SCOTUS Grants Certiorari in Six Criminal Cases

Utah v. Strieff, U.S., No. 14-1373.

    The Utah Supreme Court determined that the Fourth Amendment is violated when a police officer detains a pedestrian to run a check for warrants after the suspicion underlying the stop has dissipated. Any evidence found later during search incident to an arrest based on the unlawful check is to be suppressed. The court ruled that even though the arrest warrant was valid, it does not "purge" the taint of the violation of the constitution.

    The question presented is: Should evidence seized incident to a lawful arrest on an outstanding warrant be suppressed because the warrant was discovered during an investigatory stop later to be found unlawful?

 

Duncan v. Owens, U.S., No. 15-1516 (7th Cir., 781 F.3d 360 2015 BL 79002)

 

    The Seventh Circuit held that a habeas corpus petitioner was entitled to relief. The court determined that the trail court violated his due process right to have his guilt or innocence adjudicated solely on the basis of evidence introduced at trial when the trial court judge ruled based on the idea that the state had proved certain knowledge of the accused, even though there had been no such knowledge proven. Furthermore, this error had substantial and injurious effect on the determination of the verdict. The state's entire case was based on two shaky eyewitness accounts, and the petitioner was just as likely to have been acquitted had the judge not held the mistaken belief.

    The question presented is: Did the Seventh Circuit violate 28 U.S.C. § 2254 and a long line of this court's decisions by awarding habeas relief in the absence of clearly established precedent from this court?

 

Taylor v. United States, U.S., No. 14-6166 (4th Cir., 754 F.3d 217, 2014 BL 158470)

    The Fourth Circuit affirmed the defendant's convictions for robbery under the Hobbs Act. The court determined that the statute's broad language shows congress's purpose to use federal powers to the maximum constitutional amount possible. This indicates that the statute requires minimal connection to interstate commerce, and in a robbery case it is sufficient to determine that the relevant class of acts, in the aggregate, has a measurable impact on interstate commerce. It is not required to prove the precise effect on commerce in each and every case.

    The question presented is: In a federal prosecution under the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, is the government relieved of proving beyond a reasonable doubt the interstate commerce element by relying exclusively on evidence that the robbery or attempted robbery of a drug dealer is an inherent economic enterprise that satisfies, as a matter of law, the interstate commerce element of the offense?


Molina-Martinez v. United States, U.S., No. 14-8913 (5th Cir., 588 F. App'x 333 2014 BL 354734)

    The district court's judgment was affirmed by the Fifth Circuit, even though the sentence was calculated incorrectly under the US Sentencing Guidelines. The petitioner was unable to show that the incorrectly calculated sentence affected his substantial rights. The sentence imposed was at the bottom of the incorrectly-calculated range, and in the middle of the correctly calculated-range. The court held that with no additional evidence and when the correct and incorrect ranges overlap, and the defendant is sentenced within the overlap, courts do not assume that the sentence affects the defendant's substantial rights.

    The question presented is: Where an error in the application of the United States Sentencing Guidelines results in the application of the wrong guideline range to a criminal defendant, should an appellate court presume, for the purposes of plain error review under FRCP 52(b), that the error affected the defendant's substantial rights?

 

Puerto Rico v. Valle, U.S. No. 15-108 (P.R., 3/20/15)

    The Puerto Rico Supreme Court held that charges against a defendant in a Puerto Rico court were barred by the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy clause. The defendant pled guilty to his crimes in federal court, and for the same acts, Puerto Rico brought charges against him. The court determined that because Puerto Rico is not a federal state, and the authority it has to prosecute comes from a delegation of powers from the US Congress, and not from its own inherent sovereignty, a person who has been acquitted, convicted, or prosecuted in federal court cannot be prosecuted for the same crimes in Puerto Rican courts.

    The question presented is: Are the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the federal government separate sovereigns for the purposes of the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy clause?

 

Williams. v Pennsylvania, U.S., No. 15-5040 (Pa., 105 A.3d 1234, 2014 BL 351240)

    The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reinstated the death sentence and vacated the lower court's decision. On its face, the petition for post-conviction relief, under the state's Post Conviction Relief Act, was untimely on its face because it came more than twenty years after the conviction. Therefore the petitioner bears the burden of showing, in this case, that he was diligent in obtaining relevant information and that his attempts to present mitigating evidence were interfered with by the government.

    The petitioner alleged that reports were withheld, in violation of Brady v. Maryland, and that those reports were relevant to the victim's character. The court ruled that the failure to present this evidence was not because of government interference, and that there was evidence and testimony related to the victim's character presented at trial.

    The questions presented are: (1) Are the Eighth and 14 Amendments violated where the presiding chief justice of a state supreme court declines to recuse himself in a capital punishment case where he had personally approved the decision to pursue capital punishment against the petitioner in his prior capacity as elected district attorney and continued to head the district attorney's office that defended the death verdict on appeal; where, in his state supreme court election campaign, the chief justice expressed strong support for capital punishment, with reference to the number of defendant's he had "sent" to death row, including the petitioner; and where he then, as chief justice, reviewed a ruling by the state post-conviction court that his office committed prosecutorial misconduct under Brady v. Maryland, when it prosecuted and sought death against the petitioner. (2) Are the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments violated by the participation of a potentially biased jurist on a multi-member tribunal deciding a capital case, regardless of whether his vote is ultimately decisive?