Criminal Law

Defendant was found guilty of producing and possessing child pornography and in a post-trial motion filed prior to sentencing argued that newly discovered evidence impeached the credibility of one of the prosecution’s witnesses. Defendant asked the district court to order a new trial. The district court denied the motion and defendant appealed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding the district court did not err because the evidence, which consisted of statements made by witnesses after the trial, would not have changed the outcome of the trial and defendant’s theory as to their potential impact was undermined by the evidence. (SCUDDER and JACKSON-AKIWUMI, concurring)

Defendant pleaded guilty to one county of bank robbery. During the sentencing hearing, the parties disputed whether defendant had “brandished” an air pistol or had “otherwise used” it in the commission of the crime, which could trigger either a level-three or level-four enhancement under federal sentencing guidelines. The district court found that defendant had “otherwise used” the weapon and applied a four-level enhancement and defendant appealed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding no error in the district court’s application of the enhancement or in the other factors that the district court took into account during sentencing. (SYKES and ST. EVE, concurring)

Petitioner was convicted in state court of first-degree sexual assault and was sentenced to five years of probation. He appealed to the Seventh Circuit from the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging his conviction. Petitioner argued on appeal that the prosecution failed to preserve exculpatory evidence when notes prepared by the victim went missing and that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the issue prior to trial. The district court denied petitioner relief, relying on a deferential standard of review to the prior state court proceedings and the Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that the state court proceedings were not contrary to or an unreasonable application of federal law nor were they based on any unreasonable factual finding. (BRENNAN and ST. EVE, concurring)

Defendant was found guilty of three counts of transportation of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. The issue on appeal was whether the definition of “transportation” of child pornography was met when an automated government software program accessed and downloaded child pornography from defendant’s computer over a peer-to-peer file sharing network. The Seventh Circuit concluded that it did and affirmed defendant’s conviction. (SCUDDER and PRYOR, concurring)

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and one count of money laundering. Shortly before his sentencing hearing, defendant filed a motion to substitute counsel, which the district court denied. Defendant then appealed from both the district court’s denial of his request for substitute counsel and the substantive reasonableness of his sentence, which was below federal sentencing guidelines. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion of counsel to withdraw and that defendant’s sentence was not unreasonable. (EASTERBROOK and JACKSON-AKIWUMI, concurring)