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Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

Deconstruction Project

United States v. Dorvee, No. 09-0648 (2d Cir. May 11, 2010) (Cabranes, Parker, CJJ, Underhill, DJ)

In this first-of-a-kind opinion, the court (1) held that a within Guideline – albeit statutory maximum – sentence was substantively unreasonable and (2) found that an offense Guideline other than the crack Guideline was not the product of the Commission’s traditional empirical role and hence, under Kimbrough, was not entitled to deference.

Background

While chatting online with undercover officers posing as teenage boys, Justin Dorvee sent them computer files containing child pornography. He was arrested when set out to meet one of the boys. A search of his home revealed several thousand still images and more than 100 videos containing child pornography. He ultimately pled guilty to one count of distribution of child pornography.

Under a correct application of U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2, which prescribed a base offense level of 22 plus enhancements for such …

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Sunday, May 9th, 2010

Package Deal

United States v. Torres, No. 09-1771-cr (2d Cir. May 5, 2010)(Kearse, Hall, CJJ, Rakoff, DJ)

Every once in a while, when the judge and jury refuse to acquit an innocent defendant, the circuit steps in and sets things right. This is such a case. Finding that the evidence was insufficient to establish that Torres knew that there were drugs in some UPS packages that he went to great lengths to pick up, the court reversed the conviction and remanded for entry of a judgment of acquittal.

Background

On April 30, 2008, a UPS deliveryman attempted to deliver two large “high value” packages to “Jose Torrez” at an address in Yonkers. Two men intercepted the driver near that address and asked for the packages. The driver asked for identification, but because it showed an address in Brooklyn, he would not release the packages.

The men were persistent. They followed the truck …

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Saturday, May 8th, 2010

American Idle

United States v. Hernandez, No. 09-1421-cr (2d Cir. May 5, 2010) (Jacobs, Kearse, Calabresi, CJJ)

Here, the circuit found that the defendant’s sentence was procedurally unreasonable because it took the district court fifteen years to get around to imposing it.

Background

In 1991, Hernandez was convicted after a jury trial of drug trafficking and associated crimes of violence. Judge Platt sentenced him to 405 months’ imprisonment and a large fine. The sentence included an aggravating role enhancement. On Hernandez’ first appeal, decided in 1993, the court vacated the sentence because the judge had imposed the enhancement over objection but had made “no finding” with respect to Hernandez’ role.

Judge Platt did not act on the remand. In 1997, at the government’s request, he appointed counsel for Hernandez, but still did not resentence him. Finally, in 2008, fifteen years after the remand was ordered, Hernandez’ mother wrote the judge a letter …

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Summary Summary

Here are two recent summary orders of interest and one from March that we missed at the time:

In United States v. Pender, No. 08-5474-cr (2d Cir. May 6, 2010), there was a factual dispute as to whether the defendant was on parole when he committed the federal offense. Although the district court had concluded that he was, the court remanded the case for reconsideration. Notably, this issue was raised in the defendant’s pro se brief, not his counseled brief.

In United States v. Oruche, No. 09-0665-cr, (2d Cir. April 26, 2010), the court vacated one defendant’s sentence because he was erroneously classified as a career offender. One of his two prior drug convictions was for simple possession, not trafficking. The court also vacated a co-defendant’s sentence because the district court had used the erroneous career offender sentence as a point of reference.

Finally, in United States v. Harper, No. …

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Saturday, May 1st, 2010

PC World

United States v. Key, No. 08-3218-cr (2d Cir. April 28, 2010) (Miner, Cabranes, Wesley, CJJ) (per curiam)

This interesting per curiam holds that a defendant’s appeal of the denial of his crack resentencing motion under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) was rendered moot by his release from prison.

Although Key was still on supervised release, the court found that the possibility that the district court would reduce or terminate his supervised release term – assuming that it could – was “remote and speculative.” The district court’s findings in denying the § 3582(c)(2) motion caused the circuit to “strongly doubt” that the court would exercise its discretion in that way.…

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Collateral Damage

United States v. Cerna, No. 09-1170-cr (2d Cir. April 27, 2010) (Katzmann, Hall, CJJ, Rakoff, DJ)

Against the backdrop of the circuit’s ongoing concern over the “exceptionally poor quality of representation often provided by attorneys retained by aliens as they attempt to negotiate the complexities of our immigration law,” here, the circuit reversed the district court’s denial of the defendant’s collateral challenge to the legality of his deportation.

Jose Cerna came to the United States from El Salvador when he was ten. He became a lawful permanent resident but, as a teenager, had several brushes with the law – two drug sale convictions when he was sixteen, a gun possession charge two years later, and another drug sale when he was twenty-one. While serving this last sentence, deportation proceedings were commenced against him.

After a hearing, an immigration judge found Cerna deportable, but also found him to be eligible for …

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Monday, April 26th, 2010

Summary Summary

There hasn’t been much action in the circuit in the past couple of weeks. This smattering of noteworthy summary orders will have to keep us occupied for the time being.

In United States v. Givens, No. 09-0765-cr, and United States v. Blue, No. 09-0219-cr (2d Cir. April 26, 2010), related cases, the circuit vacated two defendants’ sentences because the district court misinterpreted an ambiguous Regalado remand order and did not conduct a full resentencing.

United States v. Young, No. 09-1853-cr (2d Cir. April 22, 2010), is surely the tersest and most cryptic summary order yet. It provides, in its entirety, “On the basis of the record before us, including what we have learned at oral argument, we discern no error and therefore AFFIRM the judgment of the District Court.”

In United States v. Lorenzo, No. 08-3626-cr (2d Cir. April 12, 2010), the court held that the defendant was not eligible …

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Sunday, April 11th, 2010

Summary Summary

The circuit seemingly never tires of issuing summary orders of interest. Here are three more:

In United States v. Grant, No. 09-1760-cr (2d Cir. April 8, 2010), the court ordered a Jacobson remand so that the district court could clarify an ambiguity in its decision on a motion to suppress that was material to the circuit’s consideration of whether police officers had the defendant’s implied consent to enter his apartment.

In United States v. Orozco, No. 08-4043-cr (2d Cir. April 1, 2010), the defendant appealed a condition of supervised release requiring him to notify the probation department of any “significant romantic relationship” to which he did not did not object at the time, but that was was rendered illegal under a later-decided case. The circuit ducked the plain error questions, and remanded instead under Rule 31.2(c) which gives district courts the “power to modify conditions of supervised release at any …

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Saturday, April 10th, 2010

The Heavy Burdens

United States v. Burden, No. 03-1727-cr (2d Cir. March 31, 2010) (Hall, Livingston, Gibson, CJJ)

From 1997 to 2001, Kelvin Burden, ran a crack cocaine ring in Norwalk, Connecticut, with the help of several of his brothers, two of whom were named David, and a few of his friends. The gang’s activities grew increasingly violent. Throughout 1998 and 1999 there were fatal encounters with members of a rival gang, the Hill Crew; also, in 1999, Burden gang members shot at two of their own, killing one and leaving the other a paraplegic.

The defendants were convicted of racketeering, drug charges and multiple VCAR counts, and received sentences ranging from eighty-eight months to life.

Their principal arguments on appeal were that the evidence was insufficient to establish that the Burden gang was an “enterprise” and that its activities constituted a “pattern.” The circuit affirmed.

First, the defendants asserted that the evidence …

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An Appeal To Reason

Ramchair v. Conway, No. 08-2004-pr (2d Cir. April 2, 2010)(Winter, Calabresi, Sack, CJJ)

It seems as if most Second Circuit habeas decisions deal only with the procedural hurdles faced by state prisoners. So it is indeed remarkable that the court has decided two cases less than one week apart in which it got through the procedural thicket and actually resolved the substantive issue presented in the case. This decision, in which the court agrees that the petitioner’s state court appellate counsel was constitutionally ineffective, is accordingly blog-worthy.

The case has a long history. Ramchair was charged with a 1995 robbery after he was identified in a fairly suspect lineup, at which his counsel was present. He moved to suppress the identification and, after a hearing, the trial court denied the motion. He then had two trials that ended in mistrials, but at which the issue of counsel’s presence at the …

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Payment Plan Available

United States v. Kyles, No. 06-4196-cr (2d Cir. April 2, 2010) (Miner, Katzmann, Raggi, CJJ)

In 1993, defendant Kyles received a long bank robbery sentence, along with a $4,133 restitution order. The court did not set a payment schedule, and instead (illegally) delegated that task to the Probation Department, which never acted. In 1998, the district court amended the restitution order by directing that Kyles pay $2 per month while incarcerated. Kyles did not appeal that order.

In 2006, the district court amended the order again, this time raising the monthly payments from $2 to $25. After much back-and-forth over whether the district court had authority to order this and Kyles’ ability to pay, the court amended the order again, this time specifying that Kyles’ payments should be “increased in accordance with the guidelines of the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program.”

Kyles appealed, arguing that the district court lacked the authority …

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