Nouvèl Jiridik ak Aktyalizasyon
United States v. Jy’Quale Samari Grable, No. 23-10544 (11th Cir. Jan. 5, 2026)
In United States v. Jy’Quale Samari Grable, No. 23-10544 (11th Cir. Jan. 5, 2026) (Jordan, Lagoa, Tjoflat) the Court held “that a taking of property does not constitute robbery under the Hobbs Act unless force or threatened force is used before or during the taking.” And, because Mr. Grable had “used force” (shot and killed two victims) “only after one of his co-conspirators had stolen marijuana and carried it away,” the Court set aside his substantive § 1951(a) conviction, as well as his 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) & (j) convictions, which were premised on the alleged robbery. The Court thus also vacated his life plus twenty-year sentences as to the §§ 924(c) & (j) & 1951(a) convictions. The Court affirmed Mr. Grable’s conviction and 20-year sentence for HAR conspiracy. Full opinion here: https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202310544.pdf
US v. Barry, No. 23-12101 (11th Cir. Jan. 7, 2026)
In US v. Barry, No. 23-12101 (11th Cir. Jan. 7, 2026) (Kidd, CJ Pryor, Grant), the Court vacated and remanded Mr. Barry’s sentence, including the restitution amount, after he was convicted by a jury for his involvement in a credit card fraud conspiracy. In reversing Mr. Barry’s sentence, the Court held that: The district court erred when it calculated the loss amount based on the total amount that Mr. Barry and his codefendants charged on shared credit cards, which multiple conspirators used to purchase cigarettes, without first determining the amount for which Barry himself should be responsible, as required by U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3. The Court observed that Mr. Barry’s conviction conspiracy was insufficient, alone, to establish that the total loss caused by all conspirators was attributable to Mr. Barry, “because the scope of the defendant's jointly undertaken activity is not necessarily the same as the scope of the entire conspiracy[.]” Instead, the Court reiterated that the sentencing court must first make individualized findings concerning the scope of the defendant’s criminal activity. While sometimes the Court can affirm the district court’s loss amount findings, despite the absence of individualized findings, the record was insufficient here to conclude that the total loss [...]
United States v. Mims, No. 22-13215 (J. Pryor, Branch, Grant)
In United States v. Mims, No. 22-13215 (J. Pryor, Branch, Grant), the Court held that a district court, even after a defendant completes her probation term, maintains ancillary jurisdiction over a criminal case to enforce unsatisfied restitution obligations that had been included in the defendant’s sentence. Applying the plain error standard, the Court also held that the district court did not violate Mims’s due process rights when it entered an order enforcing her restitution obligations. Because the district court neither ordered further monetary penalties nor altered the amount of the restitution owed, the Court determined that the district court did not modify Mims’s restitution obligations. And even if a modification did occur, it was proper under the procedural rule authorizing a district court to enforce its restitution order by “any order reasonably necessary to ensure compliance with a restitution order.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 38(e)(2). Meanwhile, the Court determined that Mims (1) had sufficient notice that the government sought her compliance with the restitution order, but (2) rejected each opportunity to be heard on that matter and her ability to repay the debt. https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202213215.pdf https://defensenewsletter.blogspot.com/2025/07/mims-after-probation-sentence-district.html
United States v. Alhindi, No. 24-10595 (11th Cir. Dec. 23, 2024)
In United States v. Alhindi, No. 24-10595 (11th Cir. Dec. 23, 2024) (C.J. Pryor, Jordan & Marcus), the Court dismissed Mr. Alhindi’s second appeal* of his confinement under 18 U.S.C. § 4241 as moot, because the underlying criminal indictment had been dismissed during the pendency of the appeal, after the district court’s finding that Mr. Alhindi was not restorable to competency. The Court found that it could not offer “meaningful relief,” to Mr. Alhindi because his appeal concerned the validity of his confinement for purposes of competency restoration, under s. 4241(d), but he is now exclusively confined at FMC Butler pursuant to 18 U.S.C. s. 4246 civil commitment proceedings in EDNC. Thus, “the only court with jurisdiction over a ‘live controversy’ related to Alhindi’s current commitment is the district court in North Carolina.” Full opinion here: https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202410595.pdf
United States v. Gonzalez, No. 23-10578 (July 19, 2024)
In United States v. Gonzalez, No. 23-10578 (July 19, 2024) (Wilson, Luck, Lagoa), the Court affirmed Mr. Gonzalez’s conviction, in accordance with his guilty plea, for possessing stolen mail in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1708. Mr. Gonzalez, based on a 911 complainant’s report and Miami-Dade police officers’ subsequent observations, was arrested for loitering and prowling—a misdemeanor under Florida law. The officers searched Mr. Gonzalez’s backpack incident to the arrest and found sealed mail that Mr. Gonzalez had removed from neighborhood mailboxes. On appeal, Mr. Gonzalez argued that the officers lacked probable cause for the arrest because the Fourth Amendment does not permit a warrantless misdemeanor arrest for a misdemeanor committed outside an officer’s presence. The Court disagreed. It instead held that while an officer’s presence for a warrantless misdemeanor arrest would be consistent with the Fourth Amendment, it is not necessarily a constitutional prerequisite. This is so for three reasons. First, the Supreme Court has held that the Fourth Amendment need only guarantee at least as much protection against unreasonable searches and seizures as the common law had provided when the Amendment was adopted. The common law, however, had no "per se rule" that a misdemeanor arrest was unjustifiable unless the [...]
United States v. Steiger, No. 22-10742 (July 16, 2024)
In United States v. Steiger, No. 22-10742 (July 16, 2024) (CJ Pryor, J. Pryor, Coogler of N.D. Ala.), the Court (on remand from the en banc Court) affirmed Mr. Steiger’s twenty-year-prison sentence, which the district court imposed upon revoking Mr. Steiger’s original sentence of probation for four wire-fraud-related convictions. The revocation stemmed from Mr. Steiger's intervening state-court conviction of second-degree murder. The Court held that Mr. Steiger failed to demonstrate plain error with respect to the prison sentence’s procedural reasonableness. This is because the district court stated that it had considered the following: (1) every 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factor; (2) the applicable guidelines and policy statements from the Sentencing Commission; (3) court decisions; (4) the issues presented in the underlying case; (5) evidence presented at the revocation hearing, part of which concerned the nature and circumstances of the offense, as set forth in § 3553(a)(1); and (6) statements Mr. Steiger made in his defense. Additionally, the record indicated that the district court was aware of argument that the guidelines sentence was inadequate because of the seriousness of Mr. Steiger’s probation violation. Although the district court never explain why it had rejected Mr. Steiger’s request for a time-served sentence, the Court deemed it sufficient [...]