Criminal Law

Dist. Ct. erred in denying defendant-prisoner’s habeas petition alleging that prison officials denied him due process by convicting him on charge of attempted trafficking of tobacco and taking away good-conduct credits on basis of insufficient evidence. Record showed that tobacco was found in crawl space of prison where defendant and four other prisoners worked, and prison officials presented no other evidence to indicate that defendant, as opposed to any of his four co-workers, had placed tobacco in crawl space. As such, instant 80 percent probability that defendant was innocent was insufficient to support prison officials' determination that defendant had either actual or constructive possession of tobacco.

Dist. Ct. erred in admitting hearsay evidence at parole revocation hearing regarding alleged assault of victim, even though Dist. Ct. found that said testimony from third-party was corroborated by voicemail from nine-year old, where Dist. Ct. failed to conduct explicit balancing test under Rule 32.1(b)(C). Fact that Dist. Ct. found that said testimony was reliable did not require different result since, under Jordan, 742 F.3d 280, Dist. Ct. must explicitly balance defendant’s interests in confrontation against govt.’s interests in not producing relevant witness. Moreover, fact that defendant could have received same sentence based on other proved parole violations did not render instant error harmless.

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying portion of defendant’s habeas petition that challenged his death penalty on murder charges, where defendant asserted that his intellectual disability precluded state from imposing death penalty. Three out of five IQ scores placed defendant in low normal range of intellectual functioning, and no expert testified that defendant fell within range for diagnosis of intellectual disability based on IQ-test evidence as whole. Fact that defendant’s IQ scores were not adjusted for “Flynn Effect” did not require different result, and defendant’s General Adaptive Composite score of 88 of ABAS-II test also indicated that defendant was not within intellectual disability range. Dist. Ct. erred, though, in denying portion of habeas petition alleging that defendant was not competent to assist in his own defense at trial after he suffered two panic attacks at beginning of trial, where: (1) defendant was subjected to powerful mixture of psychotropic drugs in effort to improve his mental state after he suffered panic attacks; (2) trial court never subjected defendant to competency hearing, even though his counsel made several motions for mistrial or continuance based upon defendant’s mental state; and (3) trial court never made clean factual finding that defendant either had rational understanding of trial proceedings or had capacity to consult with his attorneys during trial.

Dist. Ct. did not err in sentencing defendant to 135-month term of incarceration on charge of bank robbery and brandishing of firearm, where said sentence was based in part on 2-level obstruction of justice enhancement. While defendant behaved prior to trial as if he were in catatonic state and told others that he could not read or recognize things such as banks, birthdays, names or years, wife of defendant testified at competency hearing that defendant could recognize such concepts, and prison staff observed defendant reading and following instructions. As such, Dist. Ct. could properly find that defendant’s exaggeration of his mental deficits delayed instant criminal process, and that such conduct qualified as obstruction of justice for enhancement purposes.