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July 6-10, 2009.
U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, July 08, 2009 US v. Meadows, No. 08-1122 Conviction for firearms possession is affirmed where: 1) the district court properly denied defendant’s motion to suppress as the officers acted within the permissible scope of an investigatory stop when they handcuffed defendant and removed him from his sister’s home; 2) the court did not err in its handling of defendant’s status as a felon during trial as defendant was not unfairly prejudiced by any information about his criminal history that came before the jury; 3) the government did not err in the challenged statements it made during its closing summation; and 4) the government did not err in its instructions to the jury.
U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, July 08, 2009 US v. Bryant , No. 08-1160 Conviction and sentence for drug crimes is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) the district court erred in not requiring the government to show that the presentence report’s description of the prior New York conviction was based on a sufficiently reliable source to establish the accuracy of that description, and thus the government could not have met its burden of establishing the existence of the prior conviction for sentencing enhancement purposes; 2) the court did not err in finding that a certified copy of the record from the Suffolk Superior Court was sufficiently reliable to support the fact of defendant’s Suffolk Superior Court conviction for sentencing enhancement purposes; 3) both of the defendant’s prior convictions, if proven, qualify as a predicate offenses under U.S.S.G. sec. 4B1.2; and 4) the court did not err in considering the two transactions as part of the same course of conduct for purposes of sentencing.
U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, July 06, 2009 Pilgrim v. Luther, No. 07-1950 In a prisoner civil rights action, district court’s grant of summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim fails as a matter of law as entreaties to activity such as petitions protesting prison conditions are not entitled to First Amendment protection where other less disruptive means of airing grievances are available; and 2) plaintiff’s claims that defendant violated his due process rights are without merit as any error on the part of the corrections officer assigned to assisting plaintiff was harmless in light of defendant’s owns failures.
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