(This post has been updated to discuss the amended opinion in Fiseku.)

The Second Circuit issued an opinion this week containing some facially incorrect, and substantively troubling, dicta concerning tits recent decision in Barrett. See United States v. Fiskeu, No. 17-1222 (2d Cir. 2018) (Cabranes, Lynch, Carney) (appeal from Engelmayer, J., S.D.N.Y.), opinion available here.

The narrow, fact-specific holding of Fiseku is that under the “unusual circumstances” presented in the case, police officers did not act unreasonably when they briefly restrained the defendant in handcuffs while conducting a investigatory stop. Slip op. at 18. However, the defendant also raised an ineffective assistance claim because his defense attorney failed to argue that his crime of conviction, conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery, was not a crime of violence within the meaning of U.S.S.G. 4B1.2. The Second Circuit declined to address this claim on direct review.

In so …

On the heels of its Pereira-Gomez decision on Friday, the Second Circuit issued a new opinion in United States v. Barrett, which is available here.

In Barrett, the Circuit held that 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(3)(B) is not unconstitutionally vague because “factfinding as to the violent nature of the predicate offense and the risk of physical force in its commission can be made by the trial jury in deciding the defendant’s guilt, thus avoiding both the Sixth Amendment and due process vagueness concerns at issue in Dimaya and Johnson.”  The Court held that the fact that Barrett’s jury did not make a finding regarding force was harmless error in light of the specific facts of his case.  The Circuit further held that a Hobbs Act Robbery conspiracy is a crime of violence because the object of the conspiracy, the Hobbs Act Robbery, is a crime of violence.  “[T]his …