Articles Posted in Constitution – Bill of Rights

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Appellants in the Pierre opinion appealed their federal criminal convictions and sentences for conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, conspiracy to traffic in unauthorized access devises, aggravated identity theft and other substantive counts of identity theft following a jury trial.   The scheme in this case involved filing fraudulent income tax returns. The Defendants filed tax returns in the names of Florida prison inmates. The tax refunds were paid to the TaxProfessors’ debit cards that were used at automatic teller machines to obtain cash.

The scheme unraveled after an officer spotted a Cadillac with dark tinted windows and could not see inside the vehicle. He also noticed a temporary tag on the vehicle that was registered to the Defendant whose family owned a body shop that authorities suspected fraudulently issued temporary vehicle tags. The officer made a traffic stop because the he believed the tinting on the windows was below the standards permitted by Florida law.   After receiving consent to search the inside of the car the officer found prepaid debit cards issued by a business that was called TaxProfessor. The investigation into the debit cards led to a search warrant for the home of a defendant who was connected to TaxProfessor.   The Defendants also approached an employee of the Florida Department of Children and Family Services as a child protective investigator who had access to personal identifying information through a state database. The Defendant paid the DCF employee for a printout from the website which contained a list of inmates and SSN’s for 25 names on the list. Tax returns were filed using the inmates’ information and the tax refunds were loaded onto these debit cards for TaxProfessors accounts.

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In this Civil Rights claim Carter along with two other plaintiffs sued the Butts County, Georgia Sheriff office and a deputy sheriff for false arrest, claiming the Sheriff violated the Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizures.

These are the facts leading to the Plaintiffs’ arrest. When the deputy’s home had fallen into foreclosure, the mortgage holder advised the deputy that the home would sold in a foreclosure sale. After the deputy moved out of the property, the property was turned over to a maintenance company to prepare the property for resale. The deputy was given notice, and the authorized representatives of the entity handling the sale, the plaintiffs, had entered the house to clean and prepare for the sale. The deputy arrived at the house and ordered the plaintiffs to leave. The plaintiffs tried to show him credentials and documentation of the eviction. The deputy contacted the court clerk and learned there was no eviction proceeding against him. He ordered their arrest for burglary, criminal trespass, and theft, and all three went to jail.

The trial court denied defendant deputy’s motion for summary judgment in which he argued for qualified immunity protection against the claim against him and it denied the sheriff’s summary judgment motion on the conversion claim. As to the remaining claims the trial court granted summary judgment.   The Defendants appealed from the trial court’s rulings.

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In this appeal Jimenez-Antunez appealed the district court’s denial of his motion to fire his retained counsel and his request for court appointed counsel. Jimenez was a drug dealer with connections to a Mexican supplier who had couriers deliver drugs to Jimenez and then directed Jimenez to deposit drug sales into various bank accounts. Jimenez was arrested and charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to commit money laundering. A private attorney filed a notice of appearance as his counsel and he worked out a plea agreement with the government to plead guilty to the two conspiracy charges. Three months before sentencing hearing Jimenez sent his attorney a letter asking him to withdraw from the case and telling him he wanted the judge to appoint another lawyer. The attorney then moves to withdraw as the defense attorney. Prior to sentencing the judge held a hearing on the motion to withdraw and heard that that the client felt the attorney had coerced him into pleading guilty, that the attorney did not let him speak or explain certain matters, that the attorney threatened him by telling him he would be sentenced to 30 years if he did not plead guilty. He also said the attorney did not visit him in six months. The district court refused Jimenez’s request for new counsel concluding that Jimenez had been afforded effective counsel. It found no evidence that the attorney actually coerced Jimenez to plead guilty nor did credit Jimenez’s claim that the attorney had not visited him in six months. The district court believed that Jimenez’s real gripe was his disappointment with the sentencing guideline range in the presentence investigation report. Continue reading

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In U.S. v Payne, Defendant Payne appealed his sentence for bank robbery and possession of a firearm, arguing that the district court violated his Sixth Amendment rights when it sentenced him to the mandatory minimum sentence on a firearm charge. Payne pleaded guilty to federal crime of bank robbery where he served as the getaway driver, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a), (d), and one count of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). He received a 30-month sentence on the bank robbery count and a mandatory minimum 84-month sentence on the firearm count. At his plea hearing where he pleaded guilty to both counts of the indictment, Payne admitted that he had knowingly participated in an armed robbery of a bank.

Based on the fact that one of Payne’s accomplices had pointed a pistol at a bank teller during the robbery, the Presentence Investigation Report (PSR) concluded that Payne was subject to an 84-month mandatory minimum sentence to be served consecutive to his sentence for the bank robbery charge. Because his indictment had not specifically mentioned the brandishing provision of §924(c)(1)(A) and he had never admitted at his plea hearing, he asserted that sentencing him to the mandatory minimum would violate his Fifth Amendment due process rights and his Sixth Amendment rights.

Payne’s primary contention on appeal was that the district court violated his Sixth Amendment rights, when it sentenced him to the mandatory minimum sentence alleging an error under Alleyne v. United States. If an Alleyne error occurred, the court of appeals would vacate Payne’s sentence unless the error was harmless. Under Alleyne, any fact that increases the mandatory minimum sentence for a crime must be admitted by a defendant or be submitted to a jury and found beyond a reasonable doubt evidence. In this case, he did not admit at his plea hearing that the firearm had been brandished during the bank robbery that he committed, because he was waiting in the car for the getaway. Nevertheless the district court sentenced him to a mandatory minimum sentence based on the evidence presented where a bank teller testified that one of the defendants had pointed a pistol in her face during the robbery and the defense didn’t rebut the teller’s testimony.

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In U.S. v Watkins, the defendant appealed the court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence in violation of the Fourth Amendment obtained by the government as a result of a warrantless search of his computers and its denial of his motion for reconsideration and to reopen the evidentiary hearing. On October 24, 2009, three days after a girl body was found in a Georgia landfill, and detectives visited Watkins for permission to search his computer; he agreed. Later that day, Watkins agree to meet with a detective from the Clay County Sheriff’s office where Watkins expressed a willingness to help in any way he could about the disappearance of the girl. As the interview progressed, Watkins stated that he had used LimeWire to download and view child pornography approximately one hundred times. The detectives assured Watkins that he was not searching for his child pornography but only for clues to the girl’s murder and stated “I am not worried about your files and all that kind of stuff. I’ve got my own private stuff on my computer, you know what I am saying?” Watkins subsequently read and signed a voluntary consent form authorizing full search of his computers.

The Detective and an evidence technician went to Watkins home to meet Mrs. Watkins, explained that Watkins had signed a form consenting to a search of the computers in the home and asked for her consent to search the computers as well. She agreed, although she later claimed that she did so with the understanding that the search was limited to the murder investigation and the website the children had visited. The consent form signed by Mrs. Watkins was identical to the one Watkins had signed at the Sheriff’s office. Watkins who was present did not register any objection or reservation while officers sought and obtained Mrs. Watkins’s consent to an unlimited search of the computers. After the forensic analysis found evidence of child pornography, the evidence was used to charge Watkins with receipt of child pornography by computer over the internet. Watkins moved to suppress the evidence from the computers. A magistrate judge held a hearing and recommended denial of the motion. It reasoned that the detective’s assurances about the scope of the search had limited Watkins consent to evidence relevant to the murder investigation, but that Mrs. Watkins consent authorized a general search and therefore permitted discovery of the child pornography evidence. The search was valid because, Mrs. Watkins consented to a full search of the computers, and Watkins failed to show that the search violated his rights under Randolph. The district court upheld the magistrate’s recommendation concluding that Watkins had “not actually expressed a refusal to consent to an unlimited search of the computers” as Randolph required; instead, “he consented to the detective’s request for a search that was implicitly limited… to certain of the computers.” He was charged under 18 U.S.C. § 2252 for receipt of child pornography over the internet.

The district court and denied Watkin’s motion for reconsideration and for a new evidentiary hearing before the district court. The district court subsequently conducted a bench trial on stipulated facts and found him guilty of the charged offense.

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In U.S v. Serrapio, the defendant asked the court of appeals to hold that the district court’s modifications to his federal probation sentence violated his rights under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and the First Amendment. After his federal conviction, Serrapio was sentenced to 3 years of probation (with a number of conditions, including four months of home confinement with electronic monitoring and 250 hours of community service) violating 18 U.S.C. § 871 for threatening to shoot the President Barack Obama during his 2012 visit to the University of Miami. Serrapio spoke to a reporter for his college newspaper. He told her that his ordeal had been “pretty funny”, that he could not be imprisoned in his “own house”, and that a lot of good had come out of his case, including for his rock band, as a “lot of people showed up to see the kid who threatened to kill the President.” After the district court learned of these comments, the district court issued a notice setting a hearing concerned a status conference relating to a modification of probation. When the parties appeared as schedules, the district court said that it had set the hearing because it was “certain” that Serrapio did not understand what probation meant. After stating that it had the authority to modify the conditions of probation pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3563(c), the district court modified the conditions to include 45 days in a halfway house and one year of home confinement with electronic monitoring. The district court did not increase the three-year term of probation that it had initially imposed. In this appeal,

The first issue addressed by the court of appeals was whether the appeal moot. The court concluded that it was as to the 45-day halfway house term which had been served. They reach a different result as to the one-year period of home confinement, for which he suffered collateral consequences as a result of that modification. The district court ordered Serrapio to pay the costs of electronic monitoring for the additional eight months of home confinement and because he incurred a financial expense due to the district court’s modification of the home confinement condition of probation, the appeal is not moot.

Serrapio contends that this modification violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which that provide that no person shall “be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb”. Significantly, the “Double Jeopardy Clause does not prohibit the imposition of all additional sanctions that could, in common parlance, be described as punishment. The modification did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause because it did not upset any legitimate expectations held by Mr. Serrapio as to the finality of the conditions of probation, as it was authorized by statute and was based on Mr. Serrapio’s post sentencing conduct.

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In Osley v. United States, the Eleventh Circuit rejected the defendant’s section 2255 claim that his counsel failed to advise him he faced a mandatory sentence, because he had turned down a plea offer prior to trial that would have given him only 70 months. Osley was convicted of multiple counts commercial sex trafficking of a minor by means of force fraud and coercion, including a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1591. Following the Miami federal criminal trial Osley was sentenced to 365 months and his sentence and conviction were affirmed. He filed a motion to vacate sentence pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255 claiming (1) his counsel was ineffective for failing to inform him of the mandatory minimum 15 year sentence for violating § 1591, (2) appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge an obvious double counting violation of his sentencing guidelines, and (3) counsel failed to advise him he faced life term of supervised release.

Prior to trial his counsel discussed the possibility of a plea agreement. Both counsel and the prosecutor agreed that the guidelines calculation would be 97 to 121 months. At a status hearing held by the district court the prosecutor also informed the court there was no mandatory sentence under the sentencing guidelines and if found guilty he would be facing 97 to 121 months. The defendant had previously rejected a plea offer of 80 months. Osley chose a trial where the government’s star witness was a 17 year old victim was a run-away from home who said Osley promised to buy her ticket to Miami and discovered that she would have to become a prostitute for him, and described how he threatened her with a gun because she did not bring in enough money. After the trial and an during the Presentence Investigation interview, the probation officer informed the defendant and his counsel that the statute had been amended by Congress prior to the date Osley violated the statute, making the penalty a 15 year mandatory minimum sentence. The PSI also recommended a four level enhancement for uncharged conduct, giving him a range of 210 to 260 months. The judge also imposed a variance up by three levels.

While the Eleventh Circuit had serious doubts about whether counsel’s performance satisfied the standard of reasonableness required by the Sixth Amendment, it found that the defendant could not meet the prejudice pronged of Strickland. It rejected the Osley’s claim that he would have taken the 15 year mandatory sentence had he known he was facing 262 months under the guidelines, because Osley had rejected the government’s offer of 70 to 87 months. The 15 year deal that the defendant claims he would have taken was substantially more time than the deal he rejected. The court did not accept his claim that he would have taken 15 year deal even if he had known he would be facing a guideline range of up to 262 months. Furthermore, the defendant’s denial of guilt was a factor in determining whether he would have accepted the government’s plea offer.

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Reeves and five codenfendants in U.S. v. Reeves were convicted following a nine day trial of federal drug charges including conspiracy to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine, possession of more than 50 grams of crack cocaine, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The indictment followed nearly one year of investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Agency into the drug activities of individuals involved in drug distribution in the area of Baldwin County, Georgia. Agents used video surveillance and court ordered wiretaps to determine that numerous coconspirators were involved in large scale cocaine distribution network starting from a Mexican supplier of large quantities down to low level distributors of small quantities.

Reeves challenged his conspiracy conviction arguing that the facts showed he and his coconspirators were not part of a single criminal agreement but rather he just bought and sold cocaine in the ordinary course of several discrete agreements. The court rejected his arguments finding that he regularly purchased from one coconspirator and repeatedly sold to the same street-level distributors was more than adequate evidence for the jury to find a single overarching conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine. Reeves’ codefendant wife argued the evidence was insufficient to convict her of the conspiracy particularly because there was no evidence she personally distributed drugs. The court of appeals disagreed on the basis of the tape recorded telephone conversations presented at trial showing her knowledge of the cocaine conspiracy. Those conversations showed that a reasonable jury could find that the wife knew there was cocaine hidden in the house, that she agree to dispose of it after coconspirator was arrested, and that she tried to conceal the conspiracy by falsely tell the police that her codefendant husband lived at another address.

Another issue the wife raised was the admission of telephone recordings without proper authentication. The court of appeals found there was plenty of evidence establishing her voice on the recordings, including testifying on her own behalf in which she acknowledged speaking on the phone and identifying her own voice.

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In U.S v. Campbell the defendant was indicted for conspiracy to possess and for possession with intent to distribute 100 kilograms or more of marijuana in violation of 46 U.S.C. § 70501 after he was arrested by Coast Guard on a vessel in international waters. The Coast Guard had earlier observed the vessel off the coast of Jamaica with three individuals aboard discarding dozens of bale in the water that the Coast Guard later determined were about 997 kilograms of marijuana. The Coast Guard determined the vessel lacked indicia of nationality because it lacked a flag, port, or registration number. The captain claimed the vessel was registered in Haiti. When the Coast Guard contacted the Republic of Haiti about whether the vessel was of Haitian nationality the response from Haiti was that it could neither confirm nor deny the registry. In a pretrial motion to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds, the defendant argued the certification of the Secretary of State to establish extraterritorial jurisdiction for prosecution violated the defendant’s right under the Confrontation Clause and there was insufficient evidence to prove that the defendant was aboard a vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. The defendant was convicted following a bench trial where he stipulated to the material facts.

In the first issue raised, defendant argued the admission of the certification of the Secretary of State without the ability to cross examine a Haitian witness violated his right under the Confrontation Clause. The Eleventh Circuit found the stateless nature of the vessel was not an element of the offense to be proved at trial and the admission of the certification did not violate his right to confront the witnesses at trial. The Confrontation Clause does not bar the admission of hearsay to make a pretrial determination of jurisdiction when it is not an element of the offense. The Confrontation Clause protects a defendant’s right to confront testimony offered against him to establish guilt, and the Supreme Court has never extended the reach of the Confrontation Clause “beyond the confines of a trial.

In the second issue the defendant argued that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require a jury to determine whether extraterritorial jurisdiction exists. The Eleventh Circuit rejected this argument in find that the issue of jurisdiction was preliminary to trial because the issue whether the boat was seized within the prescribed limit did not affect the right of the court to hold the person for trial. It only affect the question of guilt or innocence.

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The defendant in U.S. v. Yeary was convicted of the federal crimes of conspiracy to possess controlled substances with intent to distribute and with possessing multiple firearms. This appeal centers around the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence under the Fourth Amendment, which was seized by police in three warrantless searches of his residences on three different occasions. In the first search law enforcement officers came to a condominium he shared with his girlfriend with a warrant for his arrest. When the girlfriend opened the door, the agents saw the defendant behind the girlfriend and noticed a black handgun on a table next to the defendant. The defendant was arrested and removed from the house. When asked if others were in the house, the girlfriend said there were two other people so the officers did a protective sweep of the house where they discovered drugs and firearms in plain view. The court of appeals upheld the search on the grounds that the search was a valid protective sweep based on the girlfriend’s statements that other individuals may be in the house because they had a reasonable basis to conduct a limited protective sweep. During that sweep deputies discovered contraband in plain view and on this basis the search was valid.

The second search took place while the defendant was on bond under house arrest pending trial on felony charges in Palm Beach county circuit court. A condition of his house arrest was that his residence could be searched at any time without prior notice and without warrant. When law enforcement received an anonymous tip that he was still selling drugs out of his residence, officers went to his residence and conducted a search leading to the discovery of drugs and a firearm. The court upheld the search of these from on the grounds that he agreed to a warrantless search of his residence as a condition of his house arrest bond. The constitutionality of the search depends on the validity of the defendant’s consent. Under the totality of the circumstances the evidence is clear that defendant knowingly consented to the search of his house and agreed to the condition that he would allow his house to be searched 24 hours a day. He acknowledged this condition prior to signing a waiver of any objections to a warrantless search. The court found his consent was no different than any other voluntary consent search.

The third search took place after a warrant was issued for his arrest for the Federal indictment. Law enforcement agents went to the defendant’s residence where they found his girlfriend. She gave them permission to enter the house and inside the residence the officers found drugs and more weapons. The court upheld the search on the grounds of the voluntary consent given by the girlfriend. The evidence showed that law enforcement officers believed that the girlfriend had authority to give the consent to search and reason to believe her consent was given freely and voluntarily.

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