Justia U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant appealed from his conviction of four counts of use of the mail or wires in furtherance of fraud that deprived the United Nations, his former employer, of its intangible right to his honest services in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1341, 1343, 1346; one count of corrupt receipt of things of value with intent to be rewarded with respect to official business in violation of 18 U.S.C. 666; and one count of conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371. The court held that the United Nations expressly waived defendant's immunity, and even if it had not, defendant himself waived any claim of immunity by failing to raise the issue until the trial was complete. The court also held that the United Nations Participation Act, 22 U.S.C. 287e, which authorized the payment of the United States' dues to the United Nations, was both a "federal program" and a "benefit" within the meaning of Section 666, which encompassed bribes as well as illegal gratuities. The court further held that Section 1346 was broad enough to encompass honest services fraud committed by a foreign worker of the United Nations, that defendant was properly sentenced as a "public official" under U.S.S.G. 2C1.1., and that the district court committed no error in ordering defendant to pay restitution in the form of remitting a portion of his salary at the United Nations, which amounted to what defendant was paid during the time he was suspended pending investigation of the conduct underlying his conviction. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant, a previously convicted felon, appealed his conviction for possession of a firearm and ammunition. On appeal, defendant contended that the district court's failure to suppress his pre-arrest statements made without Miranda warnings violated the Fifth Amendment, and that the warrantless search of his bedroom violated the Fourth Amendment. The court held that while the public safety exception to Miranda justified the officers' initial questioning of defendant, their subsequent warrantless search of his bedroom violated the Fourth Amendment.

Defendant appealed from a judgment convicting him of (1) conspiracy to violate the Iranian Transaction Regulations (ITR) and operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business; (2) violating the ITR; (3) operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business; and (4) two counts of making false statements in response to government subpoenas. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court erred in several respects when instructing the jury on the conspiracy, ITR, and money-transmitting counts; defendant was entitled to a new trial on the false statement counts because the government constructively amended the indictment; the government committed misconduct in its rebuttal summation, which he claimed necessitated a new trial on all counts; and defendant should be resentenced because the district court miscalculated the applicable offense level. The court reversed Count One to the extent it alleged a violation of the ITR as an overt act and vacated and remanded to the extent it was based on the money-transmission violation as an overt act; reversed Count Two; vacated and remanded Count Three; and affirmed Counts Four and Five.

Defendant was a crack cocaine offender who was convicted after trial and sentenced in 1996 to a 292-month term of imprisonment. On January 14, 2008, defendant filed a motion in district court pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2) seeking a reduction of his sentence. Specifically, defendant sought to benefit from the 2007 decisions by the United States Sentencing Commission to (a) reduce the sentences for offenses involving crack and (b) make the reductions retroactive. The district court denied the motion on the ground that defendant was not eligible for a sentence reduction. Defendant timely appealed. The court held that defendant was indeed eligible for a reduction where the district court should exercise its broad discretion under section 3582(c)(2). Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded the case to the district court for a determination of whether defendant should receive a reduction.

In this case, in which a jury found defendant guilty on one count of money laundering conspiracy, and nine counts of Clean Air Act violations, 42 U.S.C. 7413(c)(1), the parties cross-appealed from an amended judgment of conviction entered on December 8, 2010, which vacated the money laundering count pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255 in light of the Supreme Court's definition of "proceeds" in United States v. Santos, and resentenced defendant to 132 months' imprisonment on the remaining Clean Air Act counts. The court held that defendant's sufficiency challenge to the proof of "proceeds" was procedurally barred from collateral attack and thus, his conviction for money laundering conspiracy should not have been vacated. This rendered the parties' remaining arguments moot. Accordingly, the court vacated the amended judgment of December 8, 2010, and ordered that the amended judgment of October 4, 2006, be reinstated.

Plaintiff, an inmate in Great Meadow Correctional Facility, originally filed suit pro se against three Great Meadow employees, alleging pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983, that he was improperly denied access to medically-prescribed therapeutic diets, resulting in violations of his Eighth Amendment right to due process. After plaintiff's in forma pauperis status was revoked, plaintiff paid the filing fee so that he could proceed with his case. Subsequently, the district court, relying on a Report & Recommendation prepared by a magistrate, granted defendant's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the suit. Plaintiff, now represented by counsel, appealed the revocation of his in forma pauperis status, as well as the decision of the district court to grant summary judgment to one of the defendants. The court held that, based on the court's recent opinion in Mills v. Fischer, that any action against a prosecutor for initiating a prosecution or for presenting the prosecution's case that was dismissed sua sponte on the ground of absolute prosecutorial immunity was deemed "frivolous" for purposes of 28 U.S.C. 1915(g). The court held that the remainder of plaintiff's arguments on appeal were without merit. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of narcotics violations and unlawful possession of a firearm. At issue was whether the district court abused its discretion when it declined to sever the firearm count. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's motion to sever where there was a sufficient logical connection between the narcotics counts and the firearm count; where separate trials of the narcotics counts and the firearm count would have required much of the same evidence; where the district court took adequate precautions to limit the danger of unfair prejudice; and where defendant had not met his heavy burden of showing substantial prejudice from the joinder of the narcotics counts with the firearm count. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction.

Defendant was convicted of various sex offenses. On defendant's appeal from his conviction and sentence imposed by the district court, counsel filed a motion with this court pursuant to Anders v. California and the government filed a motion for summary affirmance. The court granted the motions because there were no non-frivolous issues for appeal and remand could not benefit defendant in this case where the district court imposed a below-Guidelines sentence without providing a written statement that explained with "specificity" the reasons for the sentence imposed. The court held that, although it had previously held that, solely in the context of an Anders motion, failure to provide a written statement of reasons that complied with 18 U.S.C. 3553(c)(2) always necessitated a remand to the district court, the court saw no reason why the Anders context required this unique treatment. Therefore, the court held that, although compliance with the strictures of section 3553(c)(2) was always required, remand was not always required to remedy noncompliance. In so ruling, the court abrogated the court's prior holding in United States v. Hall only to the limited extent that it uniformly required remand in these circumstances.

Defendant appealed his conviction for visa fraud and conspiracy to commit visa fraud, as well as his sentence. Defendant had requested specific jury instructions with respect to the government's burden of proof regarding his knowledge of the fraud for which he was indicted. The district court denied these requests and instead gave a general instruction on acting "knowingly." Defendant challenged those denials as well as the sufficiency of the evidence presented at trial. The court found these challenges meritless. In calculating defendant's Guidelines sentencing range, the district court relied on four enhancements, three of which defendant challenged on appeal. Though the basis of the district court's application of the leader/organizer enhancement could have been more fully elaborated, the court found that the record supported its application here. Regarding the obstruction-of-justice and number-of-document enhancements, however, the court agreed with defendant that the evidence was insufficient to sustain their use in this case. Therefore, the court vacated defendant's sentence. Defendant also challenged the order of restitution imposed by the district court under the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A. Because the court found the record evidence insufficiently specific to demonstrate that each client to whom the court ordered restitution was a "victim" of the fraud, the court vacated the restitution order. Accordingly, the court remanded the case for resentencing, including reconsideration of the restitution award.

Petitioner was convicted in New York for promoting prostitution in the third degree and subsequently sought review of the BIA's order declining to reconsider whether she had been convicted of an aggravated felony and dismissing her appeal from an order of removal. Petitioner argued that her offense did not constitute an aggravated felony because New York law defined "prostitution" more broadly than federal law did for the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(43)(K)(i). The court held that because N.Y. Penal Law 230.25(1) punished conduct that did not involve a "prostitution business" as the term prostitution was used in the INA, petitioner's conviction did not constitute an aggravated felony. Thus, the BIA erred in finding petitioner removable. The court also held that because petitioner was not removable, the court need not address her challenge to the agency's denial of her application for asylum, withholding of removal, and CAT relief.