Criminal Law

Ct. of Appeals lacked jurisdiction to consider defendant’s appeal of Dist. Ct.’s pre-trial order denying his motion to suppress drugs seized from his vehicle where defendant entered guilty plea on day of trial without reserving said issue for appeal. Entry of unconditional guilty plea precludes challenge to denial of motion to suppress since said guilty plea constitutes waiver of any non-jurisdictional defect occurring prior to plea. Ct. rejected defendant’s claim that no waiver occurred because he subjectively believed that he had preserved his right to appeal instant suppression ruling.

In prosecution on charge of making false statement in passport application arising out of defendant’s efforts to obtain passport in name of former relative, Dist. Ct. did not err in admitting evidence that defendant was facing up to sixty years in prison on pending state felony charges at time defendant obtained instant passport and used said passport to travel to Panama, where he was eventually arrested on instant charge since: (1) evidence of state charges and their potential sentences was admissible as evidence of defendant’s motive in obtaining passport; and (2) Dist. Ct. otherwise precluded govt. from revealing specifics of state charges. Moreover, while Dist. Ct. erred in admitting, as lay opinion, testimony from two police officials indicating that defendant was man depicted in passport, since said testimony was not based on their personal knowledge, any error was harmless given other overwhelming evidence linking defendant to passport.

Dist. Ct. did not err in sentencing defendant to 180-month term of incarceration on felon-in-possession of firearm charge after finding that defendant qualified as armed career criminal based on three prior burglaries that occurred over five-day period of time. While defendant argued that his prior burglary convictions should have been treated as single criminal episode, and that he was entitled to have jury resolve said issue, Dist Ct. could properly make determination regarding whether defendant had committed burglaries on occasions different from one another. Moreover, Dist. Ct. could properly find that defendant’s three burglaries were separate offenses for purposes of Armed Career Criminal Act where burglaries occurred on different days and involved different residences and victims.

Dist. Ct. did not err in sentencing defendant to 6-month term of incarceration followed by two years of supervised release on charge of bank embezzlement after applying two-level enhancement for abuse of position of trust under section 3B1.3 of USSG. Defendant qualified for said enhancement where record showed that defendant was assistant vice-president and assistant manager of bank, whose job duties allowed him access to large sums of money and gave him access to codes that permitted him to steal more than $40,000 after he had disabled bank’s security alarm. Ct. also rejected defendant’s claim that Dist. Ct. was under misimpression that it was required to give defendant term of incarceration.