Criminal Law

In prosecution on charge of felon in possession of firearm charge, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress seizure of firearm from his vehicle that was obtained via search warrant, even though defendant argued that said seizure arose out of unlawful activation of defendant’s key fob by officer in order to identify his car. Ct of Appeals declined to rule on question as to whether officer’s use of key fob to identify defendant’s car constituted “search” for purposes of Fourth Amendment and held that evidence seized from defendant’s vehicle was admissible under independent-source doctrine, where: (1) government obtained said evidence via independent legal source such as search warrant; (2) key fob evidence connecting defendant to his vehicle in no way affected judge who signed warrant; (3) facts contained in warrant application easily supplied probable cause to search defendant’s vehicle, where vehicle contained evidence of crime, including existence of bullet holes and blood in and around vehicle, defendant lying nearby with gunshot wound, and gun on passenger seat was visible through window, but partially obscured by hat. Moreover, officer’s decision to obtain warrant was not prompted by information gained from activation of key fob. As such, vehicle would have been searched regardless of identity of owner.

Ct. of Appeals granted defendant’s motion to discharge his appointed appellate counsel under circumstances, where: (1) defendant was subject to revocation of his supervised release based upon his commission of series of state-court offenses that resulted in 20-and 25-year concurrent sentences; (2) Dist. Ct. thereafter revoked defendant’s supervised release and sentenced him to 82-month term of incarceration based upon violation of his supervised release; (3) appointed appellate counsel held belief that defendant had only one meritorious issue on appeal regarding whether Dist. Ct. could impose said sentence under circumstances where Dist. Ct. imposed sentence via written order rather than face-to-face hearing with defendant’s personal presence; (4) Ct. of Appeals initially denied defendant’s motion to dismiss appointed counsel, but granted defendant ability to file supplemental brief raising only issues regarding merits of sentence; and (5) defendant made clear to Ct. of Appeals that he had no interest in challenging legality of imposing instant sentence in writing. Ct. of Appeals then sua sponte reconsidered defendant’s motion to dismiss appointed counsel and granted said motion based on existence of instant conflict between appointed counsel and defendant regarding what issues to present on appeal. As such, Ct. of Appeals accepted defendant’s decision not to argue about his right to be present at sentencing hearing, and that defendant had waived said issue in Ct. of Appeals. Ct. further rejected defendant’s arguments that: (1) Dist. Ct. could impose sentence only between 33 and 41 months; and (2) instant sentence was substantively unreasonable.

In prosecution on drug trafficking and firearm charges, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress evidence seized pursuant to home detention compliance check. While defendant argued that instant search amounted to unlawful warrantless law enforcement search disguised as home detention compliance check, Ct. of Appeals found that said search was lawful, where, because of his status as person on home confinement, defendant’s expectation of privacy was minimal, especially where defendant had previously waived all of his 4th Amendment rights as condition of going on home confinement status, and where other investigation had indicated that defendant might be committing drug crimes and skirting residency requirements. Dist. Ct. also did not err in imposing four sentencing enhancements, i.e., for being manager or supervisor on drug offenses, maintaining premises for purposes of distributing controlled substances, possessing fire firearms and being career offender, where all four enhancements were supported by record, and where Dist. Ct. indicated that it would impose instant below-Guidelines, 360-month sentence regardless of existence of instant enhancements.