CLICK TO READ United States v. Abedel Sattar Alkheqani, Docket # 21-10966

Defendant was convicted of Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon after a jury trial.  He received an enhanced sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) based on the underlying conduct of engaging in a shooting and based on his four prior convictions in state court for Burglary of a Habitation.  He received an enhanced sentence of 324 months imprisonment.  He argued that ACCA should not apply because his prior convictions constituted a single criminal episode.  On appeal, for the first time he argued that the District Court considered only the Pre-Sentence Report and was required to review the charging document, plea agreement, transcripts of plea, and findings by the state court before making a determination under ACCA.  The Fifth Circuit agreed, and reversed and remanded for resentencing.

CLICK TO READ United States v. Bryant Lamont Harris, Docket # 23-30030

Harris was charged for threatening to assault a federal judge in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 115(a)(1)(B).  Shortly after his arrest, Harris underwent a behavioral health evaluation. Among other things, the evaluation noted Harris’s delusional belief that he was offered “multiple women and $500k a month contract to join the Illuminati” due to his “special gifts.”  A hearing was held on competency and he was determined to be mentally incompetent to stand trial.  Medication was ordered, but he refused it due to his religious faith to abstain from psychiatric medication. Because he is not competent to stand trial, though, the government requested to involuntarily medicate him, and the District Court granted the motion.  However, the District Court did not analyze whether any statutory religious-freedom protections applied.  The case was vacated and remanded for the District Court to consider whether the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc to 2000cc-5, applied to his claim.

CLICK TO READ United States v. Larry Ray Lincks, Docket # 21-10917

Larry Lincks pled guilty of Possession with Intent to Distribute Methamphetamine and was sentenced to 188 months of imprisonment, consecutive to sentences imposed in unrelated state convictions.  Lincks then filed a § 2255 motion, contending, among other things, that his attorney rendered IAC because (a) he failed to explain the presentence report (“PSR”), making the guilty plea unknowing and involuntary; (b) he failed to file a motion to suppress and dismiss evidence and failed to investigate; (c) he erroneously advised that Lincks’s guideline range would be 60 to 72 months2; and (d) he failed to look at discovery materials, which led to a higher guideline range than expected.  In addition, Lincks filed two motions for discovery, which the magistrate judge denied. The District Court denied Lincks’s renewed motion for discovery, accepted the magistrate judge’s report, and denied a Certificate of Appealability.

The Fifth Circuit granted a Certificate of Appealability on the issue of whether Lincks’s trial counsel was ineffective in advising him about the guideline range, affecting his decision to plead guilty.  The Fifth Circuit also considered whether the District Court abused its discretion in denying discovery.

While the Fifth Circuit affirmed the denial of the § 2255 motion, it clarified that Certificates of Appealability are not required to independently appeal evidentiary rulings when a Certificate of Appealability has been granted on a merits claim.  Thus, “a petition challenging an evi-dentiary ruling may only be entertained as corollary to a constitutional viola-tion.”13 At a practical level, a § 2255 petitioner seeking appellate review of an evidentiary decision must explain why review of that decision is necessary or helpful in resolving a constitutional claim for which he is seeking (or has obtained) a COA.

CLICK TO READ United States v. Patrick Darnell Daniels, Jr., Docket # 22-60596

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) bars an individual from possessing a fire-arm if he is an “unlawful user” of a controlled substance. Patrick Daniels is one such “unlawful user”—he admitted to smoking marijuana multiple days per month. But the government presented no evidence that he was intoxicated at the time of arrest, nor did it identify when he last had used marijuana. Still, based on his confession to regular usage, a jury convicted Daniels of violating § 922(g)(3).  The question is whether Daniels’s conviction violates his right to bear arms.

The Fifth Circuit held that based on N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111, 2126 (2022), § 922(g)(3) is inconsistent with our nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”  Because it is inconsistent, it is an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment.  Conviction reversed and Indictment dismissed.

(Note:  Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, is charged in a Delaware Federal Court with the same offense and will likely use this decision to move to dismiss his charges).

CLICK TO READ United States v. Phillip Matthew Sinclear, Docket # 22-10452

Defendant was convicted of Conspiracy to Possess with Intent to Distribute Methamphetamine and sentenced to an enhanced 210 month sentence.  His sentence included a 2-level enhancement under Guideline § 2D1.1(b)(1) for possession of a dangerous weapon based on the fact that during the search of a residence where a drug deal took place, a firearm was on a table in plain view.  Defendant objected to the 2-level enhancement, arguing that his simple presence at someone else’s residence was not relevant conduct as a part of his conspiracy, especially where the firearm was later confirmed to be owned by the owner of the house.  Sincleair asserted that it is “not foreseeable that a firearm would be needed in a social setting amongst two couples involved in recreational drug use.”  The District Court overruled his objection.

The Fifth Circuit reversed.  For the enhancement to apply, the government must show by a preponderance of the evidence that a temporal and spatial relation existed between the weapon, the drug trafficking activity, and the defendant.  Alternatively, when another individual involved in the commission of an offense possessed the weapon, the government must show that the defendant could have reasonably foreseen that possession.  If the government satisfies this burden, then the burden shifts and the defendant must show that it is clearly improbable that the weapon was connected to the offense.  The Fifth Circuit held that the record does not support the District Court’s application of the § 2D1.1(b)(1) enhancement a second time under either the constructive or the co-conspirator theories of possession.  The Government was unable to demonstrate a temporal and spatial relation between the gun, the two parties involved in the drug transaction (which did not include Defendant), and the Defendant.  Moreover, the district court did not definitively state that the enhancement was based on constructive or co-conspirator possession. Neither did it make any additional findings regarding these theories.

Sentence reversed and remanded for resentencing.

CLICK TO READ United States v. Vinson Lee Willis, Jr., Docket # 22-10384

Defendant pled guilty to three counts of possessing a firearm as a felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).  The presentence report (“PSR”) calculated Willis’s offense level to be 30 and his criminal-history category to be V, which resulted in a Guidelines range of 151–188 months’ imprisonment and 3 years’ supervised release. Willis filed no objections to the PSR.  The District Court issued a sentence of 120 months on each count “consecutively” but “only to the extent it produces a total aggregate of 188 months.”  The Bureau of Prisons wrote to the court it could not execute the sentence, and the District Court scheduled a “re-sentencing hearing.”  At the hearing, the District Court said it was “reimposing” the original sentence “with a little tweak” and then sentenced him on each count to 120 months on Counts # 1 and # 2 to run concurrently, and 60 months on Count # 3 to run consecutively for a total of 180 months.

The Fifth Circuit held that because Defendant had filed his Notice of Appeal after the original sentence, the District Court did not have jurisdiction to resentence him based on the one-court-at-a-time rule.  The resentencing was null and void.  The original sentence was also impermissibly ambiguous because it was is either “internally self-contradictory” or “ambiguous with respect to the time and manner in which it is to be served.”