Justia U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

The jury convicted Petitioner of second-degree murder and robbery. The verdict form included interrogatories about the firearm enhancement. After he was resentenced, Petitioner filed a third motion that asserted two grounds for relief. Petitioner filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus that asserted the same two claims for relief that he alleged in his third Florida Rule 3.850 motion. The district court denied the petition and denied Petitioner’s motion for reconsideration. It determined that both of Petitioner’s claims were procedurally barred.   On appeal from the denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus the Eleventh Circuit was required to decide whether trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by requesting that the jury be instructed on lesser included offenses. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the denial of the petition finding that Petitioner’s trial counsel did not render ineffective counsel. Further, the court wrote that because Petitioner’s claim that insufficient evidence supported his conviction was denied by the state courts based on an adequate and independent state procedural ground, he is also not entitled to relief on that claim. View "Demetrius Carey v. Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

Defendant, a collector of child pornography, commented on several “mom blog” posts asking mothers to display sexually explicit images of their young daughters. At issue is whether requests constitute criminal attempts to produce child pornography under 18 U.S.C. Section 2251(a) and (e). Defendant contends that his requests were so unlikely to succeed that they can’t support attempt liability. Second, he says that because he couldn’t have known—or even thought—that his plot would succeed, it can’t be shown that he knew or had reason to know that such visual depiction would be transported or transmitted using any means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce,” as the production statute requires. Finally, he argued that his verbal requests were too insignificant to constitute the “substantial step” necessary to prove attempt.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. First, the sheer unlikelihood that Defendant’s requests to the mom-bloggers would result in the production of child pornography does not negate his desire—and thus his intent—to produce child pornography, and there is, in any event, plenty of evidence, even beyond the messages themselves, that he intended to do so. Second, contrary to Defendant’s suggestion, Section 2251(a)’s interstate-nexus element does not require that a defendant know ex-ante that his plot will succeed—only (as relevant here) that if it succeeds, the forbidden images will travel in interstate commerce. Finally, Defendant’s substantial-step argument, which he failed to clearly present to the district court, fails under plain-error review. View "USA v. Colum Patrick Moran, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with armed robbery under Georgia law. A grand jury later indicted Defendant for one count of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 922(g)(1), to which Defendant pled guilty. He ultimately pled guilty to the lesser included offense of robbery by intimidation. Defendant objected to the PSR’s classification of his prior conviction. He argued that robbery by sudden snatching, found within Georgia’s robbery statute, is not a crime of violence and Georgia’s robbery statute is indivisible under Mathis.Consequently, this would preclude robbery by intimidation from qualifying as a crime of violence. At the sentencing hearing, the district court held the statute is indivisible. At issue is whether Georgia’s robbery statute, O.C.G.A. Section 16-8-40, is divisible under Mathis v. United States, 579 U.S. 500 (2016), and if so, whether robbery by intimidation under Georgia law is a crime of violence within the meaning of Section 4B1.2 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines.   The Eleventh Circuit vacated Defendant’s sentence and remanded for resentencing. The court held that Georgia’s robbery statute is divisible and robbery by intimidation under Georgia law is a crime of violence under the Guidelines. Robbery by intimidation under Georgia law falls squarely within the generic definition of robbery. The offense requires the property be taken “from the person or the immediate presence of another.” O.C.G.A. Section 16-8-40(a) It thus qualifies as a crime of violence under the enumerated clause of the Guidelines. View "USA v. Chavar Alec Harrison" on Justia Law

Defendant challenges his convictions of healthcare fraud, illegal kickbacks, and money laundering and the related restitution award and forfeiture judgment. After Defendant filed this appeal, President Trump commuted his sentence of imprisonment and rendered any challenge to it moot. In his remaining challenges, Defendant argued that his indictment should have been dismissed because of prosecutorial misconduct, that the district court erroneously admitted expert opinion testimony against him, that the admissible evidence against him was insufficient to sustain his convictions, and that the restitution award and forfeiture judgment should be vacated.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court explained that that the presidential commutation renders Defendant’s appeal of his prison sentence moot but does not otherwise affect his appeal. Second, the court explained that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it declined to dismiss the indictment or to disqualify the prosecutors due to misconduct. Third, the court affirmed the admission of the expert-opinion testimony. Fourth, the court affirmed the restitution amount as not clearly erroneous. And fifth, the court held that there was sufficient evidence for the jury to convict Defendant of money laundering and that the forfeiture judgment based on money laundering was lawfully calculated. View "USA v. Philip Esformes" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of producing and possessing child pornography in violation, respectively, of 18 U.S.C. Sections 2251(a) and 2252A(a)(5)(b). On appeal, Defendant claimed raised three grounds of error, 1.) the government failed to trigger federal jurisdiction; 2.) the district court erred when it discharged an impaneled-but-not-yet sworn jury in his absence, and 3.) the evidence was legally insufficient to support his conviction.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, finding that by transferring content from his phone to a hard drive that was manufactured overseas, federal jurisdiction was triggered. The court noted that Defendant's counsel consented to the jury not being sworn and that doing so outside of his presence didn't raise constitutional concerns. Finally, the court found the evidence presented by the government to be sufficient to support Defendant's convictions. View "USA v. Clark Downs" on Justia Law

On remand from the Supreme Court. Ruan v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2370 (2022) (Ruan II), the Eleventh Circuit ordered supplemental briefing to address whether the mens rea jury instruction used in this case was error and whether any such error was harmless. Among other things, Defendants challenged the jury instructions used for their substantive drug convictions under 21 U.S.C. Section 841(a), which prohibits the “knowing or intentional” dispensing of controlled substances “except as authorized.” The relevant drugs in this case are only “authorized” to be dispensed pursuant to a prescription, and an effective prescription must be made for a “legitimate medical purpose by an individual practitioner acting in the usual course of his professional practice.” Defendants requested that the jury be instructed that their good faith be a defense to an allegation that they acted outside the “usual course of professional practice.”   The Eleventh Circuit vacated in part and affirmed in part Defendants’ convictions. The court explained that here, the district court did not adequately instruct the jury that Defendants must have “knowingly or intentionally” prescribed outside the usual course of their professional practices. At a minimum without the limiting qualification that only subjective good faith was sufficient for conviction, the jury was authorized to convict under the sort of objective good faith or honest effort standard rejected by the Supreme Court. Therefore, the court vacated Defendants’ substantive drug convictions under Section 841(a). The court vacated Defendants’ sentence for all counts and remanded for resentencing on the surviving counts. View "USA v. Xiulu Ruan, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner is a Florida prisoner serving three death sentences. After pursuing a direct appeal and postconviction relief in the Florida state courts, Petitioner filed a federal habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. Section 2254, alleging, in relevant part, that his counsel rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance during the penalty phase. After the district court denied Petitioner’s Section 2254 petition on the merits, the Eleventh Circuit granted a certificate of appealability (“COA”) on one issue: “Whether the district court erred in denying Jennings’s claim that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance in the penalty phase of his capital trial by failing to conduct further investigation into Petitioner’s childhood and background.”   The Eleventh Circuit concluded that the Florida Supreme Court’s decision that Petitioner failed to establish prejudice was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law, and the court affirmed on that ground. The court wrote that given the facts of this case, it was not unreasonable for the state court to conclude that Defendant was not prejudiced by counsel’s failure to present the mitigation evidence in question during the penalty phase. As an initial matter, there is a significant probability that much of the omitted mitigation evidence, when combined with that adduced at trial, would have undermined some of the mitigating factors that the trial court found. Furthermore, there were significant aggravating factors present in this case. View "Brandy Bain Jennings v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon, Sections (1) and 924(e)(1). In support of his guilty plea, the factual proffer shows that he unlawfully possessed a loaded firearm on September 26, 2017. Although Defendant conceded that he had two prior convictions that satisfy ACCA’s definition of a “violent felony,” he objected to the probation officer’s conclusion that his two cocaine-related convictions met ACCA’s “serious drug offense” definition. But the district court overruled Defendant’s objection, finding that his cocaine-related convictions did qualify and sentenced Defendant to ACCA’s mandatory fifteen-year minimum. Defendant appealed his sentence.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court concluded that ACCA’s definition of a state “serious drug offense” incorporates the version of the federal controlled substances schedules in effect when Defendant was convicted of the prior state drug offense. The court explained that when possible, the court interprets the provisions of a text harmoniously. To read the definition in Section 924(e)(2)(A)(ii) harmoniously with the rest of Section 924(e)’s subparts, the court wrote it must read that definition to incorporate the version of the federal controlled-substances schedules in effect when Defendant’s prior state convictions occurred. Thus, the court concluded that ACCA’s “serious drug offense” definition encompasses a prior state offense that involved “manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to manufacture or distribute” ioflupane, “for which a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more is prescribed by law. Finally, the court wrote that Defendant suggested no other reason why Section 893.13(1) might be categorically broader than ACCA’s definition of a “serious drug offense.” View "USA v. Eugene Jackson" on Justia Law

Defendant who pleaded guilty to attempting to possess 500 grams or more of cocaine with intent to distribute has a prior 3-point offense but does not have more than 4 criminal history points or a prior 2-point violent offense. The district court concluded that Defendant remained eligible for relief under the Act because he did not have all three characteristics.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed and held that Defendant was eligible for safety-valve relief despite his prior 3-point offense. The court further rejected the government’s arguments to the contrary. The court reasoned that because the conjunctive “and” joins together the enumerated characteristics, a defendant must have all three before he is ineligible for relief. The court explained that here Defendant’s prior 3-point offense does not disqualify him from safety-valve relief. Section 3553(f)(1) begins with a negative—“the defendant does not have”—and the three requirements that follow are joined by an “and.” View "USA v. Julian Garcon" on Justia Law

On March 26, 2020, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida suspended all grand jury sessions in response to the pandemic. On August 28, 2020, while the administrative order suspending grand jury sessions was still in effect, the government filed a sealed two-count information against B.G.G. The information charged B.G.G. with conspiring to accept kickbacks for prescribing opioids from August 2012 through August 31, 2015, in violation of 18 U.S.C. section 371, and with soliciting and receiving kickbacks for prescribing opioids on August 31, 20   The question in this case is whether the district court abused its limited discretion when it granted “leave” to dismiss the information against B.G.G. with prejudice. The Eleventh Circuit vacated the district court’s order. The court explained that although “a dismissal under rule 48(a) does not bar a subsequent prosecution,” it also “does not impair the protection afforded by the statute of limitations.” If the grand jury later indicts B.G.G., he can still raise a statute of limitations defense. The court explained it need not pass on the statute of limitations issue and do not determine whether the sealed information was instituted within the meaning of section 3282(a). The court only concluded that the district court erred in not applying the “leave” requirements for dismissing an information under rule 48(a). The court vacated the dismissal order and remand to the district court for further proceedings. View "USA v. B.G.G." on Justia Law