Criminal Law

Dist. Ct. erred in sentencing defendant to 15-year mandatory minimum sentence on unlawful possession of firearm charge, after improperly finding that defendant qualified for treatment under Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) based in part on his 1990 state-court drug convictions. While instant 1990 convictions held potential for being predicate convictions under ACCA because they potentially exposed defendant to sentences of 10 or more years, they did not qualify as predicate convictions since: (1) defendant received only 4-year sentences for 1990 convictions; and (2) under Rodriquez, 553 US 377, said convictions could not qualify as predicate convictions for ACCA treatment since state records for said offenses failed to show that defendant actually faced possibility of enhanced sentence of 10 or more years imprisonment.

In prosecution on three misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay income taxes for years 2007, 2008 and 2009, Dist. Ct. did not err in allowing prosecutor to introduce evidence that defendant had failed to pay his law firm’s payroll taxes for third and fourth quarters of 2013. While defendant asserted that said evidence was irrelevant with respect to issues of intent and thus constituted improper propensity evidence, defendant invited said testimony when he raised issue regarding his taxpaying behavior, and instant evidence was relevant to rebut defendant’s testimony that he had fully paid his recent tax obligations. Moreover, payroll tax evidence was relevant to rebut defendant’s anticipated defense that he had acted with good faith misunderstanding when he failed to pay his taxes in charged years.

Record contained sufficient evidence to support defendant’s conviction on conspiracy to distribute cocaine, even though defendant argued that record only supported existence of buyer-seller relationship between himself and his drug supplier. Drug supplier testified that he believed he had agreement with defendant to distribute drugs, and record showed existence of 6-month period, where instant drug supplier occasionally fronted defendant with cocaine and shared proceeds of drug sales. Moreover, court rejected defendant’s argument that his weekly drug purchases/sales of 3.5 grams of cocaine were too small to support drug conspiracy conviction. Dist. Ct. also did not err in barring defendant from questioning govt. witness about his 1974 felony conviction for heroin possession that would have subjected witness to 20-year sentence if tried on state charges involving recent drug distribution incident that formed basis of instant federal drug charge. Record failed to indicate that state officials were actually considering charging witness with any crime, and witness testified that his cooperation was based on hope that said cooperation would help with federal charge.

In prosecution on charge of mailing threatening communications arising out of defendant’s mailing of two packages that appeared to be pipe bombs, Dist. Ct. did not err in barring defendant from testifying that said devices were meant as hoaxes. Under Johnson, 152 F.3d 618, defendant could not so testify where, as here, objective design of devices that included presence of lead shot did not have any legitimate purpose other than use as weapon. Moreover, while Dist. Ct. erred in submitting instruction asking jury to determine whether defendant had intended to create bomb where its prior ruling had precluded defendant from testifying regarding his intent, any error was harmless since there was ample evidence to establish beyond reasonable doubt that instant devices were destructive devices. Also, Dist. Ct. did not err in allowing govt. to introduce x-ray of one of defendant’s devices to rebut his testimony regarding its design, even though govt. had failed to turn over said x-ray to defendant until mid-trial, where: (1) Dist. Ct. had previously precluded govt. from using x-ray in its case-in-chief as sanction for delay in turning over x-ray to defendant; and (2) Dist. Ct. had warned defendant that x-ray could come into record during rebuttal portion of case depending on his testimony during his defense.