Criminal Law

Dist. Ct. did not err in sentencing defendant to 57-month term of incarceration on bank robbery-related charge based in part on obstruction of justice enhancement arising out of defendant's statement made during plea colloquy, which minimized her role in offense and attempted to pin most of blame for charged offense on her co-conspirators. Dist. Ct. could properly find, based largely on documentary evidence, that plaintiff had lied about her role in charged offense, and that defendant was supervisor of scheme to rob bank. Ct. rejected defendant's contention that enhancement was improper since Dist. Ct. had failed to specifically identify which part of her statement was false, and since her statements made during her plea colloquy were immaterial.

In prosecution on carjacking and unlawful possession of firearm charges, Dist. Ct. did not err in giving instruction on carjacking charge that allowed jury to convict defendant upon showing that defendant had intent to cause serious bodily harm when taking victim's vehicle. While defendant argued that instruction misstated applicable mental state since it should have included phrase "to cause death," instant instruction accurately reflected applicable mental state since govt. need only establish that defendant's actions intended to cause either death or serious bodily harm. Dist. Ct. also did not err in giving jury aider and abetter instruction, even though defendant was charged as principal for carjacking offense, and record otherwise showed that defendant shared mental state of other individual involved in charged offense where defendant stood near said individual, while said individual was holding gun to head of one victim while demanding victim's car.

Dist. Ct. erred in denying defendant's habeas petition challenging his murder conviction on ground that his jury was not impartial when fellow inmate of defendant informed relative, who was on jury in defendant's trial, that inmate and others in jail believed that defendant was guilty of charged offense. Record supported defendant's claim that inmate's information reached jurors, and while defendant was required in instant habeas proceeding to show that he was prejudiced by any constitutional error, underlying trial court erred in rejecting defendant's argument that govt. had burden of proof to show that extraneous information from inmate was not prejudicial to outcome of defendant's trial. Thus, remand was required to allow govt. ability to convince Dist. Ct. through countervailing facts that such information might not have impacted jury's verdict.

In prosecution on possession of child pornography charge, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress pictures seized from defendant's computer on ground that there was no reason to believe that pornographic pictures would have been in defendant's computer at time of search when evidence that defendant had uploaded child pornography was seven months old. While defendant could have deleted pictures within seven-month period, there was reasonable chance that forensic computer expert could have retrieved deleted pictures from computer's hard drive.

In prosecution on various drug distribution charges arising out of defendant-police officer's solicitation of third-party to sell marijuana supplied by defendant from sources including marijuana obtained from police evidence storage facility, presence of non-juror in jury room for short period of time did not deprive defendant of his right to impartial jury. Record showed that said individual did not speak to jurors except for harmless passing comment in hallway, which did not otherwise affect jury deliberations. Remand, though, was required for new sentencing hearing where Dist. Ct. used wrong guideline when imposing life sentence.