Justia U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

The First Circuit affirmed the holding of the district court that Defendant had twice violated the conditions of his supervised release and sentencing Defendant to an eighteen-month term of immurement, to be followed by a new four-year term of supervised release, holding that any error was harmless and that the evidence was sufficient to sustain the district court's findings.On appeal, Defendant argued (1) the district court erred by relying on previously excluded evidence to find that Defendant violated a condition of his supervised release; and (2) the district court had insufficient evidence to find a second violation. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the district court abused its discretion when it relied upon previously excluded hearsay statements in formulating its decision, but the error was harmless; and (2) the evidence supporting the district court's two findings was sufficient. View "United States v. Rodriguez" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of Defendant's motion to dismiss and motion to suppress, which Defendant filed before he was convicted of legal reentry after removal from the United States, holding that the district court did not err in not dismissing Defendant's indictment for delay in presentment or in not suppressing information that law enforcement had gathered about Defendant, including his identity.Defendant was a passenger in a van that was stopped for seatbelt violations. A Maine State Trooper who conducted the stop contacted an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer for help identifying the passengers, several of whom did not appear to speak English. When he was asked for his identification, Defendant produced a consular ID card. ICE officers ran the card through ICE databases and determined that Defendant was suspected of illegal reentry. Defendant was subsequently convicted of illegally entering the United States after removal. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) because Defendant made his initial appearance just as the criminal process was initiated, there was no unnecessary delay before his initial appearance and so no violation of Fed. R. Crim. P. 5(a); and (2) the district court properly denied Defendant's motion to suppress. View "United States v. Garcia-Zavala" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant's conviction of conspiracy to deprive a person of civil rights and sentence of eighty-seven months in prison, holding that the evidence was sufficient to sustain Defendant's conviction and that there was no other reversible error.Specifically, the Court held (1) the district court did not err in denying Defendant's motions for judgment of acquittal based on the insufficiency of the evidence; (2) the district court properly admitted testimony of two government witnesses under Fed. R. Evid. 404(b); (3) the district court did not violate Defendant's rights under the Sixth Amendment's Compulsory Process Clause or the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause; (4) the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Defendant's second motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence; and (5) Defendant's sentence was procedurally reasonable. View "United States v. Martinez-Mercado" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court denying Defendant's request to challenge the reliability of his victim's testimony by cross-examining the victim at Defendant's resentencing hearing, holding that the district court did not violate Defendant's procedural due process rights by disallowing cross-examination of the victim at Defendant's resentencing.Defendant pleaded guilty to kidnapping for ransom. The First Circuit remanded the case for resentencing. On remand, the district court judge sentenced Defendant to eight months less than his previous sentence. On appeal, Defendant argued that his procedural due process rights were violated when the judge denied him the opportunity to contest misinformation about his treatment of the victim during the abduction by cross-examining the victim, which led to the imposition of a sentence based on inaccurate information. The First Circuit disagreed and affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in denying Defendant's request to cross-examine the victim at Defendant's resentencing hearing. View "United States v. Berrios-Miranda" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court sentencing Defendant to forty-eight months in prison for unlawfully possessing a firearm, holding that Defendant's variant sentence was not procedurally unreasonable.The guideline range specified by the presentence report was thirty to thirty-seven months. The district court ultimately imposed a forty-eight-month variant sentence. On appeal, Defendant argued that the district court failed adequately to explain its reasons for imposing an above-guideline sentence, that a variant sentence was not supported by the record, and that the district court relied on erroneous facts. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the district court offered a plausible and coherent rationale for its eleven-month variance; and (2) the district court did not rely on erroneous facts in imposing Defendant's sentence. View "United States v. Rivera-Santiago" on Justia Law

The First Circuit vacated in part the district court's grant of Defendants' motion to dismiss Plaintiff's complaint, holding that the warrantless search in this case violated the Fourth Amendment because the circumstances, including deception by law enforcement officers, vitiated the consent given by Plaintiff.Plaintiff alleged that he consented to FBI agents' entry into his home and search of his computers only because the officers lied about the true reason of why there were there and what they were looking for. The district court granted Defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The First Circuit vacated in part and affirmed in part, holding (1) because the totality of the circumstances pointed to a situation involving beguilement, the government did not meet its burden to prove voluntariness, and therefore, the warrantless entry into Plaintiff's home and the search and seizure of his computer violated the Fourth Amendment; (2) Defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity on Plaintiff's search-based Fourth Amendment claim because any reasonable officer would have recognized that the circumstances were impermissibly coercive; and (3) even if Plaintiffs' malicious prosecution claim had merit, Defendants would be entitled to qualified immunity. View "Pagan-Gonzalez v. Moreno" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s conviction of three counts of transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, holding that Defendant’s sentence was both procedurally and substantively reasonable.Defendant received a within-guidelines sentence of forty-years’ imprisonment in connection with his conviction. On appeal, Defendant argued that his sentence was based on unreliable information in his presentence report, that the district court did not adequately consider his argument that the relevant sex offense guidelines are not supported by empirical evidence, and that his sentence was greater than necessary to achieve deterrence and did not take into account his ability to rehabilitate. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that Defendant did not undermine either the procedural or substantive reasonableness of his within-the-range sentence. View "United States v. Santiago-Colon" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the decision of the district court denying Defendant’s motion to suppress and sentencing Defendant, holding that the evidence was not obtained in violation of Defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights and that Defendant was properly sentenced.Defendant was convicted for producing six videos depicting him sexually assaulting a three-year-old child. Defendant appealed the denial of his motion to suppress evidence recovered from his residence and statements he made to law enforcement at his residence and during a later interrogation. The district court concluded that Defendant knowingly and voluntarily consented to the search of his residence and that there was no Fourth Amendment violation. At sentencing, Defendant argued that the charges were multiplicitous because the videos were taken during one continuous sexual assault. The district court disagreed and sentenced Defendant to a fifty-year term of imprisonment. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) even assuming that law enforcement committed a Fourth Amendment violation before encountering Defendant, any prior illegality did not influence Defendant’s subsequent consent to the search of his computer and hard drives, and Defendant’s consent to the search was knowing and voluntary; and (2) the proper unit of prosecution under 18 U.S.C. 2251(a), the federal child pornography statute, is each video depicting the victim. View "United States v. Smith" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s conviction and sentence for two counts of conspiracy to possess and possession with intent to distribute heroin and cocaine base, holding, among other things, that the district court did not err in denying Defendant’s motions to suppress two warrants obtained by law enforcement and evidence obtained from Defendant’s warrantless arrest.Specifically, the Court held (1) there was no error int he issuance of precise location information (PLI) warrants by a magistrate judge allowing monitoring of the locations of Defendant’s two cell phones; (2) the cell phones were not tracking devices under 18 U.S.C. 3117; (3) the PLI warrants did not violate Fed. R. Crim. P. 41(b); (4) the use of rebuttal testimony from a pretrial services officer to impeach a witness was proper; and (5) the sentencing court’s adoption of two sentencing enhancements was not procedurally unreasonable. View "United States v. Ackies" on Justia Law

The First Circuit reversed the order of the district court dismissing aggravated identity theft counts against three doctors and three employees of a durable medical equipment supplier in Puerto Rico, holding that the motion to dismiss a grand jury indictment did not provide an occasion in this case for determining, over the government’s objection, whether the facts alleged in the indictment were sufficient to establish the charged offense.A United States grand jury indictment indicted Defendants on counts of health care fraud and conspiracy to commit health care fraud and aggravated identity theft. In dismissing the aggravated identity theft counts, the district court concluded that the facts alleged in the indictment did not adequately make out a case for aggravated identity theft. The First Circuit reversed, holding that the proceedings as they stood at this stage provided no occasion for determining whether the government’s proof was sufficient to sustain a conviction, and the record lacked any agreed upon completeness. View "United States v. Rodriguez-Rivera" on Justia Law