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

Defendant appealed his sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute 100 kilograms of marijuana. At issue was whether the October 2009 memorandum issued by the Department of Justice created a de facto "rescheduling" of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), 21 U.S.C. 801 et seq., such that defendant could not validly be charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana. The court held that the memo did not purport to reclassify marijuana from its current listing as a Schedule I substance under the CSA; the CSA mandated a particular rulemaking procedure through which the Attorney General may "reschedule" a substance; because the Attorney General did not follow that procedure here, marijuana remained a Schedule I substance; and a U.S. Attorney's decision to exercise prosecutorial discretion by not prosecuting uses of marijuana consistent with state law, in the circumstances presented here, did not conflict with the principles of federalism, preemption, or the supremacy of federal law. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Canori" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for cultivating marijuana plants. The court vacated the judgment and remanded for a new trial, agreeing with defendant that the district court denied him the right to present a meaningful defense by rejecting his proffer of surrebuttal evidence to counter evidence introduced by the government on rebuttal. View "United States v. Cody (Murray)" on Justia Law

Defendant, convicted of drug and firearms offenses, appealed from the district court's denial of his motion for a new sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2). The court vacated and remanded, concluding that the district court did not provide a sufficient explanation of its decision not to reduce defendant's sentence despite his eligibility for such a reduction. View "United States v. Christie" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed pro se from the district court's order denying his motion for a modification of the conditions of his supervised release to require that supervised release be served in the Eastern District of Michigan, rather than in the District of Vermont, where he was convicted and sentenced. The court vacated and remanded, concluding that the district court had authority to entertain defendant's motion for modification of his supervised-release conditions under 18 U.S.C. 3583(e)(2) and to grant that motion with the qualification specified by the Eastern District of Michigan in its conditional agreement to accept defendant for supervision. The motion for an injunction pending appeal was denied as moot. View "United States v. Murdock" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for possession of a firearm after a felony conviction. The district court denied defendant's motion to suppress the firearm discovered by the police. Defendant argued that he was stopped without reasonable suspicion because the stop was primarily based upon a pair of anonymous 911 calls from the same caller. The court reversed and remanded, holding that there was no reasonable suspicion to support the stop. The government failed to identify the specific and articulable facts that would have justified a stop of defendant at that point in time. Accordingly, the court vacated the conviction. View "United States v. Freeman" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of cocaine offenses and related gun possession. Defendant, pro se, moved to recall the court's mandates related to his conviction, and to reinstate his direct appeal in order to seek relief under the Supreme Court's recent holding in Alleyne v. United States. The court could not authorize defendant's collateral attack where a new rule was not made retroactive to cases on collateral review unless the Supreme Court holds it to be retroactive. The Supreme Court announced the Alleyne rule on a direct appeal without expressly holding it to be retroactive to cases on collateral review. Further, Alleyne does not fall within a category of cases previously held to be retroactive. Defendant's remaining contentions were without merit. Accordingly, the court denied defendant's motion, construing it as one for leave to file a successive 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion. The court also denied defendant's motion for appointment of counsel as moot. View "United States v. Redd (Shue)" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to cocaine distribution. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's denial of a motion for sentencing modification. At issue was what procedure a district court should follow under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c). The court concluded that the district court must engage in a two-step approach under Dillon v. United States and United States v. Wilson. The court reversed and remanded for the district court to (1) specifically determine defendant's eligibility for a sentencing modification; and (2) consider whether any applicable 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors counseled in favor of a reduction. View "United States v. Bethea" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for conspiring to bomb the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. At issue was whether the Speedy Trial Clause of the Sixth Amendment prevented the United States from trying, on criminal charges in a district court, a defendant who was held abroad for several years in the CIA and the Department of Defense while his indictment was pending. The court concluded that the district court did not err in determining, pursuant to the Supreme Court's four-factor balancing test under Barker v. Wingo, that the nearly five-year delay between defendant's capture and his arraignment, during which time he was interrogated as an enemy combatant and detained at Guantanamo Bay, did not constitute a violation of the Speedy Trial Clause; the district court did not err in charging the jury with a conscious avoidance instruction or in formulating that instruction; and defendant's sentence of life imprisonment was neither procedurally nor substantively unreasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Ghailani" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed her conviction of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud, as well as insider trading. Defendant's scheme was to obtain from her tippers earnings data of their employer companies and convey this data to her tippees before those companies' quarterly financial results were publicly released. The court concluded that the district court did not err in admitting evidence that defendant claimed was recorded in violation of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. 2510-22, because the recordings and transcripts at issue were made in the ordinary course of business and admissible under section 2510(5)(a)(i). Furthermore, they were made with the consent of a party to the communication and admissible under section 2511(2)(d). The court also concluded that the evidence was sufficient to convict defendant of insider trading where the tippers were entrusted the duty to protect confidential information, which they breached by disclosing to their tippee, who knew of their duty and still used the information to trade a security or further tip the information for defendant's benefit, and the tippers benefited in some way from their disclosures. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction and sentence. View "United States v. Jiau" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to possessing with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of crack cocaine. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's imposition of a Guidelines sentence of 300 months' imprisonment. The district court concluded that the applicable Guidelines range under the prior edition of the Guidelines was lower than it was under the then-current edition, and that Amendments 748 and 750 were substantive rather than clarifying. The court affirmed the district court's judgment, agreeing with the district court that Amendments 748 and 750 were substantive rather than clarifying under U.S.S.G. 1B1.11(b)(2). View "United States v. Brooks" on Justia Law