In Perkins v. United States, No. 20-14781 (July 10, 2023) (Branch, Grant, Schlesinger), the Court affirmed the denial of a 2255 motion. First, the Court affirmed the denial of a substantive competency/due process claim. The district court did not clearly err in finding that the movant was competent at the time of sentencing and in rejecting the contrary determination by the movant’s expert.  The district court properly relied on jailhouse calls showing his knowledge of the proceedings. And the movant’s expert evaluated him six years after sentencing, and her testimony conflicted with other expert testimony. Second, the Court affirmed the denial of an ineffective assistance of counsel claim based on counsel’s failure to investigate his mental health. The Court determined that counsel’s performance was not deficient because he took action after first learning about the movant’s mental health issues. In any event, any deficient performance was not prejudicial because there was no evidence that he would have been deemed incompetent at the time of sentencing had he been evaluated around that time. https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202014781.pdf https://defensenewsletter.blogspot.com/

In United States v. Jews, No. 22-10502 (July 6, 2023) (Wilson, Newsom, Lagoa), the Court vacated the defendant’s sentence. The Court held that the defendant’s Alabama youthful-offender adjudication was not an “adult” conviction under U.S.S.G. 2K2.1 or 4A1.2. The Court reached that conclusion after applying four factors from circuit precedent. First, state law did not deem the prior to be a conviction at all, let alone an adult conviction. Second, the nature of the proceedings was, under state law, different in various substantive and procedural ways than an adult criminal proceeding. Third, he received a three-year sentence, a factor that cut in favor of an “adult” conviction but was not decisive. Fourth, and finally, the record did not reveal the amount of time he actually served. On balance, then, the Court concluded that the first two factors meant that the conviction was not “adult” under the Guidelines. https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202210502.pdf https://defensenewsletter.blogspot.com/

In United States v. Laines, No. 21-11535 (June 6, 2023) (Bill Pryor, Rosenbaum, Marcus), the Court affirmed Mr. Laines's drug- and firearm-related convictions as well as his ACCA sentence, which was based upon a prior Florida cocaine conviction. Mr. Laines first argued that the evidence was insufficient to support two of his convictions--possession with intent to distribute and a related firearms offense--because there was no evidence that he had the intention to distribute the drugs he possessed.  The Court disagreed, finding that his intent to distribute had been proven circumstantially. He next argued that he was entitled to a new trial based on Brady and Giglio.  More specifically, he argued he was entitled to a new trial both because the police had unconstitutionally searched his phone upon his arrest and failed to disclose said search to the defense, and because the government failed to disclose prior to trial that one of its witnesses--one of the arresting officers in the case--had committed misconduct and was the subject of multiple internal investigations.  The Court disagreed, finding no reasonable probability of a different trial outcome. Finally, Mr. Laines argued that he was not ACCA because his prior Florida cocaine conviction was not a "serious drug offense" because [...]

In United States v. Ware, No. 21-10539 (June 1, 2023) (Newsom, Luck, Tjoflat), the Court affirmed Mr. Ware's convictions and sentence. Mr. Ware was convicted of thirteen counts of Hobbs Act robbery and associated firearm offenses, and sentenced to life in prison.  On appeal, he raised three challenges to his convictions and one challenge to his sentence. Mr. Ware first contended the district court erred by not holding a formal Daubert hearing before admitting expert fingerprint evidence.  Mr. Ware relied on a 2009 United States National Resource Counsel ("NRC") report and subsequent 2016 President's Counsel of Advisors on Science and Technology ("PCAST") to argue that because fingerprint analysis involves individual human judgement, the resulting fingerprint comparison conclusion can be influenced by cognitive bias, rendering it unreliable.  The Court noted that a Daubert hearing is not always required and found that the district court had not abused its discretion in not holding a hearing.  The district court considered the reports and arguments presented and found that fingerprint evidence was reliable enough as a general matter to be presented to the jury.  Many of the critiques of fingerprint evidence found in the PCAST report go to the weight that ought to be given fingerprint analysis, not to the [...]

In United States v. Verdeza, No. 21-10461 (May 31, 2023) (William Pryor, Rosenbaum, Marcus), the Court affirmed the defendant’s healthcare fraud convictions and sentence. First, the Court held that the evidence was sufficient to support the convictions under an aiding and abetting theory. Second, the district court did not commit plain error by allowing an FBI agent to give “summary” testimony because there was no precedent holding that such testimony is, in itself, is improper. The district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting evidence under Rule 404(b) because no notice was required under the pre-2020 version of the Rule and the evidence was not impermissible propensity evidence. And any error by allowing the government to ask two leading questions was harmless given the overwhelming evidence of guilt. Third, evidence at trial supported the district court’s decision to give a deliberate ignorance instruction, and any error was harmless given the evidence of the defendant’s actual knowledge. Fourth, as to sentencing, there was no precedent supporting the defendant’s argument that the definition of “loss” in the commentary was ambiguous post-Dupree, and so there was no plain error in calculating the amount based on the defendant’s intended loss. There was no [...]