Evidence

The Fourth Circuit rejected mental illness claims from a Nazi and KKK memorabilia owner and affirmed his hate crime convictions, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding mental health evidence and admitting the memorabilia after Hudak opened the door.

The D.C. Circuit affirmed the convictions of a Metropolitan Police Department officer under 18 U.S.C. § 242 for using prohibited neck restraints on two individuals, rejecting arguments relating to the trial court’s jury instructions on willfulness, the government’s evidence versus the allegations in the indictment, the court’s answers to jury questions, and several evidentiary rulings.

In a 6-3 decision, a majority of the Supreme Court held that the statute of limitations began running on a death row inmate’s claim of insufficient procedural due process when his prior “state litigation ended.” In this case, that was not when the trial court denied his motion for DNA testing of the murder weapon, but rather when the Texas Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision.

In a 6-3 opinion, the Supreme Court held that a defendant’s Confrontation Clause rights were not violated by the trial court’s admission of his co-defendant’s confession, during which his co-defendant stated that the defendant committed the murder, because the defendant’s name had been redacted from the confession. Even though the defendant was logically the only person the co-defendant’s confession could be referring to, the Supreme Court held it was not “directly accusatory,” or at least not directly enough, to warrant reversal.

The Fourth Circuit affirmed a defendant’s conviction for conspiring to transmit classified national defense information. As a matter of first impression, the Court held that the district court’s invocation of the silent witness rule, which prevented certain admitted evidence, including both classified and publicly available information, from being presented in open court, did not violate the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial under these circumstances.

In a 8-1 opinion, the Supreme Court reversed Hemphill’s conviction and remanded his case for a new trial. The Court held that the admission of a transcript from another suspect’s plea allocution implicating Hemphill violated Hemphill’s Sixth Amendment confrontation right. The Court rejected its previous “reliability” exception to the confrontation requirement—drawn from Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56 (1980)—clarifying that the only real exception permitted was in the case of an unavailable witness whom the defendant had already had an opportunity to cross-examine on the same matter. The Court also rejected the assertion that the “opening the door rule” applied in the context of the Confrontation Clause.

The First Circuit reversed a district court’s order denying defendant’s motion to vacate sentence and conviction under 28 USC 2255. The defendant’s appellate attorney had been ineffective for failure to raise a Brady claim, raised by all of her co-defendants on appeal, based on the government’s failure to disclose material that would have undermined the government witnesses’ credibility. The First Circuit held that “any reasonable attorney would have known of the availability of the Brady claim since the co-defendants all raised it and since trial counsel had preserved the issue by raising it in his motion for new trial.”

The Tenth Circuit affirmed a defendant’s conviction despite finding that the district court violated Rule 605 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which prohibits judges from testifying as witnesses. After the defendant had testified that there had been a second video, not shown to the jury, which would have shown the government’s video was manufactured, the district judge instructed the jury that there was only one video in the case. While this clearly violated Rule 605, the Court concluded that the violation was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt.

The Second Circuit vacated a defendant’s conviction for distributing fentanyl. The Court held that the defendant only has to present “some credible evidence” regarding government inducement in order to obtain an instruction on entrapment. The Government’s law enforcement witness also improperly testified that the defendant was an experienced drug dealer, which required specialized knowledge.

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the conviction, sentence, and restitution order of a defendant convicted of sex trafficking minors and adults. Among the defendant’s challenges, the Court held that admitting graphic videos of a victim does not violate Rule 403 if the videos are relevant and jurors are prescreened appropriately, evidence of a defendant’s use of violence against victims establishes their knowledge that the victims were not consenting to the sexual activities, and a victim’s disclaimer of a restitution award does not negate a district court’s obligation to order restitution.