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

The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to suppress drugs, a digital scale, and a firearm obtained following a traffic stop of the vehicle in which Defendant was a passenger. In his motion to suppress, Defendant argued that the evidence was obtained through an illegal search and pat-frisk. The district judge denied the motion after an evidentiary hearing, finding that the pat-frisk was warranted. Defendant then pled guilty to possession of heroin with intent to distribute, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court, holding that the totality of the circumstances provided a particularized objective basis for the officer’s suspicion that Defendant was armed and dangerous, and therefore, the district court properly denied Defendant’s motion to suppress. View "United States v. Orth" on Justia Law

While police officers conducted an unlawful search by testing a key in the lock of the unit in which he was staying, the district court properly denied Defendant’s motion to suppress because, in searching the apartment, the officers relied in good faith on a warrant issued to search that unit.The key was seized from Defendant during a search incident to his arrest. The police tried the key on doors to apartments inside a multi-family building outside which Defendant was arrested. The key opened the door to one of the units. When a warrant issued, police searched the unit and discovered a firearm and drugs. The district court denied Defendant’s motion to suppress. Defendant was subsequently convicted drug- and firearm-related crimes. The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s conviction and sentence, holding (1) there was an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment, but the exclusionary rule should not apply in this case; (2) the district court did not err in admitting evidence that there was a credit-card-making machine in the unit; and (3) under plain error review, there was no error in the district court’s application of the fifteen-year-mandatory minimum sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act. View "United States v. Bain" on Justia Law

Defendant challenged his 560-month sentence, entered pursuant to a guilty plea, for brandishing and discharging firearms during a crime of violence. On appeal, Defendant argued (1) the government breached the plea agreement by arguing at the sentencing hearing that Defendant “had not accepted responsibility”; and (2) his and his co-defendant’s sentences were “unduly disparate.” The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) there was no breach of the plea agreement; and (2) Defendant’s 560-month sentence was not substantively unreasonable in light of his co-defendant’s 380-month sentence where Defendant was more culpable than his co-defendant. View "United States v. Ortiz-Torres" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s sentence of nine years’ imprisonment imposed in connection with his conviction for violating 18 U.S.C. 371 and 666(a) by conspiring to bribe and paying a bribe to a judge on the Puerto Rico Court of First Instance. The First Circuit held that the district court (1) did not err in calculating the value of the benefit to the judge; (2) did not err by finding that the criminal activity involved five or more participants; (3) followed the preferred methodology when it determined Defendant’s sentence; (4) did not abuse its discretion by considering evidence of Defendant’s prior acts; (5) was not required to inform Defendant that it intended to rely on evidence from Defendant’s detention hearing and public corruption statistics; and (6) imposed a variance, not a departure. View "United States v. Acevedo-Lopez" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed Defendant’s 151-month prison sentence imposed after he pled guilty to drug crimes.On appeal, Defendant argued that the district court erred in sentencing him as a career offender based on his prior drug convictions under N.Y. Penal Law 110 and 220.31 and in applying the criminal-livelihood enhancement under section 2D1.1(b)(15)(E) of the sentencing guidelines. The First Circuit found no error, holding (1) the district court correctly sentenced Defendant under the career-offender guideline because Defendant’s two prior drug convictions under New York law constituted predicate offenses under the career-offender provision, 4B1.1 of the sentencing guidelines; and (2) the district court did not err in finding that Defendant qualified for the criminal-livelihood enhancement under section 4B1.3 of the sentencing guidelines. View "United States v. Davis" on Justia Law

In these consolidated appeals, the First Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision to (1) dismiss Plaintiffs’ claims under Massachusetts law for libel and intentional interference with prospective contractual relations, (2) bar portions of Plaintiffs’ Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93A claim from going forward, and (3) award attorney’s fees and costs to Defendant.These consolidated appeals concerned a lawsuit that involved a number of claims arising under federal copyright law, state tort law, and chapter 93A. Defendant operated a website called RipoffReport.com. Plaintiffs were a Massachusetts attorney, a corporate entity that the attorney created, and Christian DuPont. Plaintiffs’ claims pertained to a dispute arising from two reports that DuPont authored and posted on the Ripoff Report and that were highly critical of the attorney. The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s partial grant of Defendant’s motion to dismiss, the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendant, and the district court’s fees award order for the reasons stated above. View "Small Justice LLC v. Xcentric Ventures LLC" on Justia Law

The First Circuit dismissed portions of this interlocutory appeal for want of appellate jurisdiction and otherwise affirmed the district court’s ruling that Defendant was not entitled to qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage.Stephen McKenney died at the hands of Defendant, a police officer “who was trying to do his job.” Plaintiff filed a complaint against Defendant under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that Defendant’s use of deadly force transgressed McKenney’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures. Defendant filed an interlocutory appeal challenging a pretrial ruling in which the district court denied summary judgment for Defendant on qualified immunity grounds. The First Circuit dismissed the appeal in part for want of appellate jurisdiction and otherwise affirmed the district court’s denial of summary judgment, holding (1) certain aspects of the interlocutory order denying summary judgment were not appealable; and (2) while this court had jurisdiction to consider whether the contours of the relevant Fourth Amendment law were so blurred at the time Defendant shot McKenney that he was deserving of qualified immunity, the argument lacked force. View "McKenney v. Mangino" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed Appellant’s convictions of securities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit both. The convictions arose from Appellant’s writing of false opinion letters so that his two co-conspirators could sell stock to the public in a “pump and dump” scheme. On appeal, Appellant argued that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions in light of his interpretation of section 3(a)(9) of the Securities Act and that the district court constructively amended the indictment in its instructions to the jury. The First Circuit held (1) even if Appellant’s interpretation of section 3(a)(9) was correct, the evidence was sufficient to support his convictions; and (2) Appellant’s constructive amendment claim was without merit. View "United States v. Weed" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court accepting Appellant’s guilty plea and his resulting sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The district court sentenced Appellant to fifty-seven months in prison and three years of supervised release, a sentence that was to be served consecutively to Appellant’s earlier sentence for violating the terms of his supervise release. The court held (1) Appellant’s guilty plea was knowing and voluntary; (2) the government did not engage in a clear or obvious breach of the plea agreement by recommending a sentence of fifty-seven months; and (3) the trial court did not violate Appellant’s right to allocution. View "United States v. Tanco-Pizarro" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s suit against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), holding that the FTCA’s discretionary function exception applied and, therefore, that the government had not waived its sovereign immunity.In her suit, Plaintiff alleged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) negligently supervised the use of its surveillance equipment by her then-husband, an FBI agent. The district court dismissed the suit for want of subject-matter jurisdiction. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that because Plaintiff did not plead sufficient specific facts to show that the challenged conduct did not involve a discretionary function, she was not entitled to the FTCA’s waiver of sovereign immunity. View "Gordo-Gonzalez v. United States" on Justia Law