Criminal Law

Dist. Ct. erred in transferring defendant's section 2241 habeas petition to Dist. Ct. in Florida, where plaintiff is currently housed in prison. Prisoner's transfer from one facility to another during pendency of habeas corpus proceeding does not affect Dist. Ct.'s original jurisdiction to resolve case. Moreover, defendant named in his lawsuit his immediate custodian in Southern District of Indiana, and thus there was individual with authority within jurisdiction of Southern District of Indiana to comply with any order that may issue from District Court of Southern Indiana.  As such, Ct. of Appeals issued writ of mandamus directing District Court of Southern Indiana to rescind its transfer order.

Ct. of Appeals rejected defendant's contention that he was entitled to new sentencing hearing on all issues, even though Dist. Ct. had failed to explicitly impose conditions of defendant's supervised release during sentencing hearing, but included in written judgment all conditions of supervised release that had been recommended in presentence report. No impermissible inconsistency between Dist. Ct.'s oral pronouncement of terms of supervised release and its written judgment existed, where: (1) presentence report contained three mandatory, 12 standard and three special conditions of supervised release; (2) neither government nor defendant objected to any of proposed conditions of supervised release, and defense counsel declined Dist. Ct.'s offer to read proposed conditions of supervised release; (3) Dist. Ct. assured defendant that he could seek to adjust any condition during his supervision; and (4) there was no inconsistency between sentencing transcript and written judgment, where judgment referenced conditions that Dist. Ct. had adopted from presentence report at sentencing hearing. Moreover, although one condition in written judgment, i.e., requirement to pay fine or restitution, was not in presentence report, said fact did not require new sentencing hearing, since said condition was mandatory. (Dissent filed.)

In prosecution of drug conspiracy charge, Dist. Ct. did not abuse its discretion in barring defendant's proffered evidence that drug operation she allegedly worked for killed two individuals, where defendant offered said evidence to support her claim that she sold drugs on behalf of organization under duress. Said evidence was irrelevant to defendant's duress defense since defendant either did not know about one death at time she was performing acts on behalf of organization, and other death had occurred after her arrest. Also, while Dist. Ct. failed to comply with Rule 32.2 by neglecting to either enter preliminary forfeiture order concerning seizure of approximately $10,000 in cash found near weapons in stash house and in failing to ask defendant whether she wished for jury to decide whether govt. had established nexus between drug conspiracy and cash, neither error amounted to plain error, where: (1) defendant failed to explain how either error would have affected ultimate outcome of forfeiture proceeding; and (2) no reasonable juror would not have found nexus between cash and defendant's conviction on drug conspiracy charge given location and context in which money was discovered. Too, Dist. Ct. did not err in giving "ostrich" instruction with respect to money laundering charge against second defendant, where record showed that: (1) second defendant had acted to avoid knowledge of source of large sums that drug operation had asked him to transfer out of country; and (2) second defendant was dividing large deposits into smaller wire transfers to avoid finding out with certainty that he was handling drug money.

Defendant was entitled to new sentencing hearing on charge of felon in possession of firearm, where Probation Office determined that he qualified as armed career criminal (ACCA) that enhanced his sentencing treatment, based, in part, on his prior Illinois conviction on residential burglary charge. While Court of Appeals, in defendant’s direct appeal, initially held that Illinois residential burglary conviction qualified as predicate offense for purposes of ACCA, Illinois Supreme Court subsequently found that, because of limited-authority doctrine, Illinois residential burglary statute covered more conduct than federal definition of general burglary, and thus did not qualify as predicate felony for purpose of ACCA. Also, Dist. Ct. did not commit plain error in accepting defendant’s guilty plea to instant firearms charge, even though indictment said nothing about defendant’s knowledge of his felon status, as required under Rehaif, 139 S.Ct. 2191. Defendant failed to establish any prejudice arising out of any Rehaif error, where: (1) defendant, with six prior felony convictions that had sentences of four to five years each, could not have credibly asserted that he was unaware of his felon status; and (2) as such, there was no reasonable probability that he would have gone to trial if he had known government needed to prove his knowledge of his felon status.

Defendant failed to exhaust his administrative remedies when seeking compassionate release from his 18-year sentence based on COVID-19 concerns, where defendant failed to submit said ground to Bureau of Prisons prior to filing instant request in District Ct. While Dist. Ct denied request on merits, record showed that defendant had filed with Bureau of Prisons request for compassionate release under 18 USC section 3582(c)(1)(A)(1) that asserted other grounds to support his request. Ct. of Appeals, though, found that defendant had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies (and thus could not bring instant request to District Ct.) where he failed to previously bring precise ground of COVID-19 concerns to Bureau of Prisons to consider.