Recent Circuit Cases

Sitting en banc, the Ninth Circuit held that the district court erred in dismissing an indictment against a defendant who was charged with illegal reentry after removal. While the defendant’s initial immigration proceedings were initiated based on a defective Notice to Appear, the Court held that this did not deprive the immigration court of subject matter jurisdiction, despite the language of the law setting forth requirements for Notices to Appear, so the prior removal order was valid.

The Fifth Circuit reversed a district court’s order suppressing statements a defendant made without Miranda warnings while the defendant was handcuffed and detained after a traffic stop. The Court reasoned that no reasonable person would believe they were in custody, since the defendant had indicated he knew he was being handcuffed and detained for “officer safety,” and thus would not have believed he was under arrest.

The Eighth Circuit affirmed a defendant’s enhanced sentence under the ACCA where two of the defendant’s three predicate offenses had been charged in the same indictment and occurred 3 days apart and with separate victims. The Court concluded that the Supreme Court’s decision in Woodson did not mean these prior offenses were not conducted “on occasions different from one another,” and rejected the defendant’s Sixth Amendment challenge.

The Fourth Circuit reversed the denial of a defendant’s motion under 28 USC 2255 where the defendant challenged his conviction and sentence under 924(c). The Court concluded that the underlying offense for the 924(c) charge, damaging government property under 18 USC 1361, was not a “crime of violence.”

The Fifth Circuit vacated a district court’s denial of a defendant’s motion to suppress evidence obtained from a traffic stop. The Court held that the district court erred in finding there had not been a “stop” since the officers’ flagging down the defendant’s car, ordering him out of the car, and demanding compliance with their commands established a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.

The Eighth Circuit affirmed a district court’s denial of a defendant’s 2254 motion which had been based on the defendant not being present when certain jurors were stricken off-the-record and before jury selection began. The Court reasoned that the claim was barred by defendant’s failure to raise it earlier, despite the fact that the records regarding the jury selection had been separately held by the clerk and not transmitted with the record during the prior direct appeal.

The Fourth Circuit reversed a district court’s denial of a defendant’s petition for writ of coram nobis where the defendant’s prior convictions under state law would no longer qualify him for an enhanced sentence. The Court held that the district court had standing based on the possibility of an invalid sentence being used to enhance a sentence again and excused the defendant’s long delay in filing his petition.

The Seventh Circuit reversed a defendant’s conviction for drug conspiracy after holding that the defendant’s guilty plea was not voluntary. At the change of plea hearing, the defendant had disputed the quantity of drugs imputed to him in the Government’s factual basis and indicated he did not understand the elements of conspiracy as opposed to his substantive drug charge.

The Eleventh Circuit reversed a district court’s partial denial of a defendant’s motion to vacate under 2255 and vacated the defendant’s convictions for tax fraud and tax evasion. The Court held that the defendant’s counsel was ineffective for failing to move for a judgment of acquittal where the Government’s evidence showed that the defendant hid gold bullion, no evidence that it was his gold.

The Sixth Circuit reversed a district court’s order prohibiting the Government from retrying a defendant after a jury acquitted him on false statements but hung on charges of extortion and bribery. The Court concluded that collateral estoppel did not apply because making false statements is not an essential element of either extortion or bribery, and a rational jury could have found the defendant innocent of false statements but guilty of bribery or extortion.