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KILLING FLIES WITH ELEPHANT GUNS

Do ex-offenders who complete their sentences deserve a clean slate? And how should that be balanced against the public’s right to safety, especially for children?

Currently, the federal and state correctional systems supervise about 6.9 million people. The FBI adds over 10,000 people a day to its database. About one-third of adults have been arrested by age 23. Together, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies are approaching 250 million arrests, resulting in close to 80 million individuals in the FBI criminal database. See Nicholas M. Wooldridge, A Federal Expungement Law Should Be a Priority in Any Future Criminal Justice Reform Effort, JURIST – Hotline (Sept. 22, 2016).

Some collateral consequences are nonsensical. Why should ex-offenders be stripped of the right to vote? Some are overbroad. Those convicted of violent offenses probably should be denied firearms, but why should someone with a 30-year old check forgery conviction be denied the right to shoot skeet?

Now add to the mix two explosive factors, the first being protection of our children and the second being that the ex-offenders were convicted of child sex offenses. Most people would say that too much is not enough. The 11th Circuit grappled with that question last week, looking at what is touted as the strictest sex offender residency law in America.

Miami-Dade County adopted an ordinance in 2005 that prohibits a person convicted of any one of several enumerated sexual offenses involving a victim under 16 years old from residing “within 2,500 feet of any school.” The 2,500-foot distance is “measured in a straight line from the outer boundary of the real property that comprises a sexual offender’s or sexual predator’s residence to the nearest boundary line of the real property that comprises a school,” rather than “by a pedestrian route or automobile route.” The plaintiffs – people who had been convicted of such offenses – sued, claiming that the collateral consequence was an ex post facto punishment prohibited by the Constitution.

The district court threw out the case, but the 11th Circuit reinstated the case for several of the plaintiffs who proved they had been convicted before the ordinance was enacted.

An ex post facto law is a law that applies to events occurring before its enactment and that disadvantages the offender affected by it, by altering the definition of criminal conduct or increasing the punishment for the crime. If the law imposes collateral consequences on offenders, the Supreme Court has adopted a two-stage inquiry. If the intention is to impose punishment, the ordinance is a prohibited ex post facto law. If the act’s intention was to enact a regulatory scheme that is civil and nonpunitive, the court looks at whether the effect is nevertheless so punitive either in purpose or effect “as to negate the State’s intention to deem it civil.”

Here, the County argued its ordinance was intended to be civil and nonpunitive. Accepting that, the Court focused on the effect it had on people who were subject to it and were convicted before its passage. One of the plaintiffs alleged he “was twice instructed by probation officers to live at homeless encampments after the County’s residency restriction made him unable to live with his sister and he could not find other housing compliant with the restriction. He currently lives at a makeshift homeless encampment near ‘an active railroad track’.” Another plaintiff said he “sleeps in his car at the encampment because, ‘despite repeated attempts, he has been unable to obtain available, affordable rental housing in compliance with the Ordinance’.”

The Court found the plaintiffs also had adequately alleged the ordinance went well beyond what was necessary to protect the public. They claimed “an individual becomes subject to the restriction based solely on the fact of his or her prior conviction for a listed sexual offense, without regard to his or her individual ‘risk of recidivism over time’… despite the fact that ‘research has consistently shown that sexual offender recidivism rates are among the lowest for any category of offenses, and that this lower risk of sexual offense recidivism steadily declines over time’. Nonetheless, the County’s residency restriction applies for life, even after an individual no longer has to register as a sexual offender under Florida law and is no longer subject to the state law 1,000-foot residency restriction. The County’s residency restriction also applies ‘even if there is no viable route to reach the school within 2500 feet’.”

Finally, plaintiffs argued that by forcing them into homelessness, the ordinance made it that much harder for them to obtain treatment, which is the only proven means of reducing recidivism.

The Court’s role at this point in the proceeding was only to determine whether the plaintiffs had stated a plausible claim, such that they should be permitted to proceed. The appellate panel ruled that Doe #1 and Doe #3 “alleged sufficient facts to raise plausible claims that the County’s residency restriction is so punitive in effect that it violates the ex post facto clauses of the federal and Florida Constitutions. Whether Doe #1 and Doe #3 ultimately prevail is a determination for a future stage of this litigation.”

Doe v. Miami-Dade County, Case No. 15-14336 (11th Cir., Sept. 23, 2016)

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YOU MAY BE GOING TO HELL, BUT YOU’VE STILL GOT RIGHTS

The story initially appears to be pretty seamy: Kevin Williams, who is serving a 65‐year Illinois sentence for murder, ordered the death certificate of the woman he killed from the county clerks office. The clerk didn’t much like the request, so she sent him the death certificate with a note saying “there is a place in hell waiting for you as you must know you will reap what you have sowed!”

The prison refused to let Kevin have the death certificate (and the note, but he probably didn’t want that) on the grounds that “it posed a threat to the safety and security of the institution and would negatively impact Inmate Williams’ rehabilitation.”

Kevin sued the prison officials in federal court, contending that by confiscating the certificate without even giving him a chance to read it, prison officials had infringed his 1st Amendment rights. The district court judge granted summary judgment for the prison staff on the grounds that their confiscating the certificate had Kevin, and also had protected the victim’s family because the death certificate might include information identifying siblings, spouses or parents.

This week, the 7th Circuit reversed. In a short but to-the-point decision, the Court of Appeals observed that a prison can confiscate an inmate’s mail if confiscation is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests. But the prison must present “some evidence to show that the restriction is justified.” The prison officials argued that the “place in hell” accompanying the certificate threatened violence against Kevin. The Court dryly agreed, but noted that the violence threatened was “violence in hell, not in the prison; no prison official suggested that the note portended violence in the prison.” The officials also argued that Kevin “could use the death certificate as a ‘trophy’ which would increase tension within the prison and decrease his chances for rehabilitation.” But the officials cited no evidence that he intended to do so.

Indeed, Kevin explained in both an affidavit and a deposition that he had ordered the death certificate for use in state post–conviction proceedings rather than to save as a trophy of his crime, and “the defendants have presented no contrary evidence to support their assumption that Williams wanted a trophy.” In fact, the Court said, “the prison could have avoided this controversy in the first place by holding on to the death certificate except for the short time needed to include it (or indeed just a xerox copy of it) in Williams’ court filing.”

The 7th held that the right of a prison inmate to read the mail he receives, provided that his reading it would not infringe the prison’s legitimate interests, is clearly established. A prison does have a legitimate safety concern about things like “boasting inmates” carrying around trophies of their victims and violence. But in order to defeat the 1st Amendment right of prisoners, such concerns have to be supported by evidence, not just the prison officials’ say-so.

Williams v. Hansen, Case No. 15‐2236 (7th Cir. Sept. 20, 2016)

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YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME THAT

Mike DiFalco had a problem. He was charged with conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute over 50 grams of meth. That’s problem enough, but Mike’s was enormously bigger because this was not his first rodeo: he had been convicted of enough prior drug offenses to be facing a mandatory life sentence.

When Mike’s co-conspirator made a plea deal with the government, Mike could see the handwriting on the wall. So Mike did what any sensible defendant would have done. He made his own deal, agreeing to plead guilty in exchange for the prosecutor filing a notice under 21 U.S.C. Sec. 851 to only one prior. The effect of the deal was to lock in a mandatory minimum of 20 years instead of life.

A sure cure for insomnia is to wade through the dense verbiage of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(b), which specifies all sorts of different sentences for drug trafficking according to factors like drug quantity, whether anyone died, and number of prior drug offenses. In Mike’s case, his multiple priors were the driver of a mandatory life sentence, but his deal locked in a mandatory minimum of 20 years instead of life.

In order to get a higher mandatory minimum sentence applied to the defendant, the government is required by Sec. 851 to “file an information with the court… stating in writing the previous convictions to be relied upon… Clerical mistakes in the information may be amended at any time prior to the pronouncement of sentence.”

The government filed its 851 notice, but bolloxed up the facts pretty badly. The notice said Mike had been convicted in 2007 for sale of amphetamine and marijuana in Bartow County, Florida. But there was no 2007 conviction: rather, he had been convicted in 2002 of trafficking in amphetamine, manufacture of marijuana, possession of Ecstasy and Alprazolam, use or possession of drug paraphernalia, and driving with a suspended license in Polk County, Florida. He had a sheaf of other convictions for running a chop shop, weapons, and other drugs. Significantly, he had been convicted of nothing in 2007.
Mike’s plea deal included the customary waiver language, in which he agreed not to challenge the sentence on appeal except in limited cases (none of which applied). Nevertheless, he appealed his 20-year sentence on the grounds that the no one ever told him that he was waiving an appeal and that he faced a minimum of 20 years. For good measure, he argued as well that the 851 notice was defective.

Last Tuesday, the 11th Circuit – reciting all of the evidence in the record showing that Mike knew exactly what he had agreed to – shot him down. The appellate court’s decision is unremarkable in one regard, because contrary to the hopes of inmates that none of those provisions in plea agreements or questions and answers in front of the judge mean anything, appeal waivers are enforceable and when a defendant tells a judge he or she understands the plea agreement, the court’s going to hold the defendant to it.

The twist is that the 11th Circuit – like a number of other circuits – has previously held that Sec. 851 is a jurisdictional statute. That is, compliance with the requirements of Sec. 851 was a precondition to the district court even having the authority to impose the mandatory minimum sentence. Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction, with no authority other than what Congress has given them. If Sec. 851 is a jurisdictional statute, and if the government did not comply with the literal wording of the statute, the court thus lacks subject-matter jurisdiction to impose the higher sentence.

Inmates filing post-conviction motions love “jurisdiction” arguments without really appreciating what the term means. They often make the most pedestrian statutory provision into a “jurisdictional” one. To Mike, the importance making Sec. 851 into a jurisdiction statute was clear: a party cannot waive a jurisdictional defect, and the failure to complain about such a defect earlier in a case is no bar to complaining about it later. In short, under 11th Circuit law that existed when Mike was sentenced, his waiver did not encompass a complaint that the government had breached Sec. 851.

Unfortunately for Mike, since the time the 11th Circuit and others had found Sec. 851 to be jurisdictional, the Supreme Court had dictated a sea change in how jurisdictional statutes are viewed. In Kontrick v. Ryan and other cases, the Supreme Court instructed that jurisdictional rules are reserved “only for prescriptions delineating the classes of cases (subject-matter jurisdiction) and the persons (personal jurisdiction) falling within a court’s adjudicatory authority.” As the 11th Circuit admitted, “the significance of this distinction was that, unlike a jurisdictional rule, a claim processing rule can be forfeited by a party.”

Kontrick and its line of cases recognized, as the appellate court noted, that “the “term ‘jurisdiction’ has become ‘a word of many, too many, meanings.” It should be reserved only for statutes that delineate the court’s adjudicatory authority over classes of cases and persons, not to statutes – such as Sec. 851 – that only “limit a court’s actions in a case in which the court’s underlying authority to decide the matter is unquestioned.”

Sec. 851, the Circuit ruled, is a “claim processing rule” that “seeks to promote the orderly progress of litigation by requiring that the parties take certain procedural steps at certain specified times.” First, the Court said, “it is clear that Sec. 85l’s notice requirement does not affect the district court’s subject-matter jurisdiction over cases involving offenses against the laws of the United States. To the contrary, that authority is plainly vested in the district courts by Congress… That Sec. 851 is denuded of any jurisdictional component is evidenced by the fact that the district court had the lawful power to accept DiFalco’s plea and impose a sentence upon him. And, indeed, it had the statutory authority to impose the very same 240-month sentence even without the filing of any Sec. 851 notice.”

Sec. 851’s requirements are not jurisdictional, the Circuit said, and, thus, may be waived. Mike “knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to challenge the Sec. 851 notice when he signed the plea agreement. The Court held that “upon a fair review of this record, we are satisfied that DiFalco knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to appeal his sentence. Thus, we dismiss his appeal.”

United States v. DiFalco, Case No. 15-14763 (11th Cir. Sept. 20, 2016)

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MAN BITEMARKS DOG

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology released its report yesterday on the state of forensic science used in criminal courts, and it was every bit as scathing as the Wall Street Journal predicted it would be at the end of last month.

The report, written by scientists who carefully assess forensic methods according to  scientific standards, found that many forensic techniques do not pass scientific muster – and thus are not ready for courtroom application.

Last year, the Department of Justice examined its own performance in the analysis of hair samples – once used to identify potential suspects, but a practice that was discontinued in 1996 – and found FBI agents had “systematically overstated the method’s accuracy in court, including at least 35 death penalty cases,” according to Ars Technica.

This was hardly the only problem. Problems with forensic evidence have plagued the criminal-justice system for years, Ars Technica said. Faith in the granddaddy of all forensic-science methods—latent fingerprint comparison—was shaken in 2004 when the FBI announced that a print recovered from the Madrid train bombing was a perfect match with American lawyer Brandon Mayfield. Spanish authorities promptly discovered that the print belonged to someone else.

As Judge Alex Kozinski described it in Tuesday’ Wall Street Journal, “Doubt turned to horror when studies revealed that certain types of forensic science had absolutely no scientific basis. Longstanding ideas about ‘char patterns’ that prove a fire was caused by arson have been discredited. Yet at least one man, Cameron Todd Willingham of Texas, was executed based on such mumbo jumbo.”

The PCAST report analyzes DNA, bite mark, latent fingerprint, firearms, footwear and hair analysis techniques. The report finds that all of them have problems when it comes to operating on a firm scientific footing, and it concludes that forensic science needs “to take its name seriously.”

Only the most basic form of DNA analysis is scientifically reliable, the study indicates. Some forensic methods have significant error rates and others are rank guesswork. “The prospects of developing bitemark analysis into a scientifically valid method” are low, according to the report.  “In plain terms,” Judge Kozinski wrote, “Bitemark analysis is about as reliable as astrology. Yet many unfortunates languish in prison based on such bad science.”

Even methods valid in principle become unreliable in practice. Forensic experts are “hired guns,” and the ones working for the  prosecution sometimes see it as their job – if not required to keep the prosecution work coming – to get a conviction. This can lead and has led them to fabricate evidence or commit perjury. Some forensic examiners are poorly trained and supervised, and overstate the strength of their conclusions by claiming that the risk of error is “vanishingly small,” “essentially zero,” or “microscopic.” The report says that such claims are hyperbole, “scientifically indefensible,” but jurors generally take them at face value when presented by government witnesses who are certified as scientific experts.

The report recommends that DOJ take the lead in ensuring that (1) “forensic feature-comparison methods upon which testimony is based have been established to be foundationally valid with a level of accuracy suitable to their intended application;” and (2) “the testimony is scientifically valid, with the expert’s statements concerning the accuracy of methods and the probative value of proposed identifications being constrained by the empirically supported evidence and not implying a higher degree of certainty.”

The report also calls on DOJ to review, with scientific assistance, which forensic methods “lack appropriate black-box studies necessary to assess foundational validity.” The report specifically denounced footwear and hair analysis as resting on insufficient scientific foundation, and nearly ridiculed bite mark analysis as voodoo science. PCAST suggested that there could be more, with Judge Kozinski noting that arson burn pattern analysis should be near the top of the list.

Additionally, the panel called on DOJ to adopt uniform guidelines on expert testimony that ensure that “quantitative information about error rates” is provided to the jury, and when such information is not available, that should be disclosed, too. The report recommends that “in testimony, examiners should always state clearly that errors can and do occur, due both to similarities between features and to human mistakes in the laboratory,” which is about as likely as a snowstorm at a July 4th picnic.

As unlikely as prosecution cooperation with scientific accuracy might be, the report nevertheless is a much-needed stand against rampant junk science in the courtroom. As the Washington Post put it, the report “builds upon mounting evidence that certain types of ‘forensic feature-comparison methods’ may not be as reliable as they have long appeared. A recent, unprecedented joint study by the Innocence Project and the FBI looked at decades of testimony by hair examiners in criminal cases — and found flaws in the testimony an astonishing 95 percent of the time. In a number of serious felonies, DNA testing has revealed that bite-mark evidence underpinning convictions was simply incorrect. More generally, faulty forensic evidence has been found in roughly half of all cases in which post-conviction DNA testing has led to exoneration.”

Executive Office of the President, President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Report To The President: Forensic Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring Scientific Validity of Feature-Comparison Methods (Sept. 20. 2016)

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LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS

It’s an article of faith among federal inmates that they can file some kind of motion with the district court to get their grand jury materials, so they may comb through them for grist to use in a post-conviction motion.

Rule 6(e)(3)(E)(ii) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides that a court “may authorize disclosure… of a grand jury matter at the request of a defendant who shows that a ground may exist to  dismiss the indictment because of a matter that occurred before the grand jury…” Thus, such inmate motions are almost always shot down, because district courts invoke an “exclusivity rule” that Rule 6(e)(3)(E) prohibits giving anyone grand jury materials unless one of the exceptions listed in subsection (e)(3) is met. Ever. No exceptions.

But now, a 7th Circuit decision handed down last week may sound the death knell for the “exclusivity rule.”

In 1942, the United States won a crucial naval victory at the Midway Islands, sinking a Japanese carrier task force and turning the tide of war in the Pacific. The enemy planned an attack on some Alaskan islands, to draw out U.S. aircraft carriers in order to destroy them. The Navy didn’t fall for the juke, and instead pulled off a stunning win.

When news broke of the victory, the Chicago Tribune printed a story that reported – accurately, it turns out – that the U.S. Navy knew in advance that the Alaskan attack was a distraction. President Roosevelt exploded when he saw the story, because it implied the U.S. had broken the Japanese naval codes (which it had). The President ordered a criminal investigation into the Tribune, which was owned by one of his political enemies, but the grand jury ended up returning no indictments.

About 70 years later, Elliot Carlson – a journalist and historian with a special expertise in naval history – petitioned the federal court for release of the Tribune grand jury materials for a book he is writing about the investigation. The government conceded there remain no interests favoring continued secrecy, but still resisted release of the materials, the 7th Circuit explained, arguing “that no one (as far as we can tell) has the power to release these documents except for one of the reasons enumerated in Rule 6(e)(3)(E).”

The appellate court ruled that Rule 6(e) is a permissive rule, not a mandatory one. It does not prevent the court from releasing grand jury materials where it believes release to be appropriate. Instead, the rule only directs that release always should be considered appropriate in the situations listed in subsection 6(e)(3). The district court’s “limited inherent supervisory power has historically included the discretion to determine when otherwise secret grand-jury materials may be disclosed,” the 7th Circuit said. “Prior to the adoption of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Supreme Court held that release of sealed grand jury materials ‘rests in the sound discretion of the [trial] court’ and ‘disclosure is wholly proper where the ends of justice require it.’ The advent of the Criminal Rules did not eliminate a district court’s inherent supervisory power as a general matter.”

The Court of Appeals held that Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 57(b) “recognizes that the rules are not designed to be comprehensive; instead, it says, ‘when there is no controlling law … [a] judge may regulate practice in any manner consistent with federal law, these rules, and local rules of the district.’ This Rule has remained substantively the same since the original 1944 version. To be sure, the court is powerless to contradict the Rules where they have spoken, just as the court cannot contradict a statute, [citing] Carlisle v. United States,); Bank of Nova Scotia v. United States. But it is Rule 57(b), not Carlisle or Bank of Nova Scotia, that informs us what a court may do when the Rules are silent.”

It is doubtful that the Circuit’s ruling declares open season on novel claims justifying disclosure of grand jury materials, especially for defendants and former subjects of such investigations. The appeals panel noted that the “district court engaged in a thoughtful and comprehensive analysis of the pros and cons of disclosure before granting Carlson’s request, and we are content to let its analysis stand.” Nevertheless, district court denials of requests for release of grand jury materials clearly may no longer rely on rote application of the “exclusivity” rule.

Carlson v. United States, Case No. 15-2972 (7th Cir., Sept. 15, 2016)

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“THE ENEMY IS THE CLOCK” ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

The New York Times reported Friday that criminal justice reform – most notably the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015 – “is effectively dead.”

The Times quoted Senator Richard J. Durbin (Illinois), the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate (and one of the prime movers on criminal justice reform) as saying of the failure, “We missed an opportunity.”

Senator John Cornyn (Texas), the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, echoed Sen. Durbin’s frustration: “It is one of the things that makes this a frustrating place to work.”

The Times said there is virtually no chance the Senate will pass the legislation in the waning days of the year, calling SCRA’s failure “a stunning display of dysfunction given the powerful forces arrayed behind legislation meant to provide a second chance for nonviolent offenders facing long prison sentences while also saving tax dollars on prison costs.”

The House of Representatives still plans to move forward on a floor vote on a package of six criminal justice reform measures this month, according to plans announced in July by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin). Holly Harris, executive director of the U.S. Justice Action Network, a leading bipartisan coalition behind the legislation, says, “I think we are close, [but] the enemy is the clock.”

This week, the House will dispose of at least 49 bills this week under “suspension of the rules,” which means each bill can only pass with a two-thirds majority vote, debate is limited to 40 minutes on each measure, and no bill up for a vote can be amended. Unfortunately, the criminal justice package is not included on the list.

Among the bills set for action include designating postal facilities, the “District of Columbia Judicial Financial Transparency Act,” “Modernizing Government Travel Act,” “Iranian Leadership Asset Transparency Act,” and “Cyber Preparedness Act of 2016.”

Still, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations, remained optimistic last week that many of the 11 bills passed out of the House Judiciary Committee will be voted on this month. He wrote that Speaker Ryan “expressed earlier this year his desire to see criminal justice reform legislation come to a Floor vote this month, and as Congress reconvenes, it looks as though there is a strong possibility that it will.”

However, Adam Brandon – president of the conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks – warned last week that “the window of opportunity for passage is rapidly closing on three criminal justice reform bills — the Sentencing Reform [and Corrections] Act (H.R. 3713), the Recidivism Risk Reduction Act (H.R. 759) and the Criminal Code Improvement Act (H.R. 4002) — all of which have already passed the House Judiciary Committee unanimously… With the House set to adjourn on Sept. 30 and the Senate set to follow suit a week later, [these bills] look increasingly likely to become casualties of the race for the exits as lawmakers head home to campaign for re-election.”

The Marshall Report, a criminal justice reform group, said today “the vaunted bipartisan drive to enact federal criminal justice reform is not quite dead. But its pulse is faint.”

Supporters of reform are engaged in last-ditch lobbying, hoping to convince House lawmakers that reform is a matter of public safety and fiscal prudence. But, as The Marshall Report put it, “Gloomier advocates say that even if Ryan delivers in the House, it would take a near-miracle to get anything bold through the Senate.”

Some reformers think the most Congress might pass is a reprieve for a small group of crack cocaine offenders. “Back in 2010, Congress reduced sentences for inmates who were punished under a law that treated crack cocaine far more severely than powder cocaine,” The Marshall Report said. “An estimated 5,800 people convicted before 2010 remain imprisoned. Congress could make these prisoners retroactively eligible for a judicial review of their sentences.”

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THE GOVERNMENT SCREWS IT UP – THE DEFENDANT PAYS

Six years ago, Tennessee cops arrested illegal immigrant Wilmer Canelas-Amador for felony aggravated assault. After that, Walter signed a form agreeing to plead guilty, but there the trail ends.

Before the trial court could enter judgment or pronounce a sentence, the Feds showed up to grab Wilmer for immigration violations. They moved him out of Tennessee, eventually deporting him back to Honduras. Naturally, this meant Wilmer couldn’t show up for his Tennessee presentence interview. The state court, not knowing that ICE had spirited Wilmer off to the tropics, issued a capias – a kind of bench warrant used to drag people into court when they’re supposed to be there – ordering the police to take him into custody for the interview.

Unsurprisingly, nothing ever came of the capias, because Wilmer was located about 1,500 miles south of the Tennessee court that wanted him.

That didn’t last, however. Wilmer was Donald Trump’s worst nightmare, a self-help immigrant who wasn’t going to let a few Federal statutes keep him out of the Land of the Free. Soon enough, he reentered the U.S. illegally and was promptly arrested. He pled guilty to illegal reentry in federal court in Texas and was sentenced to a year in prison before being sent back to the Honduras again. But in 2015, he came back a third time, this time ending up back in Tennessee, where he got caught. He was charged in federal court with another illegal reentry, to which he pled guilty.

This time, the district court hammered him, figuring his Guidelines range to be 57-81 months. At the heart of the court’s calculation was its determination that the state court order accepting his “acceptance of guilty plea” document as a “conviction for a felony that is… a crime of violence,” mandating a 16-level Guidelines enhancement under Guidelines Sec. 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii).

Because Sec. 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) does not define “conviction,” the district court concluded that the Immigration and Naturalization Act provided the proper definition. Under Sec. 1101(a) of the INA, a “conviction” for an alien is a formal judgment of guilt entered by a court, or is where a judge or jury has found the alien guilty or the alien has entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere or has admitted sufficient facts to warrant a finding of guilt, and the judge has ordered some form of punishment to be imposed. The district court decided the state court order accepting the guilty plea was “a formal judgment of guilt and is therefore a conviction” under the Guidelines.

This week, the 6th Circuit reversed, holding that “a plea agreement approved in a form order falls well short of a formal judgment of guilt” under the INA.

The panel admitted that agreeing to plead guilty sounded a lot like a conviction, and several other circuits had previously enhanced illegal entry defendants on the strength of their mere admissions of other crimes. But the 6th Circuit said “the reasoning in these cases is very thin.” Instead, it reasoned that “the guidelines are designed to ensure that the penalties provided for in federal criminal statutes are applied in a just, uniform, and predictable way. Thus, while Sec. 1101(a) defines terms only insofar ‘[a]s used in this chapter,’ we believe that… all things being equal, it makes sense to interpret a term used in both a criminal statute and in the guidelines provisions applicable to that statute consistently and with reference to the statutory definition.”

It was clear that Wilmer had not had any punishment imposed for the assault, and that it therefore could not be a conviction under the INA. The Court thought it “might be argued that this conclusion elevates form above substance – he pled guilty to the crime after all! And, in a sense, our decision today does do just that. But it does so for the very good reason that form is of paramount importance in the criminal law.”

The Government’s last-gasp attempt to save Wilmer’s higher sentence was to claim that Wilmer should not benefit just because “he did not comply with his duty to appear in state court for a presentence interview.” The Court made short work of this claim, noting that the Government was “getting things exactly backwards… it was the action of the federal government, not Canelas-Amador, that resulted in his removal from the state before a formal judgment of conviction could be entered.” The Government, the Court concluded, “has no one to blame but itself for the consequences of having in this instance acted too quickly.”

United States v. Canelas-Amador, Case No. 15-6035 (6th Cir. Sept. 14, 2016)

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NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT

Andre Williams’s “out” date is coming up March 6, just as the buds start popping on the trees and the crocuses bloom. The only hitch is that the March 6th Andre is looking forward to falls in the year 2030.

Nevertheless, he’s a guy who plans ahead. That’s why he petitioned his district court to revise some conditions of his supervised release once the March 6th he’s looking toward finally arrives in 14 years. His judge, not quite so forward-looking, told him to come back later, when the time that supervised release would begin was a little closer.

Under 18 U.S.C. §3583(e)(2), district judges have the authority to revise supervised release terms “at any time.” Andre argued that because a judge may act at any time, he or she must act when a defendant requests him or her to do so. The district judge thought otherwise, observing that in the 14 years between now and Andre’s scheduled release date, “he may have totally other issues that he might want to deal with regarding supervised release.”

In a decision released several weeks ago as a summary order but reissued as an opinion yesterday, the 7th Circuit told Andre that “may” doesn’t mean “must.” 

The appeals panel admitted that Andre “is entitled to know, before he leaves prison, what terms and conditions govern his supervised release. We would be reluctant to allow a judge to deem premature a request in the final year or two of imprisonment. But treating a request 14 years in advance as premature, and requiring the prisoner to make all potential arguments at one time in the year or so before release, is a sound exercise of discretion.”

The Circuit also observed that the district judge could have also noted the governing law may change between now and 2030, which might moot or even enhance Andre’s supervised release terms.  He may as well wait to get the full benefit of the law at the time he needs it. 

United States v. Williams, Case No. 16-1913 (7th Cir. Sept. 6, 2016)

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HE SAID, SHE SAID

Federal inmate Wallace Dean-Mitchell has not had an easy bit. The record is not clear as to how many incident reports he has received since he was locked up in 1990, but he filed a habeas corpus action challenging his last ten infractions in 2009 (so there must have been a goodly number).

In his habeas corpus action Wally’s complaint was not that he was innocent of the rules infractions. In fact, he seemed to admit his guilt. His beef instead was that he had been denied due process, because he did not receive a copy of the incident reports prior to the hearing or a copy of the Disciplinary Hearing Officer (DHO) reports after the hearing, as required by prison rules.

Connie Reese, the warden, said Wally had received copies of the incident report, and she argued that because he was able to administratively appeal the DHO, he must have gotten a copy of the DHO report as well, because a prisoner has to attach it to the administrative appeal.

The district court accepted Warden Reese’s affidavit that the incident reports had been given to the inmate, and that he must have had the DHO report as well, concluding, based on Superintendent, Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Walpole v. Hill, that the denial of the 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2241 habeas petition was proper because there was “some evidence” in the record that the disciplinary action taken against Wally comported with due process.

Yesterday, the 11th Circuit reversed. First, it noted, using the “some evidence” standard was wrong. In Hill, the Supreme Court said factfinder’s decision in a disciplinary proceeding must be “supported by some evidence in the record.” But Hill is irrelevant when the basis for attacking the judgment is not insufficiency of the evidence, but instead a flaw in the procedure by which the judgment was obtained. Instead, in order to throw out Wally’s habeas corpus petition on summary judgment, without first holding an evidentiary hearing, “the district court had to conclude that there was no genuine dispute as to any material facts regarding his receipt of the Incident Report and DHO report.”

Reduced to its essence, Wally complained, there was a genuine issue of fact. He said in his affidavit that he never received the incident reports or the DHO order. The Warden said in her affidavits that he had. The Court said that there was “conflicting evidence in the record regarding whether Dean-Mitchell received or did not receive the reports. The Warden said he did receive them, and Dean-Mitchell said he did not. Moreover, the documentation relied on by the Warden is inconclusive, as it does not provide a clear paper trail establishing Dean-Mitchell’s receipt of the reports.”

The report documents themselves noted that they had been delivered to Wally, but the Court noted that there was also “evidence that the DHO report was missing from his file in 2007 and again in 2010, casting doubt on whether regular protocols regarding the reports were followed.”

The Court dismissed Warden Reese’s assertion that because the rules required Wally to attach a copy of the DHO report to his appeal, he must have had a copy. The panel observed that the rule actually said Wally was required to “forward a copy of the DHO report, or, if not available at the time of filing, . . . [to] state in his appeal the date of the DHO hearing and the nature of the charges against the inmate.”  Thus, the appeals court said, “a copy of the DHO report is not a necessary component of filing an administrative appeal [and] the Warden’s declaration indicating that Dean-Mitchell must have attached the reports to his administrative appeals, which was relied upon by the district court to conclude that there was “some evidence” that Dean-Mitchell received the reports, was incorrect and cannot form the basis of the district court’s decision.”

The evidence ended up being pretty much “he said, she said.” Under the circumstances, the Circuit ruled, “given the presence of a genuine dispute as to a material fact, it was error for the district court to take sides in this battle of affidavits and to grant summary judgment in favor of the Warden.”

Dean-Mitchell v. Reese, Case No. 13-14111 (11th Cir. Sept. 13, 2016)

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WHAT DID JESUS DO? WE NOW KNOW THAT – WHATEVER IT WAS – IT WASN’T CONSPIRACY

Jesus Martinez-Cruz likes the United States. Perhaps a little too well. He probably did not know, the last time he crossed the border illegally, that he would be the subject of a breakaway holding on generic conspiracy law.

Jesus, a Mexican citizen, was picked up by the Border Patrol backpacking with a friend along Interstate 10 in Arizona. Unfortunately, their backpacks lacked sleeping bags, tents, swimsuits and the makings for S’mores. Instead they were stuffed with about 150 lbs. of marijuana.

When Jesus was sentenced, his Guideline for unlawful entry – USSG Sec. 2L1.2(b)(1)(B) – imposed an additional 12-level enhancement if the defendant had “a conviction for a felony drug trafficking offense for which the sentence imposed was 13 months or less,” or an 8-level enhancement if the defendant has “a conviction for an aggravated felony.” Application Note 5 to Sec. 2L1.2 defines “prior convictions of offenses counted under subsection (b)(1)” to include the offenses of “aiding and abetting, conspiring, and attempting, to commit such offenses.” The Application Notes do not define exactly what “conspiring” might be.

Jesus previously had been removed from the United States after being convicted of a federal drug conspiracy under 21 U.S.C. Sec. 846. Thus, the district court added the 8 levels, despite Jesus’s crafty argument that because the Guidelines do not define “conspiracy,” the common-law definition must apply. This is important because, at virtually all state conspiracy laws (and for that matter, the garden-variety federal conspiracy offense at 18 U.S.C. Sec. 371), require that there be an agreement to commit the crime and at least one overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. The drug conspiracy statute – 21 U.S.C. Sec. 846 – does not require an overt act.

The district court was not swayed by Jesus’s argument that the lack of an overt-act requirement in the drug conspiracy statute meant that the prior should not be counted. Yesterday, however, the 10th Circuit agreed with Jesus.

The Circuit held that it assumes that an enumerated offense in the Guidelines “refers to the generic, contemporary meaning of the offense.” The Court uses the “categorical approach” of relying only on the statute underlying the prior offense to “ensure that the elements of that generic enumerated offense are congruent with the elements of the defendant’s prior offense.” The Court decided that the Application Note was not clear that the federal drug conspiracy offense was intended to fall within the meaning of the term “conspiracy” used in the Guideline, so it had to resort to the “categorical approach.”

Applying the categorical approach, the Court held that while “the number of federal statutes allowing for conspiracy convictions without proof of an overt act is much larger than those requiring an overt act, that by itself is not dispositive because of the narrow nature of many of the federal statutes — here, we are defining conspiracy generally (the states also define conspiracy generally). Of the federal statutes which could have applied to Martinez-Cruz’s conviction, the broadest federal conspiracy statute, § 371, requires proof of an overt act—while the drug statute, § 846, does not. And while the common law of conspiracy did not require an overt act… most jurisdictions have jettisoned that doctrine. Under the categorical approach, we look to the law’s current state.”

Considering the weight of current federal and state general conspiracy statutes, the Court said, “we conclude that the generic definition of “conspiracy” requires an overt act. Section 846 does not. Martinez-Cruz’s conspiracy conviction under § 846 is a categorical mismatch for the generic definition of “conspiracy” in U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2 Application Note 5 and he should receive an eight-level enhancement instead of twelve.”

The 10th Circuit decision is at odds with the 5th, 6th and 9th Circuits on the same question. This could set up a Supreme Court review of the question.

United States v. Martinez-Cruz, Case No. 15-2167 (10th Cir. Sept. 12, 2016)