Archive | conspracy

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Object Permanence

United States v. Marte Robles, No. 07-1013-cr (2d Cir. April 9, 2009)(Straub, Hall, CJJ, Eaton, DJ)(per curiam)

In this case, the court was called upon to construe Application Note 4 to U.S.S.G. § 1B1.2. Section 1B1.2(d) provides that a “conviction on a count charging a conspiracy to commit more than one offense shall be treated as if the defendant had been convicted on a separate count of conspiracy for each offense that the defendant conspired to commit.” The application note advises that “[p]articular care must be taken” when applying this subsection because there are cases where “the verdict or plea does not establish” which offenses were “the object of the conspiracy. In such cases, [subsection(d)] should only be applied with respect to an object offense alleged in the conspiracy count” if the court, were it sitting as the trier of fact, “would convict the defendant of conspiring to commit that …


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Categories: conspracy, Sixth Amendment, Uncategorized

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Saturday, September 6th, 2008

Conspiracy Theories

United States v. Santos, No. 06-0833-cr (2d Cir. September 2, 2008) (McLaughlin, Sack, Livingston, CJJ)

In 2000, Santos was hired by a big Columbian drug dealer to kill two men who had stolen drug proceeds from him. Santos had meetings with an intermediary, Medina, in which Medina answered Santos’ questions about the nature of the drug organization and the debt, and detailed the reasons for the hit. Soon after, Santos and an associate shot and killed two men they believed to be the intended targets, but who in fact were not. He was convicted of drug-related murder under 21 U.S.C. § 848(e)(1)(A), and was sentenced to life plus ten.

On appeal, Santos raised, without success, three issues of statutory interpretation relating to his involved in the conspiracy, two of which had a parallel sufficiency claims.

“Engaging In” Drug Trafficking

The statute makes it a crime for a person “engaging in” …


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Categories: conspracy, drug-related murder, Uncategorized

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