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

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for various immigration crimes stemming from his participation in efforts to recruit and retain undocumented immigrants for employment at WMI in Houston. The court held that there was sufficient evidence to support defendant's conviction for conspiring to hire and for aiding and abetting in hiring undocumented aliens, for conspiracy to encourage or induce unlawful aliens to reside in the United States; and for aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft. View "United States v. Martinez" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's imposition of an above-Guidelines revocation sentence of 32 months' imprisonment for defendant. In this case, while serving a term of federal supervised release, defendant killed someone with a knife. The court affirmed the district court's judgment, holding that the district court did not sentence defendant for retributive purposes. Rather, the district court's entire focus at the revocation hearing was relitigating the dismissed murder case so it could make its own determination whether defendant acted justifiably. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing defendant where it considered the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors, and concluded that defendant's conduct created a significant risk of harm to the public and to deter defendant's future criminal conduct. View "United States v. Sanchez" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of defendant's motion for two sentence reductions under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2) based on Amendment 782 of the Sentencing Guidelines. The court held that no jurisdictional or procedural hurdle barred defendant's consolidated appeal, and the district court erred in determining that it lacked authority to reduce her sentence pursuant to Amendment 782. In this case, the district court erred in concluding that defendant was ineligible for a sentence reduction because of its incorrect determination that defendant was sentenced under the career offender provisions rather than under the drug-quantity provisions. Accordingly, the court remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Calton" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit reversed defendant's sentence, holding that the district court relied on the wrong version of the Sentencing Guidelines. The court held that because defendant's burglary conviction was not an aggravated felony or a crime of violence, sentencing under the 2015 edition of the Guidelines would have generated a sentencing range lower than the one generated from the 2016 edition. The court also held that the error affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings and should be reversed. Accordingly, the court remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Urbina-Fuentes" on Justia Law

After Angus McGinty, a former Texas state court judge, pleaded guilty to Honest Services Wire Fraud after accepting bribes for favorable rulings, he sought to vacate his conviction under 28 U.S.C. 2255. McGinty argued that his attorneys' potential criminal liability created a conflict that infringed his Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of McGinty's motion to vacate on an alternative basis. The court held that McGinty knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived the purported conflict. In this case, if McGinty's attorneys had a conflict, the uncontested facts show that McGinty opportunistically knew, even took advantage of, that fact better than anyone. View "Sealed Appellee v. Sealed Appellant" on Justia Law

At issue in this appeal was whether and when the use of hash values by law enforcement is consistent with the Fourth Amendment. The Fifth Circuit held that, under the private search doctrine, the Fourth Amendment is not implicated where the government does not conduct the search itself, but only receives and utilizes information uncovered by a search conducted by a private party.The court affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress child pornography found in his home. In this case, a private company determined that the hash values of files uploaded by defendant corresponded to the hash values of known child pornography images and passed this information on to law enforcement. The court held that this circumstance qualified as a private search for Fourth Amendment purposes because the government's subsequent law enforcement actions in reviewing the images did not effect an intrusion on defendant's privacy that he did not already experience as a result of the private search. View "United States v. Reddick" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction of making a false statement in an immigration document in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1546(a) (Count 1); conspiracy to encourage and induce an illegal alien to reside in the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1324(a)(1)(A)(v)(I) (Count 2); and encouraging an illegal alien to reside in the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) (Counts 3-6). The court held that defendant's threshold challenges to section 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) failed to establish reversible error and the evidence was sufficient to convict him of Counts 3-6; the evidence was sufficient to convict defendant of Count 1; defendant's challenges to the search warrants were rejected; and there was no error in the order of forfeiture. View "United States v. Anderton" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence for offenses related to Medicare fraud perpetuated by herself and her husband through their jointly owned company. The court could not say that defendant's crime was not grave enough that the sentence of 75 years in prison was grossly disproportionate to her crime. Although the court noted that defendant was 54 years old and that she was currently receiving treatment for metastasized breast cancer, the court concluded that this information did not change the fact of her crimes and the legal system mandated that those criminally liable receive just punishments. Therefore, defendant's sentence did not violate the Eighth Amendment and the district court did not plainly err by imposing defendant's sentence. Finally, the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion to substitute counsel. View "United States v. Neba" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of claimants' motion to release property under civil forfeiture law. The property at issue stemmed from the sale of synthetic cannabinoids that were a controlled substance or controlled substance analogues intended for human consumption.Determining that the court had jurisdiction over the appeal, the court held that, assuming arguendo, Supplemental Rule G(2)(f) applied in reviewing pretrial property restraints outside the motion-to-dismiss context, the district court used the right standard. In this case, the district asked whether the government's complaint "demonstrated with sufficient particularity for the current stage of the proceedings that defendants intentionally commingled tainted funds with untainted funds for the purpose of facilitating the alleged money laundering.” The court held that the facts here were sufficient to support this standard. The court also held that probable cause for forfeiture existed based on the charge for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. View "United States v. $472,871.95 in Funds Seized" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit granted a motion for stay pending appeal brought by fourteen judges in a class action against Harris County and its officials under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the County's system of setting bail for indigent misdemeanor arrestees violates Texas statutory and constitutional law and the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court entered a stay of Sections 7, 8, 9, and 16 pending plenary resolution of this appeal by a merits panel. In this case, the expansive injunction entered on remand repeated the mistake of the original injunction because it amounted to the outright elimination of secured bail for indigent misdemeanor arrestees. View "O'Donnell v. Harris County" on Justia Law