Justia U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion for sentence reduction filed pursuant to section 404 of the First Step Act of 2018. The court held that the district court did not misinterpret United States v. Hegwood, 934 F.3d 414, 418 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 285 (2019), as precluding consideration of the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors during First Step Act sentencings and preventing any downward departure or variance from the guidelines range.However, the court held that it is not clear where the district court considered and implicitly rejected defendant's request for a reduction of his term of supervised release, or merely overlooked it. Therefore, the court remanded the issue to the district court for consideration and disposition. The court rejected defendant's argument that the district court's re-imposition of a 262-month sentence resulted in a substantively unreasonable sentence. Rather, the court held that the substantive reasonableness standard does not apply here and that defendant has not demonstrated an abuse of discretion or legal error occurred. Finally, defendant's argument that the district court failed to consider the guidelines range applicable to him if he were sentenced today is foreclosed by Hegwood. View "United States v. Batiste" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's concurrent, within-Guidelines sentences of 120 months for being a felon in possession of a firearm and 151 months for possessing with intent to distribute a controlled substance. The court held that the district court did not err by applying the career offender enhancement because Louisiana R.S. 40:967 is divisible and, under the modified categorical approach, sufficiently narrow to serve as a predicate for a career offender sentence enhancement under section 4B1.1(a). Therefore, defendant's previous conviction under Louisiana R.S. 40:967 was a valid predicate offense for the sentence enhancement in this case. View "United States v. Frierson" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute methamphetamine. In this case, the parties agree that the Government conducted a search when it used the GPS coordinates from Verizon to locate defendant's girlfriend's phone.The court affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress, holding that the "place searched" is limited to location information about defendant's girlfriend and that defendant does not have a Fourth Amendment property or privacy interest in that information. Therefore, defendant did not have Fourth Amendment standing to challenge the search. Furthermore, the Supreme Court's decision in Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206 (2018), does not change the result. Even if defendant had standing to challenge the GPS search, the court held that he has failed to show that the search was unreasonable where the warrant clearly complies with the plain text of the Stored Communications Act. Finally, the court held that defendant never challenged the constitutionality of the traffic stop in the district court and offered no argument that the court should overlook his forfeiture under plain error review. View "United States v. Beaudion" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, holding that there is a sufficient factual basis to support the conviction. In this case, the record contains defendant's own admission that he possessed the firearm and the record also contains circumstantial evidence supporting defendant's advance knowledge, such as the presence of the firearm in defendant's car and the proximity of the gun to paraphernalia of drug distribution.Nevertheless, because the district court erroneously indicated that defendant pleaded guilty to the second superseding indictment, when in fact he pleaded guilty to the superseding indictment, the court remanded for correction of the judgment under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 36. View "United States v. Cooper" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for production of child pornography. The court held that the magistrate judge did not commit plain error during the plea colloquy; there was sufficient factual basis to satisfy the jurisdiction hook of 18 U.S.C. 2251(a) and thus support defendant's conviction; the district court did not plainly err by applying three sentencing enhancements under USSG 2G2.1(b)(2)(A) ("sexual contact"); 2G2.1(b)(3) ("distribution"); and 2G2.1(b)(6)(B) ("use of a computer"); and defendant's facial challenge to section 2251(a)'s constitutionality is foreclosed. View "United States v. King" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendants' convictions for multiple counts of health care fraud and multiple counts of aggravated identity theft based on their submission of fraudulent insurance claims. Defendant Terry Anderson owned an optical and hearing aid business which employed his son, Defendant Rocky Anderson.The court held that there was sufficient evidence to support the health care fraud charges where a reasonable jury could conclude that defendants made implicit fraudulent representations, that they had the intent to defraud, or that their alleged false representations were material. The court also held that there was sufficient evidence to support the aggravated identity theft convictions because there was sufficient evidence to support the underlying felony of health care fraud and there is direct or circumstantial evidence linking both Andersons to the clients in counts 12 through 15. View "United States v. Anderson" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit treated the petition for rehearing en banc as a petition for panel rehearing, denied the petition for panel rehearing, and denied the petition for rehearing en banc. The court withdrew its prior opinion and substituted the following opinion.The court affirmed the district court's judgment, holding that the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress where probable cause still exists even if the allegedly false statements are excised in the Title III wiretap affidavit; district court did not err in denying defendant's request for a Franks hearing; the evidence was sufficient to support his drug conspiracy conviction where a rational trier of fact could have found that defendant conspired with others to distribute crack cocaine; and the district court did not err by applying a firearm enhancement and an Armed Career Criminal Offender enhancement to defendant's sentence. The court dismissed the Sixth Amendment claim of ineffective counsel without prejudice because defendant did not preserve this challenge for direct appeal. View "United States v. Kendrick" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit withdrew its previous opinion and affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief to petitioner. Petitioner contends that the state court's decision denying his Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause claim was contrary to and involved an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent.The court held that Tennessee v. Street, 471 U.S. 409, 414 (1985), and Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S. Ct. 1620, 20 L. Ed. 2d 476 (1968), do not even address the Confrontation Clause issue raised by petitioner's claims. To the extent the state district court was applying either opinion, the court concluded that it was an unreasonable application to hold they controlled as to these different facts. Rather, the court concluded that Gray v. Maryland, 523 U.S. 185 (1998), was closer factually and analytically to what occurred in this case. Nonetheless, the court concluded that any error was harmless because it did not have a substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict. View "Atkins v. Hooper" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's 151 month sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine. The court held that the district court did not clearly err in denying defendant a mitigating-role reduction where the record demonstrates that defendant understood the scope and structure of the conspiracy, exercised decision-making authority, participated in the conspiracy and performed acts to further it, and financially benefitted from the conspiracy. Though the lack of evidence regarding the degree to which defendant participated in planning or organizing the conspiracy weighs in favor of mitigation, the court has found that when some factors support the reduction, but others do not, the district court does not clearly err in denying the reduction.The court also held that defendant did not request the district court to articulate a factual basis for denying the mitigation-role reduction and thus United States v. Melton, 930 F.2d 1096, 1099 (5th Cir. 1991), is inapplicable to his case. Therefore, defendant failed to show any error, much less plain error, and remand is unnecessary. View "United States v. Pike" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit joined the Second, Third, Fourth, and Ninth Circuits in adopting the fugitive tolling doctrine in the context of supervised release. The court held that 18 U.S.C. 3583(i) does not foreclose the fugitive tolling doctrine, and 18 U.S.C. 3624(e) does not preempt the fugitive tolling doctrine. As the four circuits to adopt it so far recognize, the court noted that by ensuring defendants participate in their supervision, the fugitive tolling doctrine protects the statutory scheme of post-confinement monitoring that Congress established in the Sentencing Reform Act.In this case, defendant argues that because his supervised release term ended in November 2018, the district court lacked jurisdiction over violations that occurred in October 2019. The court affirmed the district court's revocation of defendant's supervised release and held that defendant's status as a fugitive tolled his period of supervision. View "United States v. Cartagena-Lopez" on Justia Law