Legal News

Case Summaries

Criminal Law & Procedure

[03/09] Zia Trust Co. v. Montoya
In an action for excessive force brought by family members of a man defendant-officer shot and killed while responding to a domestic disturbance, denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity is affirmed where the court could not say that a van fifteen feet away, which according to the plaintiffs was clearly stuck on a pile of rocks, gave defendant probable cause to believe that there was a threat of serious physical harm to himself or others that would justify his use of force.

[03/09] US v. Wise
Defendant's firearm possession sentence is affirmed where: 1) defendant's prior conviction under Utah law for failure to stop at the command of a police officer was a "crime of violence" under the Sentencing Guidelines; and 2) the district court erred in not assigning criminal history points for one of defendant's prior convictions, but that error did not invalidate defendant's sentence.

[03/09] US v. Salem
In a prosecution of defendants for wire fraud and receiving stolen funds, district court's sentences based on relevant conduct findings are remanded as the district court made findings as to the reasonableness of the co-schemers' acts only, but it made no finding as to the scope of the jointly undertaken criminal activity under U.S.S.G. section 1B1.3(a)(1)(B).

[03/09] Redd v. Wright
In a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action arising out of plaintiff inmate's confinement in tuberculosis hold following his refusal to submit to tuberculosis testing, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where: 1) prior precedent did not "clearly foreshadow" a holding that the testing policy, as applied in this case, violated plaintiff's Free Exercise rights; 2) it could not reasonably be said that defendants acted in violation of clearly established Eighth Amendment law by implementing the policy; and 3) it was not clearly established that plaintiff was entitled to some kind of notice that religious objectors could be exempt from the policy.

[03/08] US v. Miller
Dismissal of defendant's petition for a writ of audita querela challenging a restitution order, arising from his conviction for conducting a monetary transaction with criminally-derived funds and evading income tax, is affirmed where: 1) if it still exists, the writ of audita querela can only be applied to rectify a judgment which, though correct when rendered, has since become infirm; and 2) since all parties to this case agree that the district court's restitution order was initially correct, and because the statute does not require the order to be modified every time a subsequent payment is made on a restitution obligation, there is no infirmity in defendant's judgment for a writ of audita querela to rectify.

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White Collar Crime

[03/05] US v. Brown
Defendant's bank fraud conviction is affirmed where: 1) the extrinsic evidence of defendant's other uses of fictitious financial documents was substantively and temporally tied to the charged offenses, and those other uses were distinct enough not to be the "needless presentation of cumulative evidence" under Fed. R. Evid. 403; and 2) the extrinsic evidence that defendant had failed to pay for a house inspection was not probative of his intent to defraud the victim and therefore inadmissible under Rule 404(b), but this evidence was quite limited in length, not inflammatory, and was not mentioned during the government's closing arguments.

[02/23] US v. Brown
Former Chief Legal Counsel for Rite Aid's conviction and sentence for conspiracy to commit accounting fraud, filing false statements with the SEC, and other related crimes, is affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded where: 1) district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's Rule 33 motion based on newly discovered evidence; 2) defendant's pre-trial suppression motion of the taped conversations was properly denied; 3) district court did not abuse its discretion in its reaction to defendant's plea agreement; and 4) defendant's sentence is vacated and remanded as the district court failed to explain, in the manner now required under Booker, how it considered the section 3553(a) factors in imposing the sentence.

[02/11] US v. Johnston
District court's resentencing of a defendant to 51 months' imprisonment and an order to pay restitution for the full amount of loss in excess of $6,600,000 for failing to pay $1 million in restitution by the deadline provided in a plea agreement for committing mail fraud is affirmed as the district court's willfulness finding was not clearly erroneous based on its findings evidencing defendant's deception and manipulation regarding his finances.

[02/02] US v. Speakman
In a wire fraud prosecution, the district court's restitution order is reversed and remanded where a remand was appropriate to allow the government to present evidence of the proximate cause of the loss to defendant's employer, which paid an arbitration award to the victim of defendant's fraud.

[11/30] US v. Berger
Defendant's bank and securities fraud sentence is vacated where, although the Dura Pharmaceuticals loss causation standard did not apply to criminal securities fraud, the district court applied an erroneous standard of proof in determining total loss for sentencing enhancement purposes.

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