Sixth Circuit Archives – The Federal Docket

United States v. William Dale Wooden (6th Cir. December 2019)

The Court held that the defendant's consent for an undercover officer to enter his house was not tainted by "police deception." While the officer did not identify himself as law enforcement to the defendant when he asked to talk to the defendant's wife and to step inside "to get out of the cold," the officer did not take any affirmative acts to conceal his identity from the defendant. The Court also held that Wooden’s burglary convictions under Georgia law qualified as crimes of violence under the ACCA.

United States v. Ray Foster (6th Cir. December 2019)

The Court held that the double jeopardy clause did not bar the Government from retrying the defendant where the prosecution did not "coax" the defendant into requesting a mistrial at his first trial. Despite the fact that the prosecution had repeatedly and obviously violated the defendant's right to confrontation of witnesses at that trial, the district court did not clearly err in finding that the prosecutor had not intended to lure the defendant into requesting a mistrial, citing the strength of the prosecutor's case and the prosecution consistently arguing that the confrontation clause did not apply.

United States v. Marshyia S. Ligon (6th Cir. September 2019)

The Court vacated the defendant's sentence and ordered that he be re-sentenced in front of another judge, holding that the Government breached the plea agreement when it argued for a sentence within the Guidelines range that was calculated by the sentencing court and that was higher than the range anticipated by the plea agreement. The plea agreement obligated the Government to argue for a sentence within the range based on the parties' stipulations in the plea agreement.

United States v. Damion Faulkner (6th Cir. June 2019)

The district court declined to group the convictions together and the Court affirmed on appeal. While U.S.S.G. § 3D1.2 provides that “all counts involving substantially the same harm shall be grouped together into a single Group,” Faulker had failed to show that: a) the counts were based on the same act or transaction, b) the counts involved “substantially the same harm,” c) the charged offense was already accounted for under the Guidelines provision governing the principal offense, and d) the offense level was not determined on a loss amount or other “measure of aggregate harm.”

United States v. Sharon Gandy et al. (6th Cir. June 2019)

The Court held there was sufficient evidence to convict the defendants of identify theft and mail fraud. The Court also rejected the argument that the defendants received ineffective assistance from conflicted counsel after the defendants filed bar complaints against them. The Court held that the defendants failed to show that their attorneys had a conflict of interest, let alone were ineffective, since “the state-bar grievances did not create conflicting obligations” and thus did not put the attorneys in a position to have to choose one interest over another.

United States v. William Dale Wooden (6th Cir. December 2019)

United States v. Ray Foster (6th Cir. December 2019)

United States v. Marshyia S. Ligon (6th Cir. September 2019)

United States v. Damion Faulkner (6th Cir. June 2019)

United States v. Sharon Gandy et al. (6th Cir. June 2019)

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