Author Archive | Yuanchung Lee

United States v. Samuel Yakobowicz, Docket No. 04-0201-cr (2d Cir. October 14, 2005) (Winter, Sotomayor, Parker): Sometimes those visiting judges are more trouble than they’re worth. Here, a visiting judge from the Northern District of Ohio, presiding over the defendant’s E.D.N.Y. trial for filing false tax returns, sua sponte adopted a trial procedure we’ve never seen in a criminal case — allowing the parties to make summations after the testimony of each witness. The Circuit ruled that even assuming that such a procedure is permissible in a particularly lengthy or complicated case, it was not warranted in this typical one. The Court also ruled, over Judge Sotomayor’s dissent, that the court’s error of allowing these “interim summations” constitutes a structural error requiring automatic reversal without harmless-error analysis.

The essential facts are thus. Yakobowicz was prosecuted for filing false excise tax returns and impeding the administration of tax …

Apologies for this diversion, which has nothing to do with criminal law in the Second Circuit. But here’s a great gift idea for that rare teen (or the teen in all of us) with aspirations to become a member of This Great Profession. (Click HERE).…

United States v. Coreas, Docket No. 03-1790-cr (2d Cir. Oct. 12, 2005) (Jacobs, Calabresi, Rakoff) (per curiam): Yesterday, the Circuit denied defendant Coreas’s petition for rehearing, thus adding to the confusion surrounding the legality of the Candyman search warrants. To recap the relevant events, in chronological order, for those not keeping score at home:

(1st) In United States v. Martin (click here for our discussion), the majority upheld (over a dissent by Judge Pooler) a search warrant based primarily on the defendant’s membership in the “girls12-16” e-group.

(2nd) In United States v. Coreas, (click here for our discussion), the Court was confronted with essentially the same affidavit at issue in Martin (containing the same false statements by the same agent) but concerning the Candyman e-group rather than the girls12-16 e-group. The panel found the differences between the two groups to be immaterial and concluded, contrary to Martin…

Davis v. Greiner, Docket No. 04-4087-pr (2d Cir. Oct. 11, 2005) (Calabresi, Cabranes, Pooler): The Circuit affirms the district court’s denial of Davis’s § 2254 petition, based on a Sixth Amendment IAC claim that Davis’s attorney failed to warn him that statements he made during proffer sessions with prosecutors could be used against him at trial if the plea deal collapsed. Although the Court agreed with Davis that his attorney’s conduct fell below professional norms, it upheld (with some reservations) the district court’s largely factual finding that Strickland‘s prejudice prong was not satisfied because Davis would have participated in the proffer sessions even if his lawyer had told him that his statements could eventually be used against him.

The essential facts are sad and simple. Sixteen-year-old Davis and his half-brother were recruited by their foster sister to attack the sister’s ex-boyfriend, who died as a result. All …

United States v. Felix Valdez, Docket No. 04-3811-cr (2d Cir. Oct. 5, 2005) (Walker, Cardamone, Parker): There is little of interest in this largely fact-specific opinion, discussing the well-established contours of the diminished capacity departure under U.S.S.G. § 5K2.13. Valdez argues on appeal that the district court (Judge Duffy) “incorrectly applied the Guidelines by using the wrong legal standard when it denied a downward departure for dimished capacity.” Op. at 10. After reviewing the record of the sentencing proceeding, the Circuit disagrees and concludes that Judge Duffy, despite some questionable grumblings to the contrary, understood the nature of his departure authority under § 5K2.13.

The Court remands for a Crosby proceeding, however, since the sentencing occurred before Booker. (At which proceeding, one assumes, Valdez will simply convert his unsuccessful pitch for a § 5K2.13 departure into an equally unsuccessful argument for a below-the-Guidelines sentence pursuant to Booker and …

United States v. Martin, Docket No. 04-1600-cr (L) (Petition for Rehearing Denied, Oct. 3, 2005) (Walker & Wesley) (Pooler, dissenting): In a published decision, Chief Judge Walker sticks to his guns and denies the defendant’s petition for rehearing in this controversial case involving a Fourth Amendment challenge to a search warrant issued in connection with the infamous “Candyman” investigation. (Click here for the original opinion by the Chief, and click here for our criticism of it). Judge Pooler again dissents, as she did originally. Given this continuing disagreement, and given in addition the directly contrary views of the panel in United States v. Coreas (click here for our over-the-top praise of Judge Rakoff’s critique of the Martin majority opinion), we suggest once more that en banc rehearing is appropriate.

We add only one additional point in this post, concerning the majority’s continuing insistance that, somehow, the “welcome message” …

United States v. Rodriguez et al., Docket No. 03-1639 (2d Cir. Oct. 3, 2005) (Calabresi, Pooler, Parker): How does that line go — “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive”? Here, the defendants’ “practice to deceive” — a rather inspired scheme to rip off a drug dealer (who turned out to be an actual, undercover DEA agent posing as a drug dealer) by pretending to be DEA agents themselves — led not only to a tangled web, but also to a federal indictment for conspiracy to commit a Hobbs Act robbery. The defense at trial was that although the defendants conspired to take drugs from the (fake) drug dealer by trickery (i.e., the ruse of being DEA agents “confiscating” the dealer’s drugs), they did not conspire to take the drugs by force (an essential element of the Hobbs Act robbery …

United States v. Duane Arthur Myers, Docket No. 04-3498-cr (2d Cir. September 27, 2005) (Sotomayor, Raggi, Hall): This is yet another decision in a long line of cases evaluating the propriety of an intrusive condition of supervised release imposed by a district court on a kiddie porn offender. Readers should consult the opinion themselves to determine whether our evaluation is correct: What a terribly convoluted non-solution to a relatively simple problem!

Here, the district court imposed a 78-month sentence and a number of special conditions of supervised release prohibiting the defendant — convicted of receiving sexually explicit photos from an underaged girl in Colorado — from unsupervised contact with underaged children. Myers did not challenge these conditions. The court also imposed a special condition prohibiting Myers from having any contact with his 5-year-old son without the prior approval of the Probation Officer. The court clearly did so …

United States v. Hector B. Ramirez, Docket No. 03-1280 (2d Cir. September 27, 2005) (Sack, Katzman, Parker): This case rejects a Sixth Amendment, Blakely/Booker-based challenge to the statutory safety valve provision, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f) (permitting a court to impose a sentence without regard to otherwise applicable statutory minimum if defendant meets a number of conditions), on a narrow ground involving the Almendarez-Torres exception to the Apprendi rule. It thus leaves open the possibility of a future Sixth Amendment challenge to § 3553(f) based on grounds apart from “the fact of a prior conviction,” for instance the denial of safety-valve eligibility based on a determination that the defendant qualified as an organizer or leader under the Guidelines. See id. § 3553(f)(4). The decision also does not discuss the implication of Booker on the application of Sections 2D1.1(b)(7) and 5C1.2 of the Guidelines, which authorize a …

United States v. Edward Gandia, Docket No. 04-6477-cr (2d cir. Sep. 19, 2005) (Straub, Sack, and Kravitz, D.J.): Yet another fine opinion by Judge Sack, this time reversing the district court’s order denying Mr. Gandia’s motion to suppress evidence seized as the result of a “protective sweep” of the defendant’s apartment. Although no new legal ground is broken, the opinion serves as a reminder to all that the “protective sweep” exception to the warrant requirement, recognized in Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325 (1990), does not automatically allow the police to ramble through a suspect’s home to look for 3rd parties whenever the police are present in the home; rather, such sweeps are permitted only where police have “a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the house is harboring a person posing a danger to those on the arrest scene.” Id. at 336. The opinion also contains some good …

United States v. Myrisa V. Lewis, Docket No. 04-4105-cr (2d Cir. Sep. 15, 2005) (Feinberg, Sack, Katzmann): This is a well-reasoned and interesting opinion by Judge Sack — and another good win by Ed Zas of this Office (see here for Ed’s other win this month). The decision holds that a district court must state its reasons for imposing a sentence that is outside the advisory Chapter 7 range for revocation of supervised release or probation, a holding that obviously has broader implications given that the governing statute applies to all sentences, whether imposed upon revocation or upon conviction. The decision also contains an interesting discussion of the still-unsettled issue of whether standard plain error analysis, or a more “relaxed” form of plain error review, is applicable to errors occurring at sentencing.

The essential facts are simple. While on supervised release, Ms. Lewis tested positive for drug use …