US v. Ocean

Sufficient evidence for conspiracy despite conflict with others and dual role as consumer and salesman for the drug operation -- the common purpose was the increased sale of narcotics.

Absent evidence that the government was attempting to elicit statements from the deft, contents of phone call during pretrial detention to friend who might have been cooperating with the investigation admissible.

Explicit waiver of drug quantity calculation in sentencing memo forecloses challenge on appeal.

District court was within discretion to accept deft's possibly exaggerated calculation of drug quantity.

Reference on cross to lab reports did not inappropriately bronze lay testimony as to drug identification or present confrontation clause argument as to the content of the reports.

http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/16-2468P-01A.pdf

First Circuit: US v. Arias-Mercedes

Denial of minor-participant sentence reduction was within court's discretion where the deft helped to pilot the craft with the drugs through a dangerous ocean voyage.

Within-guidelines sentence substantively reasonable.

http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/17-1229P-01A.pdf

Eighth Circuit: United States v. Michael John Walker

Sentencing bump for possession of a weapon in support of the crime inappropriate where the weapon was locked in the trunk and the crime was use or possession of a user's amount of drugs.

http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/18/08/171680P.pdf

First Circuit: US v. Sirois

There is not sufficient binding precedent to clearly establish that revocation of supervised release because of drug use violates the Eighth Amendment; revocation was therefore not plain error.

http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/17-1797P-01A.pdf

Seventh Circuit: USA v. Donald S. Harden

Sufficient evidence to establish death from the drugs sold where timeline suggests proximate consumption, despite statements in the record to the contrary regarding the substance's toxicity.

Sentencing enhancement for death requires merely actual causation, not proof of proximate cause; conspiracy provision does not imply reasonable forseeability.

Court's exclusion of testimony about another source for drugs was harmless error and not an abuse of discretion, as it might have tended to confuse.

Giving a timestamped convenience store surveillance photograph of the deft to the jury during deliberations did not warrant a mistrial.

Prosecution statements in closing and rebuttal closing (saying that the deft knew the present batch of heroin to be fatal, as opposed to the previous batch; saying that deft furnished drugs on both days as opposed to just one) don't warrant reversal, sufficiently cured ("if what the lawyers said is different than the evidence that you remember, the evidence is what counts.")

http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2018/D06-20/C:17-1270:J:Flaum:aut:T:fnOp:N:2173545:S:0

Seventh Circuit: USA v. Aaron Lamon

A weapons-possession count should not be grouped with a drugs count when tallying up the offense level during sentencing, as the weapons-possession charge incurs a statutory minimum term of imprisonment, removing the justification for such grouping.

Circuit split flagged, and doubled down upon.

http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2018/D06-19/C:17-2764:J:PerCuriam:aut:T:fnOp:N:2172766:S:0

First Circuit: US v. Laureano-Perez

Sentencing judge sufficiently weighed individual concerns, given recitation of deft's age, education, and work history.

Given that the present crime occurred while on supervised release for a drugs offense, no error in drug testing as a release condition.

http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/16-2399P-01A.pdf

Ninth Circuit: US v. Gibran Richardo Figueroa-Beltran

Given a state supreme court holding that a legislature could leave the identification of specific controlled substances for later determination, and a second holding by the same court that the simultaneous sale of two prohibited substances constituted two distinct offenses, question certified to the state court asking whether the elements of the state statute are divisible, which would merit closer scrutiny when asking whether they correspond to the federal statute.

"Pled."

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2018/06/06/16-10388.pdf

Fifth Circuit: USA v. Alfredo Heard

Conviction for drug possession entered during the pendency of the drug conspiracy is not per se part of the same pattern of relevant conduct, but can be considered an element of criminal history.

http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/17/17-10597-CR0.pdf

Eighth Circuit: Luis Herrera v. United States

Habeas, Drugs, Ineffective Assistance


Denial of writ for ineffective assistance, as a statute referring to one quantity of pure substance and a second quantity of diluted substance applies where the deft sold a quantity of diluted substance containing the proscribed amount of the pure substance.

Luis Herrera  v.  United States

Fifth Circuit: USA v. Henry Walker

Drugs, Guns, FRCrimP, Crim


Given quantity of drugs, sufficient facts in evidence to support a guilty plea for possession of a firearm in furtherance of the drug crimes, despite lack of showing as to proximacy of guns to drugs or presence of ammunition.



USA v. Henry Walker

DC Circuit: USA v. Juan Vega

Crim

Stream of commerce suffices for circumstantial evidence that deft intended cocaine to reach US.

Sufficient instruction on mens rea.

Urging in closing that jury serve as community conscience and use of first person singular was harmless error, given strength of case.

 False testimony not later corrected by govt was not dispositive.

Not issuing missing evidence instruction on lack of govt records on out of court photo lineups was harmless error.

No Brady violation on late-disclosed photo with attribution problems.

No error in refusal to admit notes frm quesitoning as prior inconsistent statement.

Error in manager/supervisor sentencing bump, as no showing that employees knew they were doing something illegal.

No error in admission of mistaken identification, given curative instruction.

Deft claim that Title III has no extraterritorial application, even if true, would not preclude extraterritorial wiretapping.

No error in denial of cross on why cooperating witnesses were wearing electronic monitoring devices.

Drug making video not overly prejudicial.



USA v. Juan Vega

Eighth Circuit: United States v. James Robert Carlson

Analogue Act, FRE

Act not unconstitutional, per S.Ct. US.

No error in permissive inference instruction allowing jury to find knowledge of similar chemical structure of the drug based on knowledge of similar pharmacological effects, given deft's knowledge of chemical structures of the materials.

No abuse of discretion in admission of expert under Daubert, as methodological doubts go to weight of evidence and not admissibility.

Government spokesman's affirmation of industry statement that they planned to expand their distribution of unscheduled substances didn't create a defense of entrapment by estoppel.

FDCA violation established by misleading sale, not a knowing violation of the terms of the act.

No error of use of sentencing guidelines for scheduled substances as basis for sentence imposed for nonscheduled substances.

http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/16/01/142986P.pdf

Ninth Circuit: USA v. Samuel Navarette-Aguilar

Drugs - Sentencing, Conspiracy.

A jury cannot speculate that events outside scope of proof would have allowed the total amount of drugs to rise to the level contemplated by the statute.

Deft's witness opened the door for prior bad acts.

https://d3bsvxk93brmko.cloudfront.net/datastore/opinions/2015/12/28/14-30056.pdf