Criminal Law

In prosecution on petition to revoke defendant’s supervised release, Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendant’s request to represent himself during revocation hearing. Revocation proceeding is much less formal than trial on criminal charges, and record showed that defendant was capable of making knowing waiver of his right to counsel and did so intelligently, where record showed that defendant appreciated what was at stake, understood nature of revocation proceeding, knew identify of factual disputes, was aware that lawyer might be able to do better job than he could and was directly advised by Dist. Ct. not to waive representation. Fact that Dist. Ct. did not expressly discuss defendant’s education, level of sophistication or experience with legal system did not require different result. Also, fact that defendant did not do particularly effective job in advancing his claim was irrelevant where: (1) it was not obvious that defendant’s claim would have been successful had he been represented; and (2) record demonstrated that defendant’s choice to represent himself was “informed,” even though it might not have been “right” or “smart.”

Dist. Ct. erred in dismissing defendant’s section 2241 petition seeking hearing to present new evidence that would demonstrate that he is categorically and constitutionally ineligible for his currently imposed death sentence under Atkins, 536 US 304, where Dist. Ct. found that new evidence that did not establish defendant’s innocence could never satisfy demanding standard for allowing new hearing under section 2255(e). Ct. of Appeals, via en banc panel, found that there is no such absolute bar for use of safety valve provision under section 2255(e) for purposes of attacking death sentence. However, prior to determining any merits of defendant’s petition, Dist. Ct. must hold hearing to determine whether Social Security records that comprised defendant’s proposed new evidence of mental disability was unavailable to defendant at time of original trial in spite of defense counsel’s due diligence to obtain said records. (Dissent filed.)

Defendant was entitled to new sentence hearing on charge of illegal reentry in U.S., where Dist. Ct. imposed 57-month term of incarceration under circumstances where record failed to indicate that Dist. Ct. had considered defendant’s argument in mitigation that govt.’s up to two-year delay in charging him for instant offense deprived him of ability to serve portion of instant sentence concurrently with sentence on unrelated state conviction. Defendant also maintained that reduced sentence was warranted because he would not receive credit towards his federal sentence for time spent during his immigration detention. Both aspects of defendant’s argument had potential merit, and record failed to show that Dist. Ct. provided sufficient explanation to demonstrate that it considered said argument and had reasoned basis for rejecting it.

In prosecution on charge of theft of govt. money and aggravated identity theft related to defendant’s filing of fraudulent tax returns, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress evidence obtained pursuant to police officer’s warrantless entry into defendant’s hotel room that occurred after his arrest in hotel lobby. While defendant argued that he had legitimate expectation of privacy in hotel room that was registered to his girlfriend, search was not improper where, at time of search, police had reasonable belief that both defendant and his girlfriend had been ejected from hotel by hotel management following their arrests. Moreover, instant ejection was justified, where defendant’s violent arrest in hotel lobby during his attempt to flee constituted "disturbance” under Minnesota law.

Dist. Ct. did not err in imposing 235-month term of incarceration on charge of interference with commerce by robbery, where Dist. Ct. imposed said sentence consecutively to state conviction on attempted murder and aggravated battery charges. Although said state charges formed part of relevant conduct in instant case, Dist. Ct properly considered section 3553(a) factors, when deciding to impose consecutive, rather than concurrent sentence, where: (1) record showed that instant charge involved defendant’s armed robbery of UPS truck and his verbal threat to life of truck driver and his actual shooting of potential witness to said robbery (that formed basis of state conviction); and (2) Dist. Ct. could properly view defendant’s actions as two crimes that were each so serious in their own right that only consecutive sentence would be appropriate.

In prosecution on wire fraud charge stemming from defendant’s scheme to obtain $250,000 proceeds from victim’s HELOC loan during process in which defendant acted as victim’s agent during attempt to sell victim’s property, Dist. Ct. erred under Rule 613(b) in prohibiting defendant from introducing prior inconsistent statement made by victim, who indicated that defendant had promised him that builder was interested in purchasing his property, where victim had specifically denied making such statement. However, error was harmless where defendant had admitted in his trial testimony to key aspects of scheme regarding his role in creation of HELOC loan, his use of victim’s loan proceeds for defendant’s personal expenses, and his pretrial admission that he had lied to victim when stating that unidentified builder was willing to purchase victim’s property. Also, defendant forfeited any error in govt.’s use of redacted information from HELOC loan document in its case-in-chief, where defendant had received redacted loan document two years prior to trial and had failed to seek unredacted copy of said document.