Criminal Law

Dist. Ct. did not err in sentencing defendant to 20-month, below Guidelines term of incarceration, where said sentence was based in part on imposition of 2-level upward adjustment under section 3B1.1(c) of USSG for defendant’s role as organizer in said offense. While defendant argued that information in pre-sentence report indicating that he organized instant offense by obtaining false documents and referred buyers to co-defendant loan officers was insufficient to establish type of coercion necessary to support imposition of instant enhancement, coercion is just one factor when applying section 3B1.1(c) of USSG. Moreover, record otherwise supported imposition of said enhancement, where: (1) defendant rewarded others in scheme with continued business; and (2) defendant influenced criminal activity by coordinating efforts of others to advance scheme.

In prosecution on charge that defendant participated in scheme to defraud mortgage lenders by submitting false information on loan applications about nominal buyers of real estate in effort to induce said lenders to loan money on said properties at inflated prices, Dist. Ct. did not err in refusing to allow defendant to introduce post-event, police report of domestic battery allegation that defendant lodged against leader of instant scheme. While defendant argued that said evidence was relevant to rebut govt. claim that defendant and leader were in business relationship, Dist. Ct. could disallow introduction of instant police report since it was irrelevant to defendant’s mental state at time of charged offense. Moreover, defendant was still able to testify regarding alleged abuse, intimidation and controlling nature of leader.

Dist. Ct. erred in denying defendant’s habeas petition challenging his death penalty on grounds that defendant was intellectually disabled, and thus was constitutionally ineligible for death penalty. While record showed that some of defendant’s IQ scores were inconsistent with finding that defendant had significantly subaverage intellectual functioning, reliable IQ test scores were consistently within range of significantly subaverage intellectual functioning category. Moreover, defendant presented extensive evidence that his adaptive functioning skills were significantly impaired to that of six-to-eight year olds in all areas. Defendant’s counsel was also ineffective in failing to fully investigate and present evidence at sentencing hearing that defendant suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, especially where trial counsel had argued that death sentence was unwarranted, in part, because defendant suffered from serious mental illness.

In prosecution on drug distribution charge, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s motion to preclude evidence that trained dog alerted authorities to presence of drug residue on currency found in defendant’s home. While defendant argued that dog alert evidence was meaningless since large percentage of U.S. currency already had presence of illegal drugs, there is no per se rule that dog alerts on currency are unreliable, since recent empirical and scientific evidence indicate that dog will alert only to large amount of illicit drugs on currency. Prosecutor, though, erred when presenting evidence about statement defendant made to officer, where prosecutor had failed to disclose said statement to defendant prior to trial. However, said error was harmless where Dist. Ct. gave timely curative instruction to jury.

Dist. Ct. did not err in sentencing defendant to 160-month term of incarceration on drug distribution charge, even though defendant argued that Dist. Ct. had failed to consider certain arguments in mitigation, and that said sentence was substantively unreasonable. Defendant waived any argument that Dist. Ct. failed to address any mitigation claims, since defense counsel agreed with Dist. Ct. at sentencing hearing that all such arguments had been addressed. Moreover, instant sentence was not substantially unreasonable, where sentence was within applicable sentencing guidelines, and where Dist. Ct. weighed defendant’s mitigation arguments concerning his children and ill grandmother against need to deter defendant given his recent criminal history that included another instance of selling drugs.