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

The Bureau of Prisons denied the inmate's request to choose his own cellmate. The district court and Third Circuit affirmed, finding the claim without merit.

Defendants were charged with possessing and passing altered currency (18 U.S.C. 472), possessing false or fictitious items (18 U.S.C. 514(a)), and conspiring to do the same (18 U.S.C. § 371). One pled guilty, the other was acquitted of the 514 charges and convicted on the others. The district court imposed a sentence of 20 months incarceration, consistent with a presentence report calculation using a base offense level of 9 and adding an 8-level enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. 2B5.1(b)(1) based on a the value of the counterfeit items being between$70,000 and $120,000, the loss the defendant intended to cause. The defense argued that the guideline calls for use of the "face value of the counterfeit items," in this case, $400, the bills used by the defendants for demonstration. The Third Circuit vacated. The guideline does not reflect the nature of the offense in this case and a step-two or step-three upward departure would have been appropriate to reflect the seriousness of the offense, but the guideline does not authorize a departure based on the intended loss.

Arrested in 1986 for sex crimes against children and terrorist threats and incarcerated since then, the defendant was granted a new trial by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1992. He was sentenced to 10 to 20 years imprisonment by Northampton County, with credit for time served, and 10 to 20 years by Lehigh County, to be served concurrently. The Lehigh court stated that he would be given "credit ⦠as required by law for all time spent in custody." The Lehigh commitment form effectively granted credit by designating the date of the sentence as 1986. The designation violated state law because credit had already been applied in Northampton County. Recognizing that the defendant was not entitled to double credit, in 2005 the Department of Corrections changed the release date from 2006 to 2011. State courts rejected the defendant's challenges. The federal district court granted a petition for habeas corpus. The Third Circuit reversed and remanded. Rejecting due process claims, the court stated that the state made record-keeping mistake and then corrected it, which is not "conscience-shocking." The defendant's expectation of being released on a particular date did not amount to a constitutionally-protected liberty interest.

The defendant committed an armed robbery and another shooting within two weeks in 1993 and was ultimately sentenced by one county to 50 years imprisonment, with parole eligibility after 16 years and 8 months, to run consecutively with a 10-year sentence imposed in another county. The New Jersey state appeals court held that the defense attorney's failure to move for consolidation fell below what was expected of "counsel" under the Sixth Amendment, but was not prejudicial. The federal district court denied a petition for habeas corpus. The Third Circuit affirmed, applying the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, 28 U.S.C. 2254. The state court reasonably concluded that the defendant was not prejudiced by ineffective counsel, because he had declined a plea offer that was as good as any he could reasonably have received if the cases had been consolidated. The state court decision was not contrary to and did not involve unreasonable application of federal law.

The defendant, a dual-citizen of the U.S. and Iran and a chemical engineer, marketed a dynamic software program to Iranian actors and agreed to provide Iranian entities with technology for construction of chemical plants, with a goal of converting Iran into a chemical powerhouse. His efforts included contacting President Ahmadinejad to unveil his plan to help Iran, with respect to the United States' "cruel and tyrannical" treatment of the Iranian people. He was convicted on 10 chargesâfour counts stemming from violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), three counts of making false statements, and three counts of bank fraud and sentenced to a four years imprisonment. The Third Circuit affirmed, rejecting a challenge to the constitutionality of the IEEPA and Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations. The law meaningfully constrains the President's discretion and does not violate the separation of powers doctrine. The government proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant's operation does not fall within the informational-materials exemption of the Act. The regulations are not unconstitutionally vague.

The defendant was convicted of possession with intent to distribute heroin (21 U.S.C. 841(a)) and two counts of possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking (18 U.S.C. 924(c)) and sentenced to 480 months. The Third Circuit vacated one of the firearm convictions as not supported by a separate predicate offense. On remand, instead of subtracting the 120-month sentence associated with that conviction, the district court engaged in de novo sentencing and imposed a sentence of 400 months. The Third Circuit vacated and remanded. The original sentences were interdependent and the appeals court did not instruct otherwise, so de novo resentencing was appropriate, but no new pre-sentencing report was prepared and the record is ambiguous. The court directed the district court to consider evidence of post-incarceration rehabilitation.

The defendant appealed his sentence for receiving child pornography (18 U.S.C. 2252A): 60 months imprisonment followed by 20 years of supervised release. The defendant had more than 700 images on his computer, some of prepubescent girls, and was also convicted of assaulting his step-daughter. After holding that the defendant had not waived his appeal by untimely filing, the Third Circuit affirmed the duration of the 20-year supervised release term, noting the relatively short term of imprisonment, and a prohibition on association with minors other than family. The court vacated and remanded a 20-year prohibition on internet use, except with pre-approval of a probation officer, reasoning that such a prohibition affects many areas of modern life and that the objectives may be accomplished by monitoring and filtering.

The defendant filed motions after his 1983 conviction for killing a witness. Before they were heard he escaped, was captured, escaped again, and was arrested again in 1991. Efforts to reinstate the post-verdict motions were unsuccessful and his conviction was affirmed, based on Pennsylvania's fugitive forfeiture doctrine. The district court and Third Circuit held that the forfeiture rule did not bar federal habeas corpus review. The Supreme Court remanded. The Third Circuit affirmed a conditional grant of habeas corpus and order for resentencing. The procedural rule that mandated dismissal of an appeal based on claims raised in post-verdict motions was a new rule that was not firmly established at the time of the defendant's escape. Pennsylvania's fugitive forfeiture rule mandated that the motions be dismissed, but gave the court discretion to reinstate those motions upon recapture; the "curious mix of obligation and discretion" created confusion. The confusion was compounded when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that review of post-trial motions dismissed under the rule is limited to whether dismissal is reasonable under the circumstances. The defendant was not treated in the same manner as similarly situated individuals would have been treated in Pennsylvania in 1984.

After being pulled over in February for a traffic violation, the defendant consented to a vehicle search. The officer found cash, marijuana, and guns. Five months later,during a fire code inspection of his girlfriend's apartment, the defendant was found sleeping in a room with a gun on the bureau. Money and drugs were also found. The defendant, convicted of possession of a stolen firearm (18 U.S.C. 922), challenged the district courtâs application of a four-level enhancement to his sentence for possessing a firearm in connection with another felony offense. The Third Circuit vacated and remanded. The February and July incidents were not sufficiently similar or regular to be relevant for sentencing. The "sparse" evidence did not indicate that possession of the guns was related to possession of the marijuana.

The petitioner, convicted in 1982 of murdering a police officer and sentenced to death, exhausted state appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court denied a habeas corpus petition challenging his conviction and subsequently remanded the Third Circuit's grant of relief on the sentence. On remand, the Third Circuit held that the death sentence must be vacated because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court incorrectly applied Supreme Court precedent (Mills v. Maryland). The verdict form and jury instructions, particularly a statement that â[w]e, the jury, have found unanimously . . . one or more aggravating circumstances which outweigh any mitigating circumstances,â created a substantial probability the jury believed it was precluded from finding a mitigating circumstance that had not been unanimously agreed upon. The court noted that the form has been amended since the petitioner's conviction.