The State appealed from a circuit court order granting the defendant’s motion to dismiss for a speedy-trial violation, arguing that delays resulting in the postponement of the trial were caused by defendant. The appellate court reversed and remanded, finding that a delay caused by the defendant’s filing of a Franks motion was attributable to the defendant for speedy trial purposes and, after taking that into account, no speedy trial violation occurred. (McDADE and HOLDRIDGE, concurring)
Defendant was convicted of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise and was sentenced to life in prison. Following passage of the First Step Act, defendant moved for a sentence reduction, arguing that his continuing criminal enterprise conviction qualified as a covered offense under the Act. The district court denied his motion and defendant appealed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that the offense did not qualify as a covered offense under the First Step Act, noting that an offense is only a covered offense if its statutory penalties were modified by the Fair Sentencing Act. (SYKES and KOLAR, concurring)
Plaintiff was found guilty of robbing a credit union after the district court rejected his insanity defense. The plaintiff did not directly appeal his conviction and sentence but instead moved to vacate his conviction under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The district court held and evidentiary hearing and denied the motion and plaintiff appealed. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit focused on the question of whether procedural default bars a competency claim initially raised on collateral review. After reviewing Supreme Court precedent and the decisions of other circuits, the Seventh Circuit concluded that procedural default barred plaintiff’s competency claim and affirmed the denial of his section 2255 motion. (SYKES and SCUDDER, concurring)
Defendant was charged with multiple offenses, including being an armed habitual criminal. The trial court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss the AHC charge, finding that the charge failed to sufficiently allege that defendant had previously been convicted two or more times of predicate offenses. The State appealed and the appellate court reversed and remanded, finding that when the trial court considers a motion to dismiss under the AHC, it simply must determine whether the defendant has two or more convictions of an enumerated offense and that the trial court’s concerns about whether drug charges in a prior case were properly joined in a single prosecution and questions about the ability of the statute to target recidivists more effectively were beyond the scope of the trial court’s analysis. (ALBRECHT and DAVENPORT, concurring)
Defendant was found guilty of aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping, and aggravated battery and was sentenced to 85 years in prison. On appeal, defendant argued that the trial court violated SCR 431(b) during jury selection, that he did not receive a fair trial due to the trial court’s comments throughout the jury trial, the evidence was not sufficient to prove him guilty, he was denied the effective assistance of counsel, cumulative error, and that his sentenced was excessive. The appellate court affirmed finding that the issues had either been forfeited by defendant or lacked merit and corrected the mittimus to reflect that defendant was convicted of aggravated battery and not aggravated criminal sexual abuse. The appellate court also explained that while the trial court made numerous inappropriate statements during the proceedings it did not require reversal because the statements were primarily made outside the presence of the jury and the defendant could not establish that he was prejudiced by the statements. (REYES and D.B. WALKER, concurring and REYES, specially concurring)
Defendant appealed following his re-sentencing on two convictions for first degree murder for two separate incidents that occurred one week apart when the defendant was 17 years old. The re-sentencing resulted in new sentences of 37 years and 40 years to run consecutively. Defendant argued on appeal that the aggregate sentence of 77 years was unconstitutionally excessive and requested that the appellate court either reduce the sentences or remand for another re-sentencing hearing. The appellate court instead affirmed, finding that the trial court appropriate considered the relevant factors when determining the sentence imposed. (LAVIN and COGHLAN, concurring)
Defendant appealed from the trial court’s denial of his motion for leave to file a successive post-conviction petition. In the motion, defendant alleged several claims based on documents he received subsequent to a FOIA request, including that documents containing favorable evidence were wrongfully withheld, that the State knowingly used perjured testimony, that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel and actual innocence. The appellate court reversed and remanded with instructions to advance to second-stage post-conviction proceedings, explaining that defendant had raised sufficient doubt to establish a colorable claim and that his petition contained newly discovered evidence of police misconduct that was unavailable at the time of the trial. (ODEN JOHNSON and C.A. WALKER, concurring)
Defendant pleaded guilty to two counts of bank robbery and one count of attempt, and stipulated to six additional bank robberies as relevant conduct. At the sentencing hearing, the district court enhanced the defendant’s sentencing level by two levels after the government established that defendant made a death threat during two of the robberies. The district court also sentenced defendant as a career offender based on his six prior convictions. On appeal, defendant argued that the government promised not to pursue the threat enhancement and that the district court violated the Sixth Amendment by making factual findings that increased his advisory guidelines range. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding the district court did not err when it rejected defendant’s claim that the government had reneged on a promise based on the plain terms of the plea agreement and statements defendant made during the guilty-plea colloquy. The defendant also argued that bank robbery does not qualify as a crime of violence under the career-offender guideline, but the Seventh Circuit noted that this argument was contrary to circuit precedent. (RIPPLE and KIRSCH, concurring)
Defendant was arrested and charged with receiving and possessing child pornography, one of many prosecutions stemming from an extensive law enforcement investigation of a dark-web child pornography website. Defendant filed a motion to suppress evidence, arguing that the judicial officer who issued a network investigative technique (NIT) warrant, a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, lacked the authority under Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to authorize an electronic search extending outside of her district. The district court agreed that Rule 41 did not authorize the issuance of the extraterritorial NIT warrant but applied the good-faith exception and declined to suppress the evidence. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, explaining that it had previously affirmed the application of the good-faith exception to evidence obtained in searches relating to the NIT warrant. The appellate court noted that defendant raised a new argument, that law enforcement officials were aware that the warrant was invalid, in an attempt to defeat the good-faith exception but the Seventh Circuit explained that same argument had been rejected by other circuits and that it would join the consensus. (BRENNAN and PRYOR, concurring)
Defendant appealed from a district court order revoking his supervised release and sentencing him to 21 months in custody, arguing that the district court erred because it did not recognize its discretion to consider substance abuse treatment as an alternative to revocation and incarceration. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that any error was harmless where the record established that defendant had refused multiple opportunities to benefit from substance abuse treatment rather than face further incarceration and that the district court would not have chosen substance abuse treatment instead of incarceration even if it was aware of that option. (SCUDDER and LEE, concurring)
