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

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant's sentence for bank robbery, Hobbs Act robbery, and a related firearms offense, holding that Appellant's argument that the district court impermissibly considered Appellant's gender as a factor in the sentencing calculus was without merit.The district court sentenced Appellant to a total of 108 months of incarceration. On appeal, Appellant argued that the district court (1) committed procedural error by failing to appreciate that it had discretion to consider the mandatory sentence on the firearms count when formulating the sentence for the grouped counts, and (2) violated his constitutional right to equal protection by engaging in gender stereotyping when formulating his sentence. The First Circuit disagreed, holding (1) the district court in this case did not commit the same procedural error that the Supreme Court condemned in Dean v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1170, 1178 (2017); and (2) Appellant failed to make a plausible showing of any violation of his right to equal protection. View "United States v. Blewitt" on Justia Law

The First Circuit dismissed without prejudice Appellant's appeal arguing that his firearms conviction and sentence violated double jeopardy protections, holding that the record as presented did not permit evaluation of Appellant's double jeopardy claim.Appellant pled guilty to conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. 1962(d), and to using or carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime. On appeal, Appellant argued that his firearms conviction and sentence violated the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against double jeopardy because the conviction and sentence duplicated his prior conviction and sentence for a firearms offense under Puerto Rico law. The First Circuit dismissed the appeal because the record contained only the untranslated, Spanish-language judicial documentation of the Puerto Rico firearms convictions, which is inadequate by terms of the Jones Act, 48 U.S.C. 864. The Court, however, dismissed the appeal without prejudice to Appellant's right to raise his double jeopardy claim on the basis of translated records in future, collateral-review proceedings. View "United States v. Pacheco" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court granting Defendant's motion to dismiss this suit brought by the insurer (Insurer) of a chicken products manufacturer seeking damages from the manufacturer's chicken supplier (Supplier) for claims under Maine law of breach of warranty and strict product liability, holding that the district court did not err in dismissing the claims.Insurer sought to recoup the money it paid to the manufacturer for the losses the manufacturer incurred when its products were recalled following a salmonella outbreak. Insurer's complaint against Supplier alleged that the manufacturer received raw chicken from Supplier that was contaminated with salmonella and was therefore defective under Maine law. The district court dismissed all claims, concluding that the allegations in the complaint did not plausibly allege that the raw chicken sent by Supplier to the manufacturer was defective and that the strict liability claim was independently barred by the economic loss doctrine. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) as to the breach of warranty claims, Insurer failed to plausibly allege that the raw chicken at issue was contaminated with a type of salmonella that would persist despite proper cooking; and (2) Insurer's strict liability claim was properly dismissed because the complaint failed to allege facts that could suffice to show that the chicken was defective. View "Starr Surplus Lines Insurance Co. v. Mountaire Farms Inc." on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant's conviction for transporting child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(1), holding that the district court did not err in denying Defendant's motion to suppress and imposing as a special condition of Defendant's supervised release that Defendant submit to periodic polygraph tests.On appeal, Defendant argued, among other things, that the district court erred in concluding that the government did not violate the Fourth Amendment in obtaining and then reviewing "specific IP addresses" associated with Defendant's account with Kik, a smartphone messaging application, as well as the "specific dates and times associated with each instance of internet access accomplished from those IP addresses." The First Circuit held (1) Defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the information that the government acquired from Kik without a warrant; and (2) the district court did not abuse its discretion in including periodic polygraph testing as a special condition of Defendant's supervised release. View "United States v. Hood" on Justia Law

In this sentencing appeal brought by the United States the First Circuit vacated Defendant's sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm and remanded the case for resentencing, holding that Defendant's prior Maine drug trafficking conviction properly qualified as a "controlled substance offense" under the United States Sentencing Guidelines.The district court essentially adopted the reasoning of another Maine federal judge in another case and held that, as a matter of law, Defendant's prior Maine drug trafficking conviction did not qualify as a predicate controlled substance offense under U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(a). The First Circuit disagreed, holding that Defendant's prior conviction properly qualified as a "controlled substance offense." View "United States v. Mohamed" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court ordering Appellant to pay mandatory restitution in connection with his conviction of crimes arising from a conspiracy to steer telecommunications contracts with the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico to a company controlled by a co-conspirator through a rigged bidding process, holding that there was no error in the district court's restitution calculation.The district court ordered Appellant to pay mandatory restitution of $408,208.42 pursuant to the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A(a)(1), (c)(1)(A) & (B). Because Appellant did not object to the restitution amount at sentencing the First Circuit reviewed the amount for plain error. The Court then affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in calculating the restitution amount. View "United States v. Gonzalez-Calderon" on Justia Law

In this consolidated appeal, the First Circuit held that the district court did not err in concluding that the court that issued a wiretap warrant could have found the facts in the application to be at least minimally adequate to support the issuance of the warrant, thus affirming the judgments below.A federal grand jury handed up an indictment charging all four defendants in this consolidated appeal with conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute heroin and cocaine and distribution and possession with intent to distribute heroin and/or cocaine. The four defendants eventually pleaded guilty to all charges. On appeal, the defendants challenged the district court's ruling on the motion to suppress wiretap evidence. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in concluding that the wiretap application, read in tandem with its supporting affidavit, was more than minimally adequate to support the wiretap authorization. View "United States v. Santana-Dones" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant's sentence of seventy-one months' incarceration plus three years of supervised release in connection with his conviction for one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, holding that the sentence was neither procedurally nor substantively unreasonable.Defendant pleaded guilty to the offense without a plea agreement. The district court accepted the straight plea. The district court determined that a sentence at the higher end of the guideline range was sufficient, but not greater than necessary, and imposed the seventy-one-month incarcerate term and three years of supervised release. On appeal, Defendant asserted procedural and substantive error. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that there was no reversible procedural error in sentencing, and Defendant's claim of substantive error in his sentencing similarly failed. View "United States v. Ortiz-Mercado" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed district court's grant of judgment in favor of Defendant Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. (MetLife) on Plaintiff's suit challenging the denial of long-term disability (LTD) benefits for Plaintiff under his employee welfare benefit plan (Plan), holding that MetLife's decision to deny LTD benefits to Plaintiff based on physical disability was reasonable and substantially supported by the evidence.MetLife, the Plan's administrator, denied Plaintiff's claim for benefits, concluding that the medical information provided by Plaintiff did not support the conclusion that Plaintiff was precluded from performing his job due to his medical conditions. After exhausting his administrative remedies, Plaintiff brought suit under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1001-1461. The district court granted judgment on the administrative record to MetLife. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) MetLife adequately considered the conditions documented by Plaintiff's physician and physiatrist; (2) MetLife consistently interpreted the Plan; (3) MetLife provided Plaintiff with sufficient information regarding the requisite showing to qualify for LTD benefits; and (4) MetLife did not act in an arbitrary or capricious manner by considering the functional limitations of Plaintiff's condition. View "Santana-Diaz v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co." on Justia Law

The First Circuit vacated the decision of the district court granting Defendants' motion to dismiss the indictment against them for failing to satisfy the "obtaining of property" element of Hobbs Act extortion, holding that the "obtaining of property" element was satisfied in this case.Defendants were two officials of the City of Boston, Massachusetts, who allegedly threatened to withhold permits from a production company that need the permits to hold a music festival unless the company agreed to hire works from a specific union to work at the event. Defendants were indicted for Hobbs act extortion and conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act extortion. The district court granted Defendants' motion to dismiss, concluding that the evidence was insufficient to show, as it interpreted "obtaining of property" in the Hobbs Act extortion provision to require, that Defendants received a personal benefit from the transfer of wages and benefits to the union workers that Defendants allegedly directed the production company to make. The First Circuit vacated the order of dismissal, holding that the "obtaining of property" element may be satisfied by evidence showing that Defendants induced the victim's consent to transfer property to third parties that Defendants identified, even where Defendants did not incur any personal benefit from the transfer. View "United States v. Brissette" on Justia Law