FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT CRIMINAL DEFENSE INVESTIGATOR MIAMI OFFICE The Federal Public Defender for the Southern District of Florida is accepting applications for the position of Investigator in our Miami Office. The Federal Public Defender, a branch of the United States Courts, an Equal Opportunity Employer, operates under the authority of the [...]
In United States v. King, No. 21-12963 (Jan. 23, 2023) (Rosenbaum, Grant, Tjoflat), the Court—without oral argument—affirmed the defendant’s 36-month sentence for violating his supervised release. The Court rejected the defendant’s arguments that his sentence was substantively unreasonable. Although the defendant argued that the sentence was a major upward variance from the guideline range of [...]
In United States v. Scott, No. 21-11467 (Jan. 20, 2023) (Jordan, Rosenbaum, Newsom), the Court affirmed the defendant’s healthcare fraud convictions. First, and assuming that de novo review applied, the Court rejected the defendant’s belated challenge to the indictment on the ground that Medicare actually covered the testing he performed. And even if it did, [...]
In United States v. Dupree, No. 19-13776 (Jan. 18, 2023), the en banc Court held that the definition of “controlled substance offense” in U.S.S.G. 4B1.2(b) does not include inchoate offenses like conspiracy. In an opinion by Jill Pryor, and joined by Chief Judge Bill Pryor and Judges Wilson, Jordan, Rosenbaum, Newsom, Lagoa, and Brasher, the [...]
In United States v. Oudomsine, No. 22-10924 (Jan. 18, 2023) (Lagoa, Brasher, Ed Carnes), the Court affirmed the defendant’s 36-month sentence for providing false information to obtain pandemic-related benefits. The district court varied upward to 36 months from a guideline range of 8-14 months. The sentence was not procedurally unreasonable because the district court adequately [...]
In United States v. Moran, No. 21-12573 (Jan 13, 2013) (Jordan, Rosenbaum, Newsom), the Court affirmed the defendant’s convictions for attempting to produce child pornography. The defendant commented on several “mom blog” posts asking mothers to display sexually explicit imagines of their young daughters. First, the Court rejected the defendant’s sufficiency argument that he lacked [...]
In United States v. Harrison, No. 21-14514 (Jan. 10, 2023) (Wilson, Jill Pryor, Ruiz), the Court held, on a government appeal, that Georgia’s robbery statute is divisible, and that Georgia robbery by intimidation is a “crime of violence” under the Guidelines. First, the Court held that, under Mathis, Georgia’s robbery statute was divisible into three [...]
In United States v. Esformes, No. 19-13838 (Jan. 6, 2023) (William Pryor, Jill Pryor, Grant), the Court affirmed the defendant’s healthcare fraud/kickback/money laundering convictions, as well as restitution and forfeiture awards. As an initial matter, the defendant’s challenges to his 20-year prison sentence were moot because President Trump commuted that part of his sentence. The [...]
In United States v. Downs, No. 21-10809 (Jan. 6, 2023) (Jordan, Rosenbaum, Newsom), the Court affirmed the defendant’s convictions for producing and possessing child pornography. First, the Court held that the evidence was sufficient to satisfy the interstate-commerce element because transferring photos from a cell phone to hard drives constituted “production,” and the hard drives [...]
In United States v. Ruan, No. 17-12653 (Jan. 5, 2023) (Wilson, Newsom, Coogler) (per curiam), the Court affirmed in part and vacated in part the defendants’ convictions. This case was on remand from the Supreme Court, which clarified the mens rea standard for a doctor’s liability under the federal drug statute, 21 U.S.C. 841. The [...]