Morales v. United States, No. 04-0585-pr (2d Cir. March 11, 2011) (Pooler, Hall, Livingston, CJJ)
Although decisions in habeas cases are generally beyond the scope of this blog, this one contains an discussion of an interesting sentencing issue relating to convictions on multi-object conspiracies where there is no special verdict.
Morales was a “Director of Security” for the Latin Kings street gang. In 1995, he was convicted of multiple RICO and VICAR counts as well as two drug counts: a conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana, heroin, cocaine and cocaine base, and a substantive count of possessing with the intent to distribute 50 grams or more of crack cocaine. He received six life sentences, one of which was on the drug conspiracy count. Although it was a multiple-object conspiracy count, the jury did not return a special verdict as to which drugs Morales conspired to possess, and the …