Since 2011. An occasional commonplacing of the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal.
Neither an authoritative statement of the law nor legal advice. Quick work.
Court did not abuse discretion in denying mistrial where a witness referred more than once to the deft being on probation. Evidence of guilt was more than ample, and a limiting instruction sufficed.
Where a court waives interest for a monetary penalty in the delivered judgment, but this term is omitted from the written judgment, the delivered version controls.
Sufficient evidence for the jury to have disbelieved the witness' recantation. Sufficient evidence for the federal obstruction charge where the prompting was procedurally about a separate state investigation, but dealt in substance with the set of events that became a federal matter.
Absent specific briefing, body camera footage outside of the portion agreed to be admissible as a prior statement of identification isn't coherent enough for appellate review as to specific statements. Admission not substantial injury and cumulative in nature with respect to admissible evidence. Portions of phone calls admitted for context with admissible portions of the call, but without a limiting instruction, were harmless error, as they were cumulative with admissible statements elsewhere. Deft did not identify portions of the record that would justify a prior-inconsistent-statements instruction. Closing remarks were not improper, as they accurately characterized the victims as vulnerable, the invocation of justice was not calculated to inflame, inferences were appropriately made from the evidence, and the court appropriately limited the influence of the lawyers' opinions in the closing instruction.
Plain error where the court indicated that it might be bound by the earlier sentencing judge's order that the sentence for revocation of supervised release run consecutively with the subsequent sentence for the second offense.
No procedural error in review of sentence, as the retroactive element of the law only reduced the minimum term, not the guidelines range, and the court adequately recited that it had considered the petitioner's arguments. The reliance on the career-offender sentencing consideration to reach the guidelines range under the new calculation didn't offend Due Process.
Substantively, bootstrapping a challenge to the career-offender calculations to the retroactive changes would be unfair to those who were sentenced only under the former.
DISSENT:
Career-offender guidelines are tied to the maximum sentence, which, although not made retroactive here, would be different under the new statute; court's explanations did not demonstrate that it understood the complexity of the deft's claims.
The time limit for appealing un-pronounced elements of the sentence is a mandatory claims-processing rule, and since the govt timely requested dismissal, equitable waiver is unavailable. Deft's analogy to appeal waivers inapposite, since in that case, imposition of sentence happens after (otherwise appealable) judgment is issued. Terms of a judgment are presumptively binding, and deft was put on notice of them when judgment issued.
Given that the deft conspired to supply firearms to drug dealers, the conspiracy among the drug dealers to sell drugs is distinct from the conspiracy to supply them with firearms, and therefore a valid predicate for the increased sentence.
The distinction between these conspiracies also serves to separate the two relevant sentencing factors, so that they're not double-counting the same offense.
Discussion of rehabilitative treatment duration during sentencing doesn't justify an inference that the sentence was increased for that purpose, since other factors were recited at sentencing.
Sentence not substantively unreasonable given incorrigible behavior.
Since the state statute prohibiting the discharge of a firearm towards persons, occupied structures, and occupied vehicles requires a higher mens rea than recklessness, its status as a sentencing predicate wasn't changed by a Supreme Court holding that recklessness was an insufficient basis for a conviction involving the threatened or actual use of force against another person.
Issue was forfeited, not waived, when not raised on first appeal.
Supervised release condition delegating to the parole officer the discretion to determine in which cases a certain condition applied wasn't plain error.
Where testimony objectively establishes fraudulent medical billing practices, there is no categorical requirement to establish actual falsity of diagnosis in particular cases.
When appealing a denial of a chance to speak at sentencing, the appellant must cite a basis for reversal or remand, or make a proffer of evidence that would have been offered.
Sufficient evidence of pervasive fraud to shift the burden of proof on the calculation of damages.
Pandemic disease does not transform aggregated minor health concerns into the extraordinary and compelling justificaiton for early release required by statute.
Actual diagnosis, rather than the presence of diagnostic markers indicating likelihood but not certainty, is required in a petition for early release on compassionate grounds.
While material interference by prison administration or stonewalling of medical testing can be the basis of a claim of extraordinary and compelling justification, the record here does not support such a claim.
District Court's averral that it was exercising its broad discretion in denying early release given the balance of the factors was sufficient; there was no need to mechanically review each of the sentencing factors.
Existence of a second statutory basis, based on the drug quantity determinations made during sentencing, for the life sentence imposed at original sentencing does not make the petitioner ineligible for relief under the statute. Since the statute looks to the offense of conviction and not the underlying facts, the sentence imposed for the offense of conviction should be modified.
DISSENT:
Given the findings, the petitioner would have been sentenced under the second statutory basis at the original sentencing, which makes him ineligible for relief.
As the statute doesn't limit the post-sentencing review of restitution interest charges, and the most logical reading of the circumstance is that a petition arising from changed circumstances is unlikely to happen at sentencing, the court erred in ruling that it had no jurisdiction to modify an interest obligation after sentencing.
Extensive review of statute's structure and history.
https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/21a0185p-06.pdf
Trial court abused its discretion by considering the need for healthcare and rehabilitation nearly to the exclusion of other sentencing factors, and without considerig the disparity between the deft's sentence and those of defts with similar backgrounds who committed similar crimes. The deft's situation is distinguished from that of other individuals with disproportionately lenient sentences by deft's lack of cooperation and violations of pre-sentence release.
As it criminalizes violence or the threat of violence against property as well as persons, Hobbs Act Robbery is categorically not a crime of violence under the sentencing guideleines. Similarly, the generic crime of Robbery enumerated elsewhere in the guidelines is narrower than Hobbs Act Robbery, since federal Robbery requires imminent danger to the person; the generic crime of Extortion is also narrower, as caselaw requires threats to be directed against the person.
Not harmless error, as the court didn't explain a basis for variance that would account for the resulting variance.
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/08/16/18-30238.pdf
At 11: "The sockdolager here..."
Deft can't be denied the safe harbor of the sentencing reduction for lack of participation by mere evidence of accompanying others on supply trips; mere presence at prohibited transactions is insufficient.
Contemporaneous objection to the length of the sentence imposed preserves only a claim of substantive error, not one of procedural error.
Plain procedural error in sentencing for the court to base an upward variance upon the conditions in the city of the offense without associating the particular circumstances of the deft within this context.
Court adequately recited mitigations, but did not sufficiently explain its upward variance. As the relevant conduct is explicitly included in the guidelines calculation, court needed to specifically distinguish the deft's situation.
Court did not abuse its discretion by imposing a substantively unreasonable sentence -- the deft has the burden to establish that the comparators who received disparate sentences were sufficiently similar.
As those possessing abuse images tend to hoard them, the uploading of an image was sufficient probable cause for a search of the deft's electronic devices seven months later.
Under-guidelines sentence not substantively unreasonable.
For purposes of the sentencing factor, torture by arresting third-party state isn't sufficient basis to justify lack of cooperation with US investigations.
Proceedural explanation of sentence was sufficient; there is no need to march through all the different staturory factors and arguments.
Explanation of sentence was sufficiently comprehensive to dispel the suggestion that discussions of ethnicties shared with the judge impermissibly factored into sentencing.
Lack of contemporaneous objection forfeited claim that judge based sentence in part on a news report of country conditions that was outside the record and not made available to the parties.
Court's invitation to the deft to testify at sentencing as to the contents of an affidavit did not create a presumption of adverse inference when deft refused to take stand.
No plain error in judge's non-recusal after discussion of shared ethnicity.
For safety-valve relief in sentencing after a conviction for conspiracy, the relevant conduct that must have been disclosed to authorities prior to sentencing includes all conduct in furtherance of the conspiracy, including that of all conspirators, charged and uncharged.
Threat of retribution insufficient to justify concealment of relevant knowledge of the crime.
http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/19-1667P-01A.pdf