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

Defendant confessed to a murder, but he offered two conflicting versions of the crime. At first, he said that he watched the victim’s murder. Then, he said that he participated but that he didn’t intend to kill the victim. A grand jury in Mobile County eventually indicted Defendant for capital murder. The case went to trial, and the jury found Defendant guilty. After an evidentiary hearing, the district court found that Defendant is intellectually disabled and therefore granted his habeas petition. At issue on appeal is whether the district court clearly erred by finding that Defendant is intellectually disabled and, as a result, that his sentence violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.     The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment and held that the district court did not clearly err. The court explained that the district court did not err by turning to evidence of Defendant’s adaptive functioning after finding that his IQ score could be as low as 69. Further, the court reasoned that it cannot say that the district court clearly erred by finding that Defendan satisfied the adaptive-functioning prong. The record contains evidence “that would support a finding of fact that Defendant had significant limitations in at least two” domains. Further, the court wrote that the record supports the district court’s conclusion that Defendant’s deficits in intellectual and adaptive functioning “were present at an early age.” As a result, the court wrote that it cannot say that the district court clearly erred by finding that Defendant satisfied the final prong of his Atkins claim. View "Joseph Clifton Smith v. Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

Defendant, a pardoned felon, appealed the district court’s denial of his motion to expunge the records of his criminal conviction. Defendant argued that the district court erred in concluding that (1) it lacked jurisdiction over his claim; and (2) even if it had jurisdiction, the merits of his motion did not warrant expungement. Defendant’s sole contention on appeal is that his request is for a constitutional expungement.The Eleventh Circuit concluded that the district court lacked jurisdiction over Defendant’s motion. However, because the district court assumed that it had jurisdiction and evaluated and denied Defendant’s motion on the merits, the court vacated and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. The court applied Kokkonen to Defendant’s request for a constitutional expungement. Since the proceedings from Defendant’s underlying tax offense—the offense for which Defendant brings his expungement claim—concluded more than a decade ago, the invocation of ancillary jurisdiction for an expungement of his record so that he can more easily donate to charity is not necessary “to permit disposition by a single court of claims that are, in varying respects and degrees, factually interdependent,” nor is it necessary for the court to “manage its proceedings, vindicate its authority, and effectuate its decrees.” Accordingly, the court held that although the district court correctly noted that it lacked the requisite ancillary jurisdiction to hear Defendant’s expungement motion, it ultimately impermissibly evaluated and denied the motion on the merits. View "USA v. James Batmasian" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his total 40-year sentence and lifetime term of supervised release, imposed after he pleaded guilty to various counts of enticing a minor to engage in sexual activity, sending extortionate interstate communications, and possessing and producing child pornography. On appeal, he argued that the district court erred in applying an enhancement. The government responds that even if the district court erred, the alleged error in calculating Defendant’s guideline range was harmless because his total offense level would have remained the same without the enhancement. Defendant also contends that the district court erred by failing to separately state its reasons for imposing a lifetime term of supervised release.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the district court’s statement of reasons complied with Section 3553(c)(1). It explained which of the Section 3553(a) factors it found most persuasive and stated that it had considered the parties’ arguments and the PSR in sentencing Defendant. The district court also indicated that, in determining its sentence, it considered Defendant’s age, as well as Defendant’s claim that he had been a victim of sexual assault himself. This explanation was sufficient as to Defendant’s overall sentence, which was comprised of a term of imprisonment of 40 years and a lifetime term of supervised release. View "USA v. Breshawn Hamilton" on Justia Law

Plaintiff is a Florida death-row prisoner who is scheduled to be executed on May 3, 2023, at 6:00 p.m. Barwick brought an action under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, arguing that the Governor of Florida and several other state officials violated his constitutional right to due process because they did not adequately consider his candidacy for executive clemency. He also moved for an emergency stay of execution. The district court denied Plaintiff’s motion for a stay. Plaintiff then moved in this Court for a stay of execution pending appeal.   The Eleventh Circuit denied Plaintiff’s motion for a stay. The court explained that here Plaintiff argued that the State violated his due-process rights because it did not provide any standards that would govern the clemency decision. But under the Eleventh Circuit’s binding precedent, the court wrote it cannot agree that the Due Process Clause requires the State to provide any such standards. An initial problem with Plaintiff’s argument about the State’s lack of standards is that it runs counter to Supreme Court authority. Further, the court held that it cannot agree with Plaintiff’s argument that his clemency proceeding was arbitrary because the Commission allegedly “provided false guidance” when it said it was not concerned with his guilt but then “myopically focused on [his] crime.” Accordingly, the court held that Plaintiff’s due-process claim does not have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. View "Darryl Barwick v. Governor of Florida, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court’s denial of his Section 2255 habeas petition to vacate his sentence of 211 months imprisonment on the ground that he was sentenced as an armed career criminal but does not qualify as one. He argued that his prior conviction in Florida for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon cannot serve as a predicate offense under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”) because it can be committed with a mens rea of recklessness and that, without this predicate offense, he does not have three qualifying convictions, and he must be resentenced.   The Eleventh Circuit, after receiving Florida Supreme Court’s answer to the court’s certified questions, affirmed. The court wrote that it is persuaded that aggravated assault under Florida law requires a mens rea of at least knowing conduct and, accordingly, that it qualifies as an ACCA predicate offense under Borden v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1817 (2021). Defendant, therefore, has the requisite three predicate offenses under the ACCA, and he was properly sentenced by the district court as an armed career criminal. View "Fred Somers v. USA" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment for failure to state a crime. In his motion, Defendant argued that 8 U.S.C. Section 1324(a) does not apply extraterritorially.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to dismiss and held that Sections 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv), (a)(1)(A)(v)(I), and (a)(2)(B)(ii) apply to his extraterritorial conduct. The court concluded that it may infer the extraterritorial application of the Section 1324(a)subsections under which Defendant was charged. First, the subsections—which prohibit encouraging, inducing, or bringing aliens into the United States—target conduct that can take place outside the United States. Second, the nature of the offenses is such that limiting them to the United States would greatly “curtail the scope and usefulness of the statute.” The court explained that Bowman’s principles and the weight of authority from other sister circuits overwhelmingly support the court’s conclusion that extraterritoriality may be inferred from Congress’ intent to prevent illegal immigration and from the nature of the offenses—each of which contemplates conduct at, near, and beyond our borders. View "USA v. Stanley Wintfield Rolle" on Justia Law

A Florida jury convicted Defendant of first-degree murder, burglary of a dwelling, and sexual battery. He was sentenced to death for the murder, 15 years imprisonment for the burglary, and 27 years for the sexual battery. After exhausting state remedies, Defendant sought habeas corpus relief in federal court, alleging (as relevant here) various evidentiary errors at his trial. The district court denied Defendant’s habeas petition, and he appealed.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court held that the district court correctly held that the state didn’t violate Brady, that Defendant’s trial counsel didn’t provide ineffective assistance at trial—for failing to move for hearings under either Frye or Richardson—and that Miranda doesn’t require suppressing Defendant’s statement to the officer. The court explained that it rejected Defendant’s ineffective assistance claim predicated on his trial counsel’s failure to move for a Frye hearing on the ground that any deficiency wasn’t prejudicial.   Further, the court reasoned that Defendant likely wouldn’t have won a Richardson motion because, as a matter of state law, the state’s discovery violation—if there was one—didn’t harm or prejudice him. As an initial matter, the alleged violation likely wasn’t willful. Moreover, the alleged violation wasn’t “substantial,” nor did it affect Defendant’s ability to prepare for trial. View "Steven Richard Taylor v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant, a real-estate developer, was convicted on multiple counts arising out of his alleged complicity in the bribery of Tallahassee City Commissioner Scott Maddox. On appeal, Defendant challenged his bribery-based convictions on several grounds, two of which required the Eleventh Circuit to carefully examine the Supreme Court’s decision in McDonnell v. United States, 579 U.S. 550 (2016), which explained—and by all accounts narrowed to some degree—the category of “official acts” that can support a federal bribery charge. Defendant separately contests his conviction for making false statements to federal agents during the course of their investigation.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court held it needn’t decide whether the district court erred in instructing the jury regarding the meaning and application of the term “official act,” as used in 18 U.S.C. Section 201(a)(3) and interpreted in McDonnell, because (1) Defendant invited one of the errors that he now alleges and (2) he failed to object to the other and hasn’t shown that it affected his substantial rights. Further, the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to permit the jury to conclude that Defendant assisted in bribing Maddox in connection with a Section 201(a)(3)-qualifying “official act”. Further, the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence pertaining to an FBI agent’s conduct during the undercover investigation. And any error that the court might have committed in admitting the agent’s testimony that Defendant had made “false exculpatory statements” was harmless. Finally, the evidence was sufficient to permit the jury to conclude that Defendant made actionable false statements to FBI agents. View "USA v. John Thomas Burnette" on Justia Law

A federal grand jury indicted Defendant for two counts of distribution of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 2252A(a)(2) and (b)(1) (“Counts One and Two”), and five counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 2251(a)1 and (e) (“Counts Three through Seven”). At issue on appeal is whether an adult who films himself exposing his genitals and masturbating in the presence of a child where the child is the object of sexual desire in the film “uses” that child to engage in sexually explicit conduct for purposes of 18 U.S.C. Section 2251(a).   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court held that Defendant’s conduct falls within the scope of the conduct prohibited by 18 U.S.C. Section 2251(a). The court explained that here, Defendant used the presence of his eleven-year-old daughter as the object of his sexual desire as he engaged in sexually explicit conduct by masturbating in her presence. He recorded this conduct and distributed it over the internet. He does not challenge the district court’s finding that the child was under eighteen years old or that the visual depictions were transported or transmitted in interstate commerce. Therefore, the district court did not err in denying the motion for judgment of acquittal. Further, the court found that the rule of lenity does not apply. View "USA v. Edgar John Dawson, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant, a class C felon, violated the conditions of his supervised release. After revoking his supervised release, the district court sentenced Defendant to the statutory maximum of two years imprisonment and added one year of home confinement with location monitoring. This appeal presented a question of first impression about supervised release and home confinement.   The Eleventh Circuit vacated Defendant’s sentence to the extent it imposed a term of home confinement and remanded for resentencing. The court held that because the district court sentenced Defendant to the statutory maximum term of two years imprisonment, it lacked authority to impose an additional year of home confinement with electronic monitoring “as an alternative to incarceration.” The court noted that as the Fifth Circuit has explained, a court cannot “impose the maximum term of incarceration under subsection (e)(3) and also impose a period of home confinement under (e)(4).” The reason is that incarceration beyond the statutory maximum term is not an option available to a district court. Because the district court did not have the option to impose imprisonment, it lacked authority to impose home confinement. The court explained that whether it views Defendant’s term of home confinement as a special condition of supervised release under Section 3563(b)(19) or as a stand-alone punishment under Section 3583(e)(4), a court may impose it “only as an alternative to incarceration.” The ordinary meaning of these provisions is that the district court erred by imposing a term of home confinement when it could not have imposed the same term of imprisonment. View "USA v. Rondell Hall" on Justia Law