This crop of summary orders of interest closes out May 2008.

In United States v. McCargo, No. 07-0626-cr (2d Cir. May 30, 2008), the defendant escaped from a halfway house, then months later was found to be in possession of a firearm. The court held that the gun possession was properly deemed “in connection with” the escape – triggering a four-level enhancement – because escape is a continuing offense and the defendant admitted that he acquired the gun for “protection.”

In United States v. Rosario, No. 06-5655-cr (2d Cir. May 30, 2008), the court extended the Regalado remand procedure for crack cocaine cases to a case where the offense level was based on a combination of crack and heroin.

In United States v. Konstantin, No. 07-0033-cr (2d Cir. May 29, 2008), the court held that (1) the district court did not violate the defendant’s constitutional right to his choice of …

United States v. Habbas, No. 05-6142-cr (2d Cir. May 30, 2008) (Leval, Sack, CJJ, Garaufis, DJ)

This confusing opinion attempts to sort through the defendant’s claim that the government breached a plea agreement. But because of the imprecise way it is written, it is hard to know what really happened.

Defendant Rahman pled guilty to obstruction of justice in connection with his effort to frame someone named Abdel-Wahed by falsely reporting that Abdel-Wahed had assaulted a third person, who had testified against one of Rahman’s associates. Rahman pled guilty and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

On appeal, he argued that the government violated the plea agreement by advocating for guidelines higher than those contained in the agreement. Specifically, the government agreed with the probation department’s assessment that Rahman merited a four-level role enhancement, even though the agreement did not contain that adjustment. In rejecting this claim, the appellate …

The court has only issued 2 published opinions in criminal cases in the past two weeks. But there has been a flurry of noteworthy summary orders. Here is the latest crop:

In United States v. Creary, No. 06-2233-cr (2d Cir. May 27, 2008), a document fraud case, the court vacated the sentence because the district judge did not make sufficient findings that the case involved 100 or more fraudulent documents.

United States v. Berrios, No. 05-6654-cr (2d Cir. May 27, 2008), sorted out a district court proceeding that can only be described as a train wreck. First, the court vacated one defendant’s sentence because the district judge did not give sufficient reasons for the sentence: it did not calculate the guideline range, mention § 3553(a), adopt the presentence report or address the history and character of the defendant. The circuit did not enforce the appellate waiver, because, during the plea, …