Articles Posted in Criminal Law and Justice

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U.S. Supreme Court, January 25, 2010 Hemi Group, LLC v. City of N.Y., No. 08–969 In an action by New York City against an online cigarette seller under the civil enforcement provision of RICO, alleging that defendant’s failure to file Jenkins Act reports with New York State constituted mail and wire fraud, the court of appeals’ judgment reversing the dismissal of the complaint is reversed where plaintiff failed to satisfy RICO’s proximate cause requirement because defendant’s obligation was to file Jenkins Act reports with the state, not the city, and the city’s harm of lost tax revenue was directly caused by cigarette customers, not defendant.

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, January 25, 2010 US v. Alfonso-Reyes, No. 06-1484
Convictions of defendants for defrauding the Farm Service Agency (FSA) of emergency loans and incentives to qualified farmers following the damage inflicted on the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico by a hurricane is affirmed where: 1) evidence is sufficient to support defendants’ convictions; 2) district court did not abuse its discretion by instructing the jury on sentencing enhancements; 3) district court did not abuse its discretion in its pre-trial disqualification of a defendant’s attorney; 4) district court’s imposition of a 27-month sentence defendant is not unreasonable; and 5) district court did not err in awarding a four-point leadership role enhancement on the other defendant.

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, January 25, 2010 Gray v. Brady, No. 08-2548 District court’s denial of defendant’s request for habeas relief, convicted of distributing cocaine and for doing so in a public park, is affirmed where: 1) defendant’s arguments that the trial court mistakenly believed that defendant, because he is not Hispanic, could not object to the exclusion of an Hispanic juror is without merit; 2) defendant’s argument that the state courts wrongly ignored the evidence of discriminatory animus toward the African-American jurors in finding no discriminatory animus against the Hispanic juror is without merit; and 3) defendant’s argument that the state courts erred in evaluating the challenges to the Hispanic juror and the African-American jurors separately, as opposed to challenges directed at “minority jurors” as a class is without merit, as defendant has provided no evidence or authority for the proposition that “minorities” constitute a cognizable group for Batson purposes.
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January 18, 2010 – January 1, 2010

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Supreme Court, January 19, 2010 Wellons v. Hall, No. 09–5731 In a capital habeas matter, the petition for certiorari is granted and the court of appeals’ order is vacated and remanded where the court of appeals incorrectly held that the habeas petition, which claimed that petitioner was denied discovery into the issue of whether there had been improper communications between the judge and jury, was procedurally barred based on an insufficient record, contrary to Cone v. Bell, 556 U.S. ___ (2009).