Archive | Uncategorized

Monday, December 31st, 2007

Permanent Waive

United States v. Quinones, No. 04-5554 (2d Cir. December 28, 2007) (Winter, Cabranes, Raggi, CJJ)

This case has lengthy discussions of two important issues. It turns out that the one that has received the less press is actually the more interesting of the two, so we’ll begin with that.

1. Sentencing Error Waived

Facts: In this capital case, the defendants initially faced three counts that exposed them to the death penalty. Two related to murder in aid of racketeering under 18 U.S.C. § 1959; for these, a life sentence was mandatory if death was not imposed. The defendants were acquitted of these counts.

They were convicted only of murder in relation to a continuing drug enterprise (“CCE”) under 21 U.S.C. § 848(e). At the time, that section provided for a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment and a maximum of life if death was not imposed. Nevertheless, the defendants …


Posted By
Categories: jury selection, sentencing, Uncategorized, waiver

Continue Reading
Wednesday, December 26th, 2007

Breach Baby

United States v. Griffin, No. 05-4106-cr (2d Cir. December 21, 2007) (Pooler, Sack, Wesley, CJJ)

In this case, a divided panel concluded that the government breached its plea agreement in a child pornography case by twice suggesting that the defendant might not be entitled to a downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility.

Facts: Defendant Michael Griffin pled guilty to possessing child pornography by using the file-sharing service Kazaaa. His plea agreement left open a number of disputed Guidelines issues, which were the subject of a lengthy evidentiary hearing, but stipulated that the government would not oppose a three-level acceptance of responsibility adjustment. Before sentencing, Griffin filed numerous objections to the Guidelines calculations in the presentence report; most pertinently, he denied knowingly possessing a particularly disturbing video known as “BabyJ,” and also denied telling the FBI, in a post-arrest statement, that he knew that the video had been on his computer.…


Posted By
Categories: breach, plea agreement, sentence, Uncategorized

Continue Reading
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007

Summary Summary

Welcome to yet another installment of the blog’s roundup of summary orders of interest.

In Mickens v. United States, No. 06-0140-pr (2d Cir. December 19, 2007), the court held that defense counsel’s failure to communicate a plea offer to his client was unreasonable, satisfying the first prong of the Strickland ineffectiveness test, although second prong was not satisfied because there was no credible evidence that the defendant would have accepted the offer. In United States v. Turner, No. 06-0967-cr (2d Cir. December 17, 2007), the court remanded for resentencing where the government breached the plea agreement in four different ways; the court ordered that the case be sent back to a different judge, which it always does when the government has breached a plea agreement. In United States v. Miley, No. 06-1105-cr (2d Cir. December 13, 2007), the court affirmed an above-Guideline sentence of 48 months’ imprisonment (the range was …

Posted by
Categories: Uncategorized

Posted By
Categories: Uncategorized

Continue Reading

Blurry Vision Leads to Clear Error

United States v. Lin Guang, No. 05-4724(L)-cr (2d Cir. December 13, 2007) (McLaughlin, Wesley, CJJ, Sessions, DJ)

Two defendants in an extortion case raised a host of garden-variety challenges to their conviction, to little effect, and to their sentence, one of which prevailed.

During one of the extortions, a victim was beaten and a caustic substance was sprayed into his eyes, briefly blinding him. Once he rinsed it out, his eyes felt better, but from that point on he found it painful to read for long periods of time, and thus had stopped reading the newspaper. Based on this account, the district court imposed a six-level Guideline enhancement for permanent injury, which is defined as “loss or substantial impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty that is likely to be permanent.”

The circuit held that the district court’s finding that the impairment, as described, was …


Posted By
Categories: clear error, sentencing, Uncategorized

Continue Reading
Monday, December 17th, 2007

Not-So-Fast Track

United States v. Liriano-Blanco, No. 06-2919-cr (2d Cir. December 11, 2007) (Walker, Calabresi, Sack CJJ)

In this unusual case, the circuit entertained an appeal despite a waiver. Liriano-Blanco pled guilty to illegal reentry under a plea agreement in which he agreed to waive any appeal of a sentence of 60 months or less, with a Guideline range of 57 to 71 months. At his sentencing, he asked for a below-Guidelines sentence to avoid “the disparity caused by the existence of fast-track programs in other districts.” The district judge was sympathetic to this argument, and agreed that there was an unwarranted disparity. He indicated that he would like to give a four-level downward departure for this, but thought that he was not permitted to. Erroneously believing that Liriano-Blanco could appeal the sentence, the judge invited him to do so: “Hopefully, maybe, the Second Circuit may disagree with me and [I’ll] be …


Posted By
Categories: appeal waiver, fast-track disparity, Uncategorized

Continue Reading

Underprivileged

In re Grand Jury Subpoena Dated July 6, 2005, No. 05-6891-cv (2d Cir. November 16, 2007, posted December 10, 2007) (Pooler, Parker, Wesley, CJJ)

In January of 2005, an Eastern District AUSA contacted counsel for the unnamed appellant, a former mortgage broker, and advised that appellant was the subject of a grand jury investigation. Appellant proffered on January 12, 2005, and, sometime after that date, surreptitiously recorded his telephone conversations with another broker, who was also a subject of the investigation. At later proffer, appellant told the government about the tapes, which he said he had made “on advice of counsel to protect himself.” When the government subpoenaed those recordings, appellant resisted, claiming that they were privileged. The district court ordered compliance, and the circuit affirmed.

Appellant’s primary claim was that the recordings were work product. The circuit concluded that the recordings were “fact” work product, that is, the result …


Posted By
Categories: attorney-client, Fifth Amendment, privilege, Uncategorized, work product

Continue Reading
Friday, December 7th, 2007

SUMMARY SUMMARY

Welcome to the Blog’s periodic roundup of summary orders of interest.

In United States v. Rodriguez, No. 06-1681 (November 29, 2007), the court vacated a restitution order for further factfinding in a case involving the filing of fraudulent tax returns.

In United States v. Perez, No. 06-1040 (2d Cir. November 27, 2007), the court, yet again, bounced an Anders brief. Here it ordered counsel to file a supplemental brief that either (1) addressed the court’s Guidelines findings and calculations and the reasonableness of the sentence, or (2) explained why a discussion of reasonableness was unnecessary. If the brief really lacked all of these things, one wonders what it actually said!…

Posted by
Categories: Uncategorized

Posted By
Categories: Uncategorized

Continue Reading

Graft Dodger

United States v. Ganim, No. 03-1448-cr (2d Cir. December 4, 2007) (Jacobs, Sotomayor, Wesley, CJJ)

Until his downfall, Joe Ganim was the mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 2003, he was convicted of racketeering, bribery and other offenses arising out of a bribery and kickback scheme. In essence, he had a fee-splitting arrangement with public relations and engineering firms to which he would steer city business in exchange for “cash, meals, fitness equipment, designer clothing, wine, [and] jewelry.” At trial, he acknowledged receiving these “gifts,” but asserted that they represented tokens of friendship and legitimate lobbying activity. The jury felt otherwise, however, and Ganim ultimately received a 108-month sentence.

On appeal, he took issue with the district court’s jury instructions with respect to the various bribery-related crimes of which he was convicted: bribery, bribe receiving, extortion in violation of the Hobbs Act, and “honest services” mail fraud. His claim was that …

Posted by
Categories: Uncategorized

Posted By
Categories: Uncategorized

Continue Reading
Wednesday, December 5th, 2007

Writ Small

United States v. Richter, No. 06-1930-cr (2d Cir. December 4, 2007) (per curiam)

Richter was sentenced in 1992 and did not appeal. In 2006, he petitioned pro se for a writ of audita querela to make a collateral Booker challenge to his sentence. The court rejected the claim, because Booker does not apply retroactively on collateral review.

This opinion is interesting, however, because the court identifies a situation when this obscure writ would lie. Most past cases have noted only the writ is “probably available,” or “might be deemed available,” or “might be available” in certain circumstances. Here, the court makes clear, without apparent qualification, that the writ would lie “if the absence of any avenue of collateral attack would raise serious constitutional questions about the laws limiting those avenues.” Now we know.…

Posted by
Categories: Uncategorized

Posted By
Categories: Uncategorized

Continue Reading
Thursday, November 29th, 2007

Have You Hugged A Sex Offender Lately?

United States v. Juwa, No. 06-2716-cr (2d Cir. November 28, 2007) (Walker, Calabresi, Sack, CJJ)

United States v. Baker, No. 05-4693-cr (2d Cir. November 16, 2007) (Summary Order)

The circuit has. Twice, but only once in a published opinion. In Juwa, the court found that a 90-month sentence was procedurally unreasonable because it might have been based on unsubstantiated pending state court charges.

Juwa pled guilty to possessing child pornography, and faced a 24 to 30 month range. At the time of his federal sentencing he was charged in state court with sexually abusing his nephew on multiple occasions, and had worked out a plea agreement under which he would plead to a single count in exchange for a 5-year sentence that would be concurrent to his federal sentence.

At his federal sentencing, however, the district court went way above the agreed-upon range “based on the information before” it about …


Posted By
Categories: procedural reasonableness, sentence, substantive reasonableness, Uncategorized

Continue Reading
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

Joint Pain

United States v. Shellef, No. 06-1495-cr (2d Cir. November 8, 2007) (Pooler, Sack, Wesley, CJJ)

In this decision applying Fed.R.Cr.P 8, the court held that counts were improperly joined against two separate defendants, and that the misjoinders were not harmless. The decision also has an interesting discussion of some unusual wire fraud theories.

Defendants Shellef and Rubenstein were tried together on tax and wire fraud charges. At the same trial, Shellef alone was tried on tax evasion charges relating to some of his personal and business dealings. Both were convicted of all counts.

The tax and mail fraud charges arose from the defendants’ efforts to purchase and resell CFC-113, a highly regulated, ozone-depleting industrial solvent upon which, Congress, in an effort to phase out its use, imposed an excise tax. However, the tax does not apply to CFC-113 reclaimed as part of a recycling process, or CFC-113 that is sold …


Posted By
Categories: fraud, joinder, Rule 8, severance, Uncategorized

Continue Reading