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

Defendant appealed a judgment denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus where defendant was convicted of Murder in the First Degree for hiring one individual to kill another individual. At issue was whether the trial court erred in admitting a videotaped statement defendant made while in police custody. The court held that the statement was erroneously admitted in violation of defendant's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment right to counsel where defendant had invoked his right to counsel before making the statements on videotape. The court also held that the error was not harmless where it had a substantial and injurious effect on the jury's verdict. Therefore, the court reversed the judgment and remanded with instructions to grant the writ.

Defendants appealed convictions of murder in aid of racketeering, witness tampering, and conspiracy to commit witness tampering. At issue was whether defendants should have been granted a new trial after the posttrial discovery of the victim's body, whether there were prejudicial errors in the admission of certain testimony by the victim's widow, whether the evidence was sufficient to support their convictions on the witness-tampering counts; and whether the government improperly withheld information that was material to the defense. Also at issue was whether the admission of certain testimony by the victim's daughter was unduly prejudicial and whether the evidence was sufficient to support one of the defendant's conviction of the murder count. The court considered all of defendants' arguments and found them to be without merit and therefore, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of kidnapping, robbery, and related crimes and was sentenced principally to 319 months imprisonment. At issue was whether the district court properly limited cross-examination of a government witness at trial by barring his use of a state court's finding that the witness had given false testimony in a prior judicial proceeding. The court held that the district court's evidentiary ruling was erroneous but found that the error was harmless where the witness testified primarily about the arrest of two co-conspirators and the discovery of incriminating evidence during their arrest and mentioned in passing the police's non-custodial questioning of defendant and where other officers fully corroborated the testimony.

Defendants, corrections officers at Queens Private Correctional Facility ("QPCF"), appealed from convictions of conspiracy to obstruct justice, attempted intimidation and corrupt persuasion, and making false statements when defendants submitted false reports of an investigation involving the use of excessive force to an inmate. At issue was whether an internal investigation, by a privately owned prison that housed federal prisoners, of an allegation of excessive force involved a "matter within the jurisdiction" of the Department of Justice ("DOJ"). The court found no basis to reverse defendants' convictions for obstruction of justice under section 18 U.S.C. 1519 and held that QPCF's internal investigation into whether the defendants' conduct violated QPCF's internal regulations involved a "matter within the jurisdiction" of the DOJ for purposes of section 1519.

Petitioners, citizens of Guatemala, petitioned for review of removal orders that became final after the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA") dismissed their appeals from decisions of an Immigration Judge ("IJ") that found each man removable under section 212(a)(6)(A)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"), 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(6)(A)(i), and ineligible for adjustment of status under section 245(a) of the INA. At issue was whether the BIA erred in concluding that petitioners were statutorily ineligible for adjustment of status where their release on "conditional parole" under section 236(a)(2)(B) of the INA did not satisfy the "paroled in the United States" requirement of section 245(a). The court held that the requirement that an alien be "paroled into the United States" in order to seek adjustment of status under 8 U.S.C. 1255(a) was not satisfied by the alien's release on "conditional parole" under section 1226(a)(2)(B). The court also held that petitioners were correctly ordered removed under section 1182(a)(6)(A)(i) where they were present in the United States without being admitted or paroled and therefore, petitioners were statutorily ineligible for adjustment status under section 1255(a) despite having been released on conditional parole under section 1226(a)(2)(B).

Petitioner appealed a motion to dismiss his federal habeas petition where he retained an attorney in or around August 2007, instructed the attorney to file the petition before the deadline on November 20, 2007, and the attorney admitted affirmatively and knowingly that he mislead petitioner by promising him that he would file the petition before the deadline. At issue was whether the district court properly dismissed the federal habeas petition on the basis that the petition, submitted one day late, was barred by the one-year statute of limitations set forth in 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(1)(A). The court vacated the judgment and held that the district court erred in determining that equitable tolling did not apply where, under the totality of the circumstances presented, extraordinary circumstances prevented the filing of the petition on time.

Defendant appealed a conviction of interstate stalking and interstate violation of a protective order when he tracked his ex-wife's vehicle through a G.P.S. device he placed on her vehicle. At issue was whether the district court abused its discretion by admitting certain evidence under Federal Rules of Evidence 404(b) and whether the district court issued an appropriate limiting instruction. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence of defendant's abuse of his ex-wife, the district court did abuse its discretion when it allowed the ex-wife to testify that defendant's brother beat her in 1990 and that defendant later pressured her to lie in court about the brother's assault of a police officer in 1994; and the district court abused its discretion when it admitted evidence that police stopped defendant while he was driving a reportedly stolen rental car in January 2008 and found three black powder rifles, ammunition, a bulletproof vest, a ski mask, and a last will and testament in the vehicle. The court also held that the limiting instructions did not suffice to protect defendant from unfair prejudice and that the district court's errors affected his substantial rights. Therefore, the court held that the district court's errors were not harmless and vacated the conviction.

Plaintiff, convicted in New Jersey of endangering the welfare of children and placed on probation for five years, appealed a summary judgment order in favor of the State of New York Executive Department Division of Parole ("Division") when plaintiff asked the New Jersey parole authorities to move to New York. At issue was whether the Division violated the Interstate Compact for Adult Offender Supervision ("Compact") when it agreed to the transfer provided that plaintiff accepted certain special conditions including notifying his employer of his conviction and his lifetime supervised release, as well as allow the Division to install monitoring software on his computer. The court held that summary judgment was proper and that the Division did not violate the Compact by imposing conditions on the transfer where the Compact was merely an agreement between states and not a source of private rights of action for the offenders whose interstate movement it governed.

Defendants appeal convictions involving the distribution of controlled substances, conspiracy to distribute and posses with intent to distribute controlled substances, and money laundering conspiracy. At issue was whether an error in giving a conscious avoidance jury instructions was prejudicial to defendants and whether the government must prove that the laundered funds at issue in this case were the profits, rather than merely the gross revenues of one of the defendant's prescription drug sales enterprise under United States v. Santos. The court affirmed defendants' convictions and held that any error in instructing the jury on a conscious avoidance theory was not prejudicial to the defendants where there was overwhelming evidence presented at trial that defendants knew or reasonably should have known that the doctors and pharmacists upon whom they relied were acting in bad faith. The court also held that Santos, as applied to the sale of contraband, permitted a conviction for money laundering conspiracy even absent proof that the laundered funds were profits.