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

The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of a petition for habeas relief, holding that equitable tolling was appropriate under the specific circumstances presented. The court agreed with petitioner that the district court should have equitably tolled the limitations period while he waited for notice from the TCCA that it had denied his state habeas application. Accordingly, the court remanded for consideration of the habeas petition. View "Jackson v. Davis" on Justia Law

The Sex Offender Registration Act requires a circumstance-specific inquiry into the victim's age when classifying sex offender tier levels to determine whether the victim was a minor, or, in the case of a tier III categorization under 34 U.S.C. 20911(4)(A)(ii), whether the victim was younger than 13. The Fifth Circuit held, as a matter of first impression, that the text of SORNA does not permit a court, when applying the categorical approach to determine sex offender tier levels, to conduct a circumstance-specific inquiry into an offender-victim age differential that is built into one of the corresponding cross-referenced offenses as an element of the crime.The court vacated the district court's conclusion that defendant's prior Utah conviction for unlawful sexual activity with a minor classified him as a tier II sex offender. The court held that the district court deviated from the categorical approach to classify him as a tier II sex offender. In this case, looking solely at the elements, the Utah offense under which defendant was convicted sweeps more broadly than the cross-referenced federal offense corresponding to tier level II. Accordingly, the court remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Escalante" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit previous affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's request under 18 U.S.C. 3599(f) for investigatory funding because he had not shown a substantial need that made the funds reasonably necessary to the representation. The Supreme Court subsequently held that the statute did not require a showing of substantial need and remanded.On remand, the court held that investigatory funding was not reasonably necessary in this case, because nothing would establish the ineffectiveness of state-habeas counsel, a gateway requirement for petitioner to overcome the procedural default of his claim that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to present certain mitigating evidence of substance abuse and mental illness. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's request for investigatory funding. View "Ayestas v. Stephens" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed appellant's sentence as modified. After appellant pleaded guilty of conspiring to possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine, the district court sentenced him to 72 months in prison and 5 years of supervised release, including special conditions of supervised release. The court modified the written judgment to remove any doubt regarding the scope of the special conditions and what they required of appellant, leaving the other special conditions unchanged. On the merits, the court held that appellant failed to demonstrate that the district court erred, let alone plainly erred, by imposing the assessment and treatment conditions. In this case, the district court exercised its wide discretion in crafting the special conditions of supervised release, and the conditions satisfied the statutory requirements. Finally, the court also held that appellant failed to show that the district court erred, plainly or otherwise, in sentencing him to 72 months' imprisonment. View "Sealed Appellee v. Sealed Appellant" on Justia Law

Defendants were convicted of crimes related to their involvement in picking up a delivery of what they understood to be "drug money." The Fifth Circuit affirmed Defendant Anderson and Gonzalez's convictions for conspiracy to violate the Travel Act, holding that the evidence was sufficient to support their convictions; reversed their convictions for attempted money laundering, holding that their conduct stopped at the attempted drug trafficking and never advanced far enough for them to effect any part of the follow-on laundering transaction that they planned; reversed Anderson's conviction for conspiracy to possess extortion proceeds, holding that the evidence was insufficient to support the requisite mens rea where Anderson had no knowledge that extortion was afoot; and vacated their sentences and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Anderson" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendants' convictions for crimes related to their involvement in a marriage-fraud conspiracy. As to Defendant Alabi's contentions of error, the court held that the evidence was sufficient to show that he knowingly entered the conspiracy to commit immigration fraud or to aid and abet immigration fraud, and he failed to overcome his substantial burden to demonstrate that the district court abused its discretion in denying his proposed jury instruction.The court also held that the district court's refusal to sever Defendant Daniel's case from that of Defendant Andrews did not prejudice Daniel. Finally, the court held that Andrews failed to demonstrate that the district court erred, plainly or otherwise, in imposing the psychoactive-substances special condition. View "United States v. Daniel" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence after he pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon. At sentencing, the district court imposed an upward variance, relying in part on the presentence report's (PSR) description of two instances where defendant was arrested and charged with offenses involving injury to a child. The PSR noted that the charges were ultimately no-billed by Texas grand juries, and defendant argued that the PSR's description of the conduct underpinning his prior arrests was insufficiently reliable for the district court to take the arrests into account at sentencing.The Fifth Circuit held that by itself, the no-bill cannot transform a factual recitation with sufficient indicia of reliability into one that lacks such indicia. In this case, the court held that the district court relied on sufficiently reliable evidence to find that defendant had committed the underlying activities and based the upward variance in part upon those activities. The court need not address whether a grand jury no-bill precludes a sentencing court's ability to find by a preponderance that the defendant committed the particular no-billed offense. View "United States v. Fields" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's convictions for wire fraud and money laundering, as well as his restitution order. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to convict defendant of the crimes, and the district court did not abuse its discretion by ordering defendant to pay $5,402,661 under the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act.However, the court vacated defendant's sentence, holding that the district court's Guidelines calculation was off by a single point. In this case, the district court sentenced defendant under the money laundering guideline, USSG 2S1.1(a), and imposed two adjustments under Chapter Three—the abuse-of-trust enhancement (2 points) and the leadership enhancement (4 points); but it based both on defendant's wire fraud conduct, not his money laundering conduct. Therefore, under current Supreme Court precedent and the facts of this case, the court remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Del Carpio Frescas" on Justia Law

In 2007, the Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence after he was convicted of stealing over $77 million from his employer. In 2017, the government filed a substantial assistance motion under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(b) seeking to reduce defendant's sentence.The court affirmed the district court's one sentence refusal to reduce the sentence, holding that the district court did not err under any standard of review and there was nothing procedurally unreasonable about the way the district court denied the section 35(b) motion. Furthermore, defendant forfeited any argument that a district court imposes a sentence in violation of the law under section 3742(a)(1) when it grossly abuses its discretion in denying a Rule 35(b) motion. View "United States v. Nelson" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for conspiracy, access device fraud, and identity theft for his role in a fraudulent check-cashing scheme. The court declined to address the standing issue, holding that the officer had reasonable suspicion of illegal activity to extend the traffic stop. Furthermore, the district court did not clearly err by finding that defendant voluntarily consented to the search. The court also held that the district court did not clearly err in determining the loss amount; by applying a leadership role sentencing enhancement under USSG 3B1.1(a); and by applying an obstruction of justice sentencing enhancement under USSG 3C1.1. View "United States v. Glenn" on Justia Law