Criminal Law

In prosecution of five defendants on drug conspiracy charge, Dist. Ct. erred in imposing on two defendants mandatory minimum penalty of 20 years’ imprisonment under 21 USC section 841 based on fact that five individuals, who purchased heroin supplied to them by conspiracy, had died. While Dist. Ct. believed that all five defendants of charged conspiracy were subject to same penalty under theory of strict liability, Dist. Ct. should have made specific factual findings to determine whether each defendant’s relevant conduct encompassed distribution chain that caused at least one victim’s death, prior to applying 20-year penalty. Although record supported imposition of penalty with respect to three defendants, where evidence showed that they played some role in distribution or sale of fatal doses to victims, record failed to support imposition of penalty on two defendants, where govt. offered no evidence linking them to fatal doses of heroin.

Dist. Ct. did not abuse its discretion by denying defendant’s motion for relief under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) to revisit Ct. of Appeal’s decision in defendant’s prior appeal addressing defendant’s section 2241 petition that challenged determination that defendant was career offender. Basis for prior Ct. of Appeal’s decision was that defendant could not use section 2241 to obtain review of career-offender determination where he could have filed section 2255 petition to obtain similar relief. Moreover, while Ct. of Appeals recently determined that section 2241 petition could be used to assert instant sentencing issue, where, as here, defendant had previously filed section 2255 petition, Dist. Ct. could nevertheless deny instant Rule 60(b) motion since defendant could have informed Ct. of Appeals in prior appeal that he had previously filed 2255 petition. Also, defendant’s current sentence was within applicable guideline range had Dist. Ct. not applied career-offender enhancement.

Dist. Ct. did not err in sentencing defendant to 230-month term of incarceration, after Ct. of Appeals had remanded matter back to Dist. Ct. to inform Ct. of Appeals as to whether it had intended for defendant’s original 240-month term of incarceration to be sentence that was five months above applicable sentencing guideline. Defendant’s new sentence, which was within applicable guideline range, was in conformity with remand order, and Dist. Ct. was not required on remand to either start sentencing process anew or to consider any new arguments from defendant.

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s motion to dismiss his indictment charging conspiracy to distribute heroin, even though defendant alleged that said indictment was insufficient because it failed to allege facts that addressed any particular drug transaction. Instant indictment was sufficient since it set forth existence of drug conspiracy, operative time of said conspiracy and statute it violated, and more stringent civil pleading standards under Bell Atlantic Corp., 556 US 662, did not apply to issues regarding sufficiency of criminal indictment. Dist. Ct. similarly did not err in denying defendant’s motion for bill of particulars, where govt. produced over 350 pages of discovery involving surveillance reports and interviews with witnesses, and where defendant failed to show that denial of bill of particulars resulted in any actual prejudice. Finally, Dist. Ct. did not err in calculating defendant’s relevant conduct that included drugs sales occurring nearly three years prior to formulation of charged conspiracy, where said sales were with individual who continued to purchase drugs from defendant without interruption during time of charged conspiracy.

Dist. Ct. erred in denying defendant’s habeas petition challenging his murder conviction on ground that his trial counsel labored under conflict of interest while jointly representing defendant and his brother in said trial when counsel declined to present testimony from certain potential witnesses, who countered state’s claim that defendant had handed gun to his brother prior to shooting, where counsel believed that such testimony would be harmful to brother’s case. State court unreasonably found that defendant’s interest in presenting said exculpatory witnesses did not conflict with his brother’s interest in preventing said testimony from being introduced at trial. On remand, Dist. Ct. must conduct hearing to determine whether instant conflict of interest adversely affected trial counsel’s representation of defendant, or whether other factors unrelated to conflict of interest led to counsel’s decision not to introduce exculpatory evidence, such as criminal backgrounds of such witnesses that could have rendered their testimonies incredible.