Justia U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Portanova admitted to downloading child pornography onto his cell phone, on which investigators found 63 videos depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Portanova subsequently pleaded guilty to receipt of child pornography, 18 U.S.C. 2252(a)(2) and (b)(1), which carries a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence if that person “has a prior conviction . . . under the laws of any State relating to aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor or ward” or “relating to . . . the production, possession, receipt, mailing, sale, distribution, shipment, or transportation of child pornography.” Portanova had previously been convicted of possessing and distributing child pornography under Pennsylvania law. The court concluded that his state conviction triggered section 2252(b)(1)'s mandatory minimum enhancement. The Third Circuit affirmed, agreeing that his conviction triggered the mandatory minimum provision. Under the Third Circuit’s “looser categorical approach,” section 2252(b)(1)’s “relating to” language does not require an exact match between the state and federal elements of conviction, and that provision is not unconstitutionally vague. View "United States v. Portanova" on Justia Law

In November 2013, three men robbed a Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania bank. A bank employee, Kane, later admitted to assisting them. The next morning, the three were pulled over in North Carolina. Wilson stated they were driving to Georgia and admitted that they had a lot of cash in the car. The officer, suspecting that they were going to buy drugs in Atlanta, searched the car, found the stolen cash, turned it over to federal agents, then released the men. A week later, three men robbed a Phoenixville, Pennsylvania bank. The police got a tip from Howell, whom Wilson had tried to recruit for the heists. Howell provided Wilson's cell phone number. Police pulled his cell-site location data, which put him at the Bala Cynwyd bank right before the first robbery and showed five calls and 17 text messages to Kane that day. Howell identified Wilson and Moore from a video of the robbery.Kane and Foster took plea bargains. Wilson and Moore were tried for bank robbery, conspiracy, and using a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. Moore was sentenced to 385 months’ imprisonment. Wilson received 519 months. The Third Circuit affirmed. Counsel’s stipulation that the banks were federally insured did not violate the Sixth Amendment, which does not categorically forbid stipulating to a crime’s jurisdictional element without the defendant’s consent or over the defendant’s objection. View "United States v. Wilson" on Justia Law

Hardy entered the Correctional Institute in urgent need of medical care: he had previously had part of his leg amputated due to diabetes and had developed an infected open wound. He was taken immediately to the infirmary. He was not given the inmate handbook but was told it would be in his prison block. Hardy signed a form acknowledging receipt of the handbook. When Hardy arrived at his block, the handbook was not there. Hardy’s efforts to obtain the handbook or the Inmate Grievance System Policy manual issued to Pennsylvania Corrections staff were unavailing. Hardy did not know that exhausting that grievance process requires two levels of appeals.Hardy’s wound festered; he filed a grievance explaining that a medical provider refused to give him bandages and antibiotic ointment. That grievance was rejected because it was not presented in a courteous manner.” Hardy 's next grievance was rejected as lacking “information that there were any issues not addressed during [Hardy’s] sick call visit.” Hardy filed a grievance detailing the medical staff’s failure to properly treat his leg wound, including declining to follow a doctor’s recommendation to transfer him to a medical facility, and his fear that more of his leg would need to be amputated. The grievance coordinator read the rules to require separate grievances for mental and physical harms. Hardy asked his counselor how he should respond. His counselor told him to “fill out another one.” Unaware of the appeal requirement, Hardy submitted eight new grievances, which were rejected as time-barred. Hardy's last grievance; requesting transfer to a medical facility, was deemed “[f]rivolous.” More of Hardy’s leg was amputated. The Third Circuit reinstated Hardy’s civil rights claim. Under these circumstances, the counselor’s misrepresentation rendered the grievance process “unavailable” under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. 1997e(a). View "Hardy v. Shaikh" on Justia Law

Reyes-Romero was prosecuted for unlawful reentry, 8 U.S.C. 1326. The district court dismissed the indictment, finding that irregularities in Reyes-Romero’s removal proceeding constituted fundamental errors that caused him prejudice. The court stated that the government’s subjective motivation for its motion to dismiss was a desire to rely on the 2011 removal order in future immigration proceedings, which“taint[ed]” the Government’s effort. The court then awarded Reyes-Romero fees pursuant to the Hyde Amendment, under which a prevailing defendant in a federal criminal prosecution can apply to have his attorney’s fees and costs covered by the government if the defendant shows that “the position of the United States” in the prosecution “was vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith,” 18 U.S.C. 3006A.The Third Circuit reversed. “Although assuredly born of good intentions and understandable frustration with faulty processes in the underlying removal proceeding,” the award was not based on the type of pervasive prosecutorial misconduct with which the Amendment is concerned. Reyes-Romero’s 2011 expedited removal proceeding deviated from the required ordered, sensible process and reasonable minds may differ about how the prosecution should have reacted once those issues became apparent. Where reasonable minds may differ, however, and where the government made objectively reasonable and defensible choices, there can be no Hyde Amendment liability. View "United States v. Reyes-Romero" on Justia Law

Pennsylvania Trooper Johnson stopped Bradley for speeding. Bradley admitted that his license was suspended. Johnson took Bradley to talk in the squad car. With a friendly demeanor, Johnson coaxed Bradley into admitting that he had just been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for “drugs.” After about 10 minutes, Johnson stated that he was going to give Bradley a warning ticket. Johnson later acknowledged that he would not have let Bradley leave and had, from the beginning, suspected criminal activity. Corporal Hoye arrived. Johnson asked Bradley whether there were any guns, marijuana, large sums of U.S. currency, heroin, or cocaine in the car. Bradley denied having those items. Johnson asked again, with Hoye standing next to Bradley. Flanked by state troopers, Bradley admitted he had cocaine. Johnson then recited the Miranda warnings. Johnson believed he had probable cause to search the vehicle. Bradley stated that “a lot” of cocaine was in the trunk. About a kilo of cocaine in a backpack was lying in the trunk. Bradley successfully moved to suppress his confession and the physical evidence.The Third Circuit vacated in part and remanded for the district court to decide whether supplementation of the record is needed to decide whether the cocaine would have been inevitably discovered during an inventory search, and, if so, whether police department policy sufficiently cabined the scope of the officer’s discretion in conducting the inventory search such that the search of the backpack, a closed container, would have been lawful. View "United States v. Bradley" on Justia Law

Francisco, a citizen of Guatemala, obtained lawful U.S. permanent resident status in 1989. In 2012, Francisco pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny in the second degree in New York; Francisco had obtained a stolen laptop and contacted the laptop’s owner and demanded money. During this exchange, Francisco sent the laptop’s owner sexually explicit pictures that Francisco had found on the laptop. The owner contacted the police. Francisco was sentenced to five years of probation. In 2018, Francisco returned from a trip abroad and sought admission as a returning lawful permanent resident. Instead, Francisco was classified as an arriving alien and was deemed inadmissible under 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(I) as an alien convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT). Francisco filed an unsuccessful application for discretionary relief of cancellation of removal. The BIA dismissed Francisco’s appeal, citing Matter of Diaz-Lizarraga (2016), in which the BIA promulgated a broader standard for determining whether a larceny offense constituted a categorical CIMT and holding that New York’s second-degree grand larceny statute defines a categorical CIMT because it requires the accused to take or withhold property with the intent to permanently or virtually permanently appropriate it or deprive the rightful owner of its use.The Third Circuit vacated, joining other circuits in ruling that the BIA should not have retroactively applied Diaz-Lizarraga. An alien defendant’s decision about whether to plead guilty, implicate distinctively weighty reliance interests; there is no discernable BIA uniformity interest in retroactively applying Diaz-Lizarraga. The BIA uniformly applied the prior standard for more than seven decades before changing course. View "Francisco-Lopez v. Attorney General United States" on Justia Law

VOG billed itself as an advocacy group helping victims of timeshare fraud get out of their timeshare debts. A jury determined that VOG had actually defrauded its customers and that three individual defendants (including Lacerda) were each knowing participants in that fraud. Lacerda was sentenced to 324 months’ imprisonment for his leading role in the fraudulent enterprise.The Third Circuit affirmed the respective convictions and sentences. The court rejected a claim of impermissible “overview testimony” by an FBI agent; an officer who is familiar with an investigation or was personally involved may tell the story of that investigation—how the investigation began, who was involved, and what techniques were used, and, with a proper foundation, may offer lay opinion testimony and testify about matters within his personal knowledge. The district court did not abuse its discretion when it disqualified defense counsel based on a conflict of interest; when it denied replacement counsel’s motion for a continuance; when it excluded from evidence, as hearsay, an email sent by Lacerda to VOG’s former CFO; in exercising its sentencing discretion; or by ordering the forfeiture of all VOG’s gross proceeds. View "United States v. Lacerda" on Justia Law

Sims, as a member of the “Black P-Stones,” an interstate gang that trafficked drugs and women, prostituted women online, provided them security while they worked, then collected their money and supplied the women with drugs. Sims and his fellow gang members used force and coercion to trap women in a vicious cycle of drug addiction and prostitution. Sims pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, 18 U.S.C. 1594(c). The PSR assigned Sims a base offense level of 34 for the conspiracy offense. Sims requested a base offense level of 14, which the Ninth Circuit had applied to the same crime in 2016. The district court applied a base level of 34, opining that the Ninth Circuit’s decision “defies the written words of the Guidelines. It defies logic.” The court imposed a sentence at the bottom of the resulting advisory Guidelines range of 151–188 months’ imprisonment. The Third Circuit affirmed. When a conspiracy offense (like Sims’s conviction under section 1594(c)) is not covered by a specific Guidelines section, then Guidelines section 2X1.1 applies and requires courts to apply the base offense level for the substantive offense underlying the conspiracy. The substantive offenses underlying Sims’s conspiracy conviction were 18 U.S.C. 1591(a) and (b)(1), so Guidelines 2G1.1(a)(1) mandated a base offense level of 34. View "United States v. Sims" on Justia Law

In 2002, Dooley was tried for five counts of attempted murder, five counts of aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of a crime, and reckless endangerment. A jury found him guilty but mentally ill (GBMI). Dooley filed grievances requesting the “D Stability Code” designation, which would have entitled him to greater mental health resources. A Department of Corrections (DOC) official told Dooley that after the GBMI verdict, the judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation and the report "did not support the GBMI designation and it was deleted from the final order.” The district court dismissed Dooley’s section 1983 complaint without leave to amend and declared that the dismissal constituted a “strike” under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 28 U.S.C.1915(g).The Third Circuit vacated. On these facts, Dooley’s contention that he retained the GBMI designation, at least to some extent, is not baseless. If, as the DOC contends, a jury found Dooley GBMI and a sentencing judge concluded that Dooley was not severely mentally disabled, that would not have eliminated his GBMI status. Under current DOC policy, it would have placed him in Category II of GBMI inmates, which would have required that he be placed on the D Roster and receive regular psychiatric evaluations. Even if the sentencing judge found him not severely mentally disabled, his GBMI verdict did not disappear or lose all significance. View "Dooley v. Wetzel" on Justia Law

Stephens called 911 and reported that Gibbons hit her and had a gun in his truck. The police responded. Stephens obtained a temporary restraining order, prohibiting Gibbons from possessing firearms and from returning to Stephens’s house. The next day, Gibbons went to Stephens’s house. Stephens was talking on the phone; the friend called the police. Gibbons left Stephens’s house. Trooper Conza arrived. Stephens stated that Gibbons had waved a gun throughout their argument. Conza told Stephens to go to the police barracks and reported over the radio that Gibbons had brandished a firearm. Conza, with Troopers Bartelt and Korejko, visited the nearby home of Gibbons’s mother, James. James stated that she did not know where Gibbons was and that he might be off his schizophrenia medication. While driving to the barracks, Stephens saw Gibbons walking alongside the road and called 911. The Troopers responded. Bartelt parked his car and, exiting, observed that Gibbons was pointing a gun at his own head. Bartelt drew his weapon, stood behind his car door, and twice told Gibbons to drop his weapon. Gibbons did not comply. Bartelt shot Gibbons twice within seconds of stopping his car. Gibbons died that night.In James’ suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, the Third Circuit held that Bartelt is entitled to qualified immunity because he did not violate Gibbons’s clearly established rights. Bartelt’s pre-standoff knowledge of Gibbons differs from that of officers involved in cited cases. Bartelt could reasonably conclude that Gibbons posed a threat to others. View "James v. New Jersey State Police" on Justia Law