Author Archive | Allegra Glashausser

In 2004, Lawrence Savoca was convicted for using a gun during an attempt to commit Hobbs Act robbery. Since Johnson was decided in 2016, he has been trying to get this 924(c) conviction vacated in lengthy litigation involving three trips to the Second Circuit. First, the Circuit granted his request to file a successive habeas petition. But then the district court dismissed his motion, holding that it wasn’t based on a new rule of constitutional law. Second, Savoca appealed and the Second Circuit affirmed.

But, Savoca (and Ed Zas of the Federal Defenders) wasn’t done. After the Supreme Court decided Taylor, Savoca filed a rehearing petition. Yesterday, in a third ruling on this case, the Second Circuit vacated their original decision about 924(c) and remanded to the district court.

Unfortunately for Savoca though, he hasn’t fully won, at least not yet. Even though the Supreme Court has made …

Yesterday, in United States v. Cherimond, the Second Circuit remanded a sentence for the defense to make a fuller objection.

Here’s what happened: at sentencing, the district court upwardly departed based on pending and dismissed charges. Defense counsel objected to the departure and added that the defense was “not consenting or conceding to the allegations of fact in any of those cases.” Counsel said this in a few different ways: it was “not conceding any of the factual recitations are accurate,” and later that the defense had “said repeatedly we’re not conceding.” It seems clear, right? The defense objected. But – at one point, counsel said that “certainly the Court can take [the allegations] into account if it wants.” Counsel then again said that it “wouldn’t be appropriate” to do so.

On appeal, the Circuit discussed counsel’s comments at some length, saying counsel “signaled an objection,” but also “appeared …

After a trial, Anael Sainfil was convicted of bank robbery on a theory that he was the lookout, who stayed outside the bank. At sentencing, the court enhanced his guidelines because a co-conspirator, who entered the bank, wore a bulletproof vest. On appeal, two judges upheld the enhancement, saying that even though Mr. Sainfil didn’t know about the bulletproof vest, it was foreseeable that someone would wear a bulletproof vest during an armed robbery.

Judge Jacobs dissented, saying that the majority “sweeps too broadly” by essentially holding that is is always foreseeable that someone else may wear body armor. Jacobs writes: “True, body armor is not (yet) a fashion statement and is rarely (if ever) worn when there is no risk of gunfire. But that does not mean that whenever there is a risk of gunfire the use of body armor follows.” According to Jacobs, the majority “reduces reasonable foreseeability …

Last week, the Circuit closed the door on any Davis issue relating to 18 U.S.C. § 111(b), holding that 18 U.S.C. § 111(b) is a crime of violence. Even though this was a matter of first impression for the Circuit, it issued a per curiam decision without ordering full briefing (or indeed any briefing by the government). Instead, it simply denied a motion for a certificate of appealability to Mr. Gray finding that the “use” of a dangerous weapon and the infliction of bodily injury in the course of a § 111(b) assault or battery necessarily involves the use of physical force as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(A).

Only one bit of small good news: the Court did not address whether 18 U.S.C. § 111(a) is a crime of violence, so that remains open.…

Last week, the Circuit rejected an argument that the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act was unconstitutionally vague as applied to a father who refused to bring his United States-citizen children to the US from Yemen to visit with their mother, even though the children had been living in Yemen for a number of years and he had not abducted them.

The facts, briefly

Mr. Houtar and his ex-wife have two daughters who were born in the United States. Both parents left their daughters in Yemen for some time, while they returned (separately) to the United States. While here, Mr. Houtar’s ex-wife sought custody of the girls, and the Family Court ordered Mr. Houtar to bring them back to the United States to visit with their mother. Instead, Mr. Houtar returned to Yemen himself. He might have remained there had he not applied for a new United States passport, triggering an …

In a decision on Thursday, the Second Circuit upheld Betsy Ramos’s two-year sentence for a violation of supervised release, finding that a district court may take recidivism enhancements into account in determining whether the maximum potential term of imprisonment for a crime is more than 20 years, qualifying the crime as a Grade A violation, under 7B1.1 (a)(1)(B).

The facts underlying the Circuit opinion in this case are tragic. In 1998, Ms. Ramos was on supervised release following a drug courier conviction when her boyfriend, who physically abused Ms. Ramos, shot and killed a police officer. Her abusive boyfriend was also killed. For reasons the Circuit opinion does not fully explain, Ms. Ramos was convicted of reckless manslaughter and served more than 20 years in state custody. When Ms. Ramos was granted parole, she was charged with a violation of her supervised release based on the manslaughter conviction, and sentenced …

Mincing no words, Judge Cabranes, writing for a two-judge majority, proclaimed today that a 17-year sentence was so “shockingly low [ ] that, if upheld, [it] would damage the administration of justice in our country.” Judge Hall, however, disagreed, saying that, “I fear the majority would prefer to substitute its sentencing preferences for that of the District Court.” Hall, who dissented in part and concurred in part, did not find the sentence shockingly low, and noted that the district court could give a similar sentence on remand. The decision is available here.

No surprise that these strong judicial reactions come in the context of a terrorism case. In brief: Fareed Mumuni, who was only 21 years old, pleaded guilty to an indictment charging him with, most seriously, conspiring to provide material support to ISIS and attempting to murder a federal agent. After considering numerous aggravating and mitigating factors, including …

The first challenge to a new breed of warrants is pending in the Eastern District of Virginia. Law enforcement is using “geofence” warrants to sweep up large amounts of data on all the cell phones in a particular geographic area. Rather than seeking a warrant for information about one person or one cell phone, these warrants seek information about all the cell phones that passed a location at the time of the crime. Paranoid yet?

Here, a bank robbery was committed, and the government had no suspects, so they got a warrant for Google to turn over data related to all smart phones that passed by a bank over the course of 2 hours one afternoon. Right by the bank was also a hotel, restaurant, mega church, and retirement home. Getting the early bird special at the Ruby Tuesday’s in Richmond? The government learned about it.

In a motion to …

When agents came to search his business, Mr. Drago asked, why and what crime was being investigated? The agents said, look at the warrant. But…the warrant didn’t say what crime they were investigating. Instead, it completely failed to state any crimes at all. Even the government admitted the warrant was invalid. But, it argued that they didn’t mean to draft an unconstitutional warrant and that they were protected by their good faith intentions.

In a lengthy report and recommendation issued this week, an EDNY magistrate judge rejected that argument. The judge wrote: the “lack of intent to create a bad warrant (or to cover-up that error) does not automatically translate into a finding of objective good faith belief that the conduct was lawful.”  Instead, the conduct of the search was “sufficiently reckless such that no objective officer could have believed that they were acting in good faith.”

A rare defense …