Criminal Law

Defendant who was convicted of multiple counts of sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping and sentenced to 100 years in prison, appealed from a denial of his petition for post-conviction relief. Defendant argued that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated and he was denied the effective assistance of counsel because his trial counsel did not diligently investigate five witnesses who purportedly may have offered exculpatory testimony. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that the district court did not err when it concluded that defendant failed to carry his burden of proof after conducting a lengthy hearing and issuing a detailed order. (EASTERBROOK and KIRSCH, concurring)

Defendant appealed from his conviction for conspiring to possess and possessing at least 100 grams of a fentanyl analogue. On appeal, defendant argued that furanyl fentanyl cannot be a fentanyl analogue because it is already listed as a Schedule 1 substance in the federal statutes. Defendant based this argument on the definition of controlled substance analogue. Alternatively, defendant argued that the district court’s definition of analogue was unconstitutionally vague. The Seventh Circuit disagreed and affirmed, finding that the term controlled substance analogue is a different from the term analogue of fentanyl and so the court must instead look to the ordinary meaning of the word analogue. The Seventh Circuit also rejected defendant’s other arguments raised on appeal relating to a motion to suppress and procedural challenges to his sentence. (JACKSON-AKIWUMI and PRYOR, concurring)

Plaintiff filed a lawsuit alleging that the medical providers of a correctional center where plaintiff was a patient were “deliberately indifferent” to plaintiff’s preexisting foot condition and that they prioritized costs concerns over patient care in violation of plaintiff’s Eighth Amendment rights. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants and plaintiff appealed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that plaintiff had failed to demonstrate a pattern of violations as required by the case law in order to establish a deliberate indifference. (SCUDDER and KIRSCH, concurring)

Defendant appealed from his conviction for attempted enticement of a minor and ten year sentence with an additional ten years of supervised release, arguing that the district court erred by allowing the seriousness of his crime to affect the length of supervision. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, explaining that danger to the public is a permissible consideration no matter its relation to the crime’s seriousness and the district court’s statements during sentencing relating to the nature and circumstances of the offense fell under permissible criteria for determining the length of supervised release. (BRENNAN and JACKSON-AKIWUMI, concurring)

Defendant appealed from his conviction for possessing a firearm as a felon, challenging the district court’s admission of two pieces of evidence at trial. The Seventh Circuit noted that defendant had preserved one of his challenges relating to chain-of-custody on appeal but had waived a hearsay challenge and affirmed, explaining that the government’s chain-of-custody evidence was sufficient and under the “demanding standards” of plain error review, defendant did not establish any error allowing a 911 caller’s statements to be admitted through police testimony. (JACKSON-AKIWUMI and PRYOR, concurring)

Defendant was sentenced to 96 months in prison for violating the felon-in-possession of a firearm statute. On appeal, defendant argued that the payment condition imposed on his supervised release was unauthorized because the judge did not mention it during sentencing and it did not appear in the pre-sentence report, which was adopted by the trial court at sentencing. The Seventh Circuit vacated the payment condition from the trial court’s order by following the rule that the court’s oral pronouncement controls but noting that the statute establishing the payment condition applies to defendant whether or not the payment condition appears in the judgment and that the district court judge is authorized to add or delete conditions of supervised release at any time and could add the payment condition to the judgment. (BRENNAN and JACKSON-AKIWUMI, concurring)

Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of a unanimity instruction that would have required jurors to agree on which of two weapons defendant possessed for purposes of charges related to violation of the felon-in-possession of a gun statute. The appellate court explained that because defendant possessed the two firearms at the same time, the instruction was not required. (JACKSON-AKIWUMI and PRYOR, concurring)