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Author Archive | Colleen Cassidy

Friday, July 15th, 2016

Second Circuit Updates – July 15, 2016

The Record of the Psychiatric Evaluation of a Rape Complainant was Material Under Brady and State Court’s Ruling to the Contrary was Unreasonable Application of the Kyles standard.

(Full disclosure: Colleen Cassidy, today’s blogger, briefed and argued this case)

In Fuentes v. Griffin, Docket NO. 14 – 3878, the Second Circuit (KEARSE, J.), held that the state prosecutor’s suppression of the rape complainant’s psychiatric evaluation (the “Record”) violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and that the state court unreasonably applied the materiality standard of Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419 (1995), in rejecting that claim. The state trial was a closely contested rape case with a consent defense, in which a sexual encounter on the roof of the complainant’s building was undisputed and the only issue was whether it was rape or consensual. The only witnesses to the encounter were the complainant and the defendant-petitioner …

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Categories: Brady, Kyles, sex offenses

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Friday, May 6th, 2016

Summary Order Reaffirms Second Circuit Rule that Youthful Offender Adjudications Can Count as Crimes of Violence under the Guidelines even after Sellars

There is only one summary order today, United States v. Oscar Cardoza, 15-1602-cr. The Second Circuit reaffirmed its rule that a New York youthful offender adjudication counts as a crime of violence under USSG 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii), if the nature of the proceedings, the sentence received, and the actual time served shows that the state treated the conviction as an adult conviction. See United States v. Pereira, 465 F.3d 515, 520-22 (2d Cir. 2006); United States v. Reinoso, 350 F.3d 51, 54 (2d Cir. 2003). The Court distinguished its holding in United States v. Sellars, 784 876 (2d Cir. 2015) that a youthful offender conviction does not qualify as a violent felony under ACCA on the ground that ACCA explicitly excludes convictions that are deemed “set aside” under state law, while there is no such provision in the guideline.…

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Categories: crime of violence, youthful offender adjudication

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Categories: crime of violence, youthful offender adjudication

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Thursday, March 24th, 2016

Summary Order on “Automobile Frisk” and the Prejudice Prong of Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

United States Jonathan Bulluck, No. 13-255-cr (Summary order of March 24, 2016 (Leval, Calabresi, Lynch):

The Court did not a issue a published opinion today. Its one summary order affirmed the denial of an ineffectiveness claim for lack of prejudice, on the ground that the search of a bag (which contained drugs)in a car stop would have been upheld as a valid “automobile frisk.”

This was the second appeal to the same panel, after a prior summary order concluded that counsel’s performance was deficient in failing to argue that the defendant, a cab passenger, had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the plastic bags in the back of the cab. United States v. Bullock, 556 Fed. Appx. 18 (2d Cir. 2014)(Bullock I). The suppression motion had originally been denied on the ground that the passenger had no expectation of privacy in the back of the cab in general, …

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