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May 5, 2009
Supreme Court Determines That “Knowingly” Applies to All Elements of Aggravated Identity Theft
The Supreme Court yesterday issued a decision in Flores-Figueroa v. United States (08-108), clarifying the intent requirement of the federal aggravated identity theft statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1). The statute prescribes a mandatory two-year term of imprisonment for any person who, “during and in relation to” certain other specified crimes, “knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person.” Flores-Figueroa, a Mexican native, worked at a steel plant in East Moline, Ill. He was accused of using a phony Social Security card and a phony alien registration card. The two numbers on those cards had been assigned to someone else; he argued that the enhanced mandatory minimum sentence contained in § 1028A(a)(1) did not apply to him because he used the documents without knowing the numbers were actual numbers assigned to another person. He was convicted and sentenced to 75 months in prison, including a consecutive 24 month enhancement required by § 1029A(a)(1). The Eighth Circuit Court upheld the sentence, concluding that it was not necessary to show that Flores-Figueroa knew he was using another person’s identifying information. In an opinion by Justice Breyer, the Supreme Court reversed, 9-0, holding that ordinary English grammar suggests that the term “knowingly” applies to all of the statutory elements. For more on the Court’s reasoning, see the case summary on the Federal Defender Supreme Court Blog.The Supreme Court also granted certiorari in two cases, Sullivan v. Florida (08-7412) and Graham v. Florida (08-7621), both of which raise constitutional challenges to the imposition of life in prison without possibility of parole on juveniles who commit crimes other than murder.
April 30, 2009
DOJ and the Obama Administration Declare Support for Eliminating the 100:1 Sentencing Disparity Between Crack and Powder Cocaine
In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs yesterday, Assistant United States Attorney General Lanny Breuer declared that “Congress’s goal should be to completely eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.” This is the first time that the Department of Justice has supported equalization of cocaine sentencing.Noting that a complete end to the sentencing disparity cannot occur without Congressional action, Mr. Breuer offered hope for defendants currently facing sentencing for crack cocaine offenses:
[W]e recognize that federal courts have the authority to sentence outside the guidelines in crack cases or even to create their own quantity ratio. Our prosecutors will inform courts that they should act within their discretion to fashion a sentence that is consistent with the objectives of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and our prosecutors will bring the relevant case-specific facts to the courts’ attention.Mr. Breuer was one of several witnesses who testified at yesterday’s hearing on “Restoring Fairness to Federal Sentencing: Addressing the Crack-Powder Disparity.”
Supreme Court Permits Use of Involuntary Statements for Impeachment; Clarifies Scope of Gun Enhancement
The Kansas Supreme Court yesterday issued decisions in Kansas v. Ventris (07-1356), and Dean v. United States (08-5274).In Kansas v. Ventris, Ventris was arrested for aggravated robbery and burglary. The state planted an informant in his cell, to whom Ventris made incriminating statements. The state later conceded that this was a violation of Ventris’ Sixth Amendment right to counsel and, as a result, was prohibited from using the confession in its case-in-chief. It was, however, allowed to use the confession to impeach Ventris’ own testimony at trial. Kansas held that such use was impermissible under the exclusionary rule. The U.S. Supreme Court, in an opinion authored by Justice Scalia, held that Ventris’ incriminating statement to a jailhouse informant, concededly elicited in violation of Sixth Amendment strictures, is admissible at trial to impeach the defendant’s conflicting statement.
In Dean, the Court addressed the sentencing enhancement of 18 U. S. C. §924(c)(1)(A)(iii), which provides that an individual convicted for using or carrying a firearm during and in relation to any violent or drug trafficking crime, or possessing a firearm in furtherance of such a crime, receives a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence if the firearm is discharged. Dean was convicted of conspiring to commit a bank robbery and discharging a firearm during an armed robbery. Although the discharge was accidental and no one was harmed, Dean was sentenced to a 10-year mandatory minimum prison term on the firearm count. In a 7-2 opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court held that section 924(c)(1)(A)(iii) requires no separate proof of intent and that the 10-year mandatory minimum applies if a gun is discharged in the course of a violent or drug trafficking crime, whether on purpose or by accident.
The Court also issued an opinion on Tuesday in Cone v. Bell (07-1114), in which it addressed whether a federal habeas claim is procedurally defaulted if it is presented twice to state courts and whether a federal court has the power to recognize that a state court erred in holding that its law precluded it from reviewing a claim.
April 23, 2009
Sentencing Commission Votes on Proposed Guideline Amendments
The United States Sentencing Commission voted at its public meeting on April 15 to promulgate several amendments to the guidelines and commentary. Amendments include a change in the definition of “victim” in §2B1.1 to include certain persons who suffer non-pecuniary harm; an increase to the base offense level cap in hydrocodone cases; creation of a new guideline in response to the Drug Trafficking Vessel Interdiction Act of 2008, which criminalizes the operation of certain submersibles or semi-submersibles; a change in the definition of “counterfeiting” so that bleached notes are included within it; creation of a new enhancement at §2L1.1 where a defendant is a leader or organizer and commits a harboring offense in furtherance of prostitution; and clarification that the undue influence enhancement at §2A3.2 and §2G1.3 applies to attempted conduct, but does not apply where the only “minor” involved is an undercover officer. These amendments will be sent to Congress on May 1 and, assuming Congressional approval, will take effect on November 1, 2009.April 22, 2009
Supreme Court Limits Search-Incident-to-Arrest Rule
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court yesterday rejected a broad expansion of the Belton rule allowing police to search the car of a suspect incident to arrest. In Arizona v. Gant (07-542) the Court held that police may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle incident to a recent occupant’s arrest only if it is reasonable to believe that the arrestee might access the vehicle at the time of the search or that the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest.In affirming the judgment for the defendant below, the Court noted that there was no reasonable chance that Gant could have accessed his car after he was arrested by five police officers, handcuffed, and placed in a squad car. Furthermore, the police arrested Gant for driving with a suspended license, a crime for which the police could not have reasonably expected to find evidence in the car. Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Scalia, Thomas, Souter, and Ginsburg, rejected the argument that stare decisis requires a broad interpretation of the Belton rule: “We have never relied on stare decisis to justify the continuance of an unconstitutional police practice.”
April 21, 2009
Supreme Court Grants Cert in Cases Addressing Speedy Trial Act and Depiction of Animal Cruelty Statute
On April 20, the Supreme Court granted cert in Bloate v. United States (08-728), and United States v. Stevens (08-769).In Bloate the Court will address whether time granted at the request of a defendant to prepare pretrial motions qualifies as “delay resulting from other proceedings concerning the defendant” and is thus excludable from the time within which trial must commence under the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, 18 U.S.C. § 3161 et seq.
In Stevens the Court will determine whether 18 U.S.C. § 48 is facially invalid under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. The statue at issue prohibits “the knowing creation, sale, or possession of a depiction of a live animal being intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed, with the intention of placing that depiction in interstate or foreign commerce for commercial gain, where the conduct depicted is illegal under Federal law or the law of the State in which the creation, sale, or possession takes place, and the depiction lacks serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value.”
Earlier this term, the Court granted cert in many other cases presenting issues of criminal law and procedure. For more information on these cert grants, and other criminal cases pending before the Supreme Court, see Paul Rashkind’s United States Supreme Court Review - Preview - Overview.
April 6, 2009
Supreme Court Enforces Limits on Use of Voluntary Confessions Obtained After Delay in Presentment
In Corley v. United States (07-10441), issued today, the Court addressed the continued applicability of the McNabb-Mallory rule to voluntary confessions. The McNabb-Mallory rule had rendered inadmissible confessions made during periods of detention that violated the prompt presentment requirement of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a) (requiring that “[a] person making an arrest within the United States must take the defendant without unnecessary delay before a magistrate judge . . . .”).In 1968, Congress enacted 18 U. S. C. §3501, which provides in part that in any federal prosecution, “a confession made . . . by . . . a defendant therein, while such person was under arrest . . . , shall not be inadmissible solely because of delay in bringing such person before a magistrate judge . . . if such confession is found by the trial judge to have been made voluntarily . . . and if such confession was made . . . within six hours [of arrest].” The six-hour time limit is extended when further delay is “reasonable considering the means of transportation and the distance to be traveled to the nearest available [magistrate].” Some federal courts subsequently held that 18 U. S. C. §3501 abrogated the McNabb-Mallory rule.
The Corley majority held that “§3501 modified McNabb-Mallory without supplanting it. Under the rule as revised by §3501(c), a district court with a suppression claim must find whether the defendant confessed within six hours of arrest (unless a longer delay was ‘reasonable considering the means of transportation and the distance to be traveled to the nearest available [magistrate]’). If the confession came within that period, it is admissible, subject to the other Rules of Evidence, so long as it was “‘made voluntarily and . . . the weight to be given [it] is left to the jury.’” Where a confession occurs beyond six hours but before presentment, “the court must decide whether delaying that long was unreasonable or unnecessary under the McNabb-Mallory cases, and if it was, the confession is to be suppressed.”
In addition to Corley, the Court also recently issued opinions in Rivera v. Illinois (07-9995), holding that the a trial court’s good-faith error in denying the defendant’s peremptory challenge to a juror is not structural error; and Harbison v. Bell (07-8521), holding that 18 U.S.C. § 3599 authorizes federally appointed counsel to represent clients in state clemency proceedings.
March 25, 2009
Supreme Court Rules That Plain-Error Test Applies to Forfeited Claim of Breached Plea Agreement
The Supreme Court today issued an opinion in Puckett v. United States (07-9712), holding that a forfeited claim that the government breached a plea agreement is subject to the plain-error standard of Rule 52(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Applying the plain-error standard to the defendant’s claim, the Court ruled the defendant had failed to demonstrate that his ultimate sentence was affected by the government’s breach.Yesterday, the Court issued an opinion in Knowles v. Mirzayance (07-1315), ruling that the defendant’s lawyer’s recommendation to withdraw an insanity plea did not constitute ineffective assistance of counsel for purposes of federal habeas law. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court held that absent a systemic breakdown in a state public defender system, delays caused by appointed counsel are not attributed to the state for purposes of Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972), speedy trial analysis. (See Vermont v. Brillon (08-88))
For information on additional opinions issued earlier this term, see the case summaries on the U.S. Supreme Court Blog.