Somehow, an alternate juror managed to stay for jury deliberations in the trial of Manuel Maldonado Aguilar without anyone noticing until the day after the verdict ws rendered. In United States v. Aguilar, issued on February 26, 2014 (published), the Eighth Circuit joined three other circuits that have held that a defendant is prejudiced […]
The highly technical determination of whether prior felony convictions are predicates for Armed Career Criminal Acr (ACCA) enhancements have yielded two notable cases from the Eighth Circuit lately, due to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Descamps v. United States, which clarified that “sentencing courts may not apply the modified categorical approach when the […]
A recidivist illegal re-enterer tends to get little sympathy from a sentencing court (to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to come back once may be regarded as a misfortune; to come back twice “looks like carelessness”). But Milton Gonzalez explained that he returned to the United States to see his girlfriend and two young children when […]
In United States v. Parris, issued on February 4, 2014 (published), the Court affirmed the district court’s refusal to grant Parris credit for time served at a half-way house prior to her sentencing. Parris’ time in the half-way house was designated “a period of release” in her presentence report, and was therefore not detention […]
In United States v. Simmons, issued on December 6, 2013, Jonathan Simmons was not only charged with a crime that does not exist; he pled guilty to it. No-one – not his lawyer, the prosecutor, or the judge who took the plea – noticed that the law does not in fact penalize the possession […]
In one of its most important decisions of 2013, the Eighth Circuit ruled en banc in United States v. Bruguier, issued on November 5, 2013 (published), that the word “knowingly” in the statute criminalizing sex with a physically or mentally-impaired person applied to all elements of the statute. The government must therefore prove that […]
A bank president convicted of misapplication of bank funds in connection with a check-kiting scheme won a new sentencing in United States v. Markert, issued on October 22, 2013 (published). His loss had been calculated based on the total of the nominee loans he had approved ($1.8M) rather than on the actual net loss […]
In United States v. Scott, issued on October 22, 2013, the Eighth Circuit affirmed a sentence of 115 months plus two life sentences for a 56 year-old defendant convicted of a series of bank robberies “during which no one fired a gun and no one was physically injured.” Judge Bright dissented on the sentencing […]
Jury instructions in a criminal trial can snatch defeat from the jaws of acquittal (and vice versa). In United States v. Mariano, issued on September 9, 2013, the Eighth Circuit reaffirmed prior precedents that “a defendant who requests and receives a jury instruction may not challenge the giving of that instruction on appeal.” By […]
It is one of the basic rules of criminal defense – know the “worth” of your case and know it early. The worth of a case is a complex, variable and subjective calculation – encompassing, among other things, the statutory and guideline sentencing exposure, the case’s trial prospects, the plea bargaining practices of the […]