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 [...]
In United States v. Jackson, No. 21-13963 (Dec. 13, 2022) (Rosenbaum, Jill Pryor, Ed Carnes), the Court reversed course and held that the Supreme Court's reasoning in McNeill v. United States, 563 U.S. 816 (2011), requires the conclusion that ACCA's "serious drug offense" definition incorporates the version of the controlled-substances list in effect when the defendant was convicted [...]
In United States v. Garcon, No. 19-14650 (Dec. 6, 2022), the en banc Court--in an opinion authored by Chief Judge Pryor--considered whether, in the First Step Act, the word "and" means "and" with regard to a grant of safety-valve relief. More specifically, the en banc Court considered the language of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1), which empowers a [...]
In United States v. B.G.G., No. 21-10165 (Nov. 22, 2022) (Wilson, Luck, Lagoa), the Court, on appeal by the government, vacated the dismissal of an information with prejudice under Rule 48(a). During the pandemic, the Southern District of Florida imposed a temporary moratorium on grand juries. Concerned that they would not be able to charge [...]
In United States v. Malone, No. 20-12744 (Oct. 26, 2022) (Rosenbaum, Tjoflat, Moody (M.D. Fla.)), the Court, applying plain-error review, vacated Mr. Malone's sentence and remanded for resentencing before a different district court judge. Mr. Malone was charged with (1) three counts of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343; (2) one count of interstate [...]
In United States v. Conage, No. 17-13975 (Sept. 30, 2022) (Ed Carnes, Julie Carnes, Clevenger) (per curiam), the Court affirmed the defendant’s ACCA sentence based on a prior drug trafficking conviction under Fla. Stat. 893.135. The defendant argued that his prior conviction was not a ACCA “serious drug offense” because 893.135 can be committed by [...]