Archive | double jeopardy

United States v Jackson, No. 07-0263-cr (2d Cir. August 4, 2011)

Leval, Lynch, CJJ, Korman, DJ)

Appellant Derrick Rowe, charged with a drug-related murder, had three trials. At the first, he was convicted of only drug trafficking and possession of ammunition, but the jury hung on three other counts – murder, § 924(c) and § 924(j). The court sentenced him to 32 years. At the second, the jury hung on all of the remaining counts. At the third, Rowe was convicted of the three open counts and received a 45-year concurrent sentence.

On appeal, his primary claim was that, at the third trial, the district court erred in allowing the government to play portions of his some of his prison phone calls without allowing him to play other portions under the Fed. R. Evid. 106 “rule of completeness.” The circuit found no abuse of discretion. In he first conversation, Rowe …

United States v. Basciano, NO. 09-0281-cr (2d Cir. March 23, 2010) (Walker, McLaughlin, Raggi, CJJ)

On this interlocutory appeal, the circuit found that an indictment charging Basciano, who had previously been convicted of racketeering in conducting the affairs of the Bonanno crime family, with a successive racketeering count violated the Double Jeopardy Clause, because both counts alleged the same pattern of racketeering.

Background

1. The 2003 Indictment

Basciano and several co-defendants were originally charged in a 2003 Indictment with racketeering conspiracy and several other counts. The jury convicted Basciano of the racketeering conspiracy, but was unable to reach a verdict on some of the other counts. In preparing to retry him on the 2003 Indictment, the government superseded and added a substantive racketeering count. That count alleged that, from January 1979 through November 2004, Basciano conducted and participated in the conduct of the affairs of the Family through a pattern …