U. S. Supreme Court Happenings and Favorable Federal Circuit Opinions for the Week of October 28 to November 1, 2024--

U. S. Supreme Court Happenings– Week Ending November 1, 2024 –

The Justices had their November 1, 2024 conference today. On Monday thru Wednesday next week they will have oral argument. None of these arguments deal in criminal matters.

Favorable Federal Circuit Opinions for the Week of October 28-November 1, 2024 –

2nd Circuit

Farhane v. United States, (No. 20-1666)(2d Cir. October 31, 2024)(en banc)– Over a decade ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment requires criminal defense counsel to advise her client whether a guilty plea carries a risk of deportation. Today, the Court held that the Sixth Amendment entitles a naturalized U.S. citizen facing the risk of deportation following denaturalization to no less protection than a noncitizen facing the risk of deportation. A risk of denaturalization cannot be decoupled from a risk of deportation. A naturalized U.S. citizen considering whether to enter a guilty plea has a constitutional right to be advised by counsel that he may lose his citizenship and be banished from the country as a result. Farhane came to the United States almost thirty years ago, settling with his family in Brooklyn. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2002. In 2006, he pleaded guilty on advice of counsel to serious crimes and served over eleven years in federal prison as a result. The government filed a complaint for denaturalization against him in 2018, over a year after his release from prison, based on conduct admitted to in his plea. Upon learning of the government’s intent to denaturalize him, Farhane moved to vacate his plea, conviction, and sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. He asserted an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, alleging that his trial counsel never advised him of the risk of denaturalization and thus, removal, and that he would not have agreed to plead guilty had he known of this risk. The District Court (Preska, J.) denied his motion. On appeal, a divided panel affirmed the denial. In these en banc proceedings, the Court vacated the decision of the prior panel Majority; vacated the judgment of the District Court denying habeas relief to Farhane; and remanded the case to allow the District Court to reevaluate Farhane’s Strickland claim consistent with this opinion.

10th Circuit

United States v. Tony, (No. 23-2110)(10th Cir. October 29, 2024)--The United States Sentencing Commission’s Guidelines Manual (“U.S.S.G.” or “Guidelines”) contains so-called “grouping” rules, some of which are designed to minimize punishments when multiple counts of conviction involve “substantially the same harm.” U.S.S.G. § 3D1.2. Appellant Brian Tony was convicted of two counts of witness tampering and one count of voluntary manslaughter. Despite the presentence report’s recommendation that all three counts be grouped under subsections (b) and (c) of § 3D1.2, the district court declined to do so. Tony filed this appeal claiming the Guidelines required all three convictions to be grouped. The Court concludes that the relevant Guidelines are grievously ambiguous and therefore construe them in Tony’s favor under the rule of lenity and vacated Tony’s sentence and remanded for resentencing.

11th Circuit

Batson v. Florida Dept. of Corrections, (No. 21-14257)(11th Cir. October 28, 2024)--These consolidated appeals required the Court to decide whether two state prisoners’ federal petitions for writs of habeas corpus were timely. Theresa Batson and Michael Cassidy contended that their petitions were timely because the state courts amended their judgments and sentences after the vacatur of one count of their original judgments. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d). The district courts dismissed their petitions as untimely after deciding that the state courts issued those amended judgments and sentences nunc pro tunc to the date of their original judgments. The Court held, in Osbourne v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections, that this Court must defer to a state court’s designation of an amended sentence as nunc pro tunc. 968 F.3d 1261, 1266–67, 1266 n.4 (11th Cir. 2020). Because the state court in Batson’s case designated her amended sentences as nunc pro tunc, her federal petition is untimely. And because the state court in Cassidy’s case did not designate his amended judgment and sentence as nunc pro tunc, his federal petition was timely. The Court vacated Cassidy’s dismissal and remanded for further proceedings.

Latest Bureau of Prison’s Statistics (From BOP Website):

Fair Sentencing/Retroactive Sentence Reductions 4,148 Orders Granted to date.
Elderly Offender Home Confinement 1,246. Approved to date.
First Step Act Releases 39,455 granted to date.
Compassionate Releases/Reduction in Sentences 4,763 granted to date.
Population in RRC’s 8,355.
Population in Home Confinement 4,985.

COMMENT:

The new U. S. Sentencing Guideline Amendments become effective today, November 1, 2024. Those Amendments include: (1) Acquitted Conduct; (2) Rule for Calculating Loss; (3) Circuit Conflicts; (4) Youthful Individuals; and (5) Miscellaneous. We have also received a lot of inquiries about 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g) & 924(c) convictions based on the recent Rahimi decision and circuit decisions such as Range and Williams based on last year’s Bruen Supreme Court decision. Beginning October 25, 2024 until November 8, 2024, we will be evaluating cases for the new Amendments and/or the firearm convictions. Howeverk contrary to inmate rumor at inmate.com, there are no changes to § 924(c) convictions. We will need an outside contact’s name and telephone number, where you went to court, and your case number. We will contact your contact and let them know if you have any potential relief available from the above remedies. Our case evaluation telephone number for the above is (832) 346-0220.

The Corrlinks/TRULINCS website has been changed. A new policy effective September 30, 2024, where the BOP is only allowing groups of ten (10) emails may be sent out at a time. Alert2020 has several different emails which we have acquired through all the years we have produced and published the Alert Update. Currently, we have groups of 1000 inmates so that when we send out the weekly Alert Update, we can send out 1000 emails at a time and we do that to all the thousands of readers and our followers each week. Of course, all of our newsletter can also be found on our website at: federal-alert.com. We have had our technicians put all of our groups in groups of ten. As such, we have about 5,000 groups of 10, whereas before we had about 50 groups of 1000. Therefore, it will take us considerable more time to distribute the newsletter and we may have to eventually charge a subscription fee. We thank all of the people who are posting the newsletter in the law libraries at the institutions. Anyone else who is interested please let us know.

For the last 30 years, we have been very successful on direct appeals, 2255 motions, 2241 Petitions, First Step Act and Compassionate Release Motions, Earned Time Credits, DC Superior Court Petitions, State Post Conviction, Clemencies and Pardons and other specialized motions to mention a few avenues for relief we cover. The WCE is an excellent low-cost tool to see what can be done for you at any stage of the proceedings. It is thorough and detailed from day one of your case to present with our recommendations of any remedies available to you to gain relief.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

We are attempting to keep weekly service. However, the newsletter may arrive later because of number of emails that must be sent out now. We thank all of the volunteers who have committed to posting the newsletter in the law libraries. Anyone who works in the law library or has access to post the newsletter, we welcome your help.

Beginning January 1, 2025, we will start our own paid newsletter subscription service. Inmates who wish to continuously receive weekly ALERT Update are required to pay a $24.99 subscription fee to cover a year's subscription for one (1) inmate/email. This small amount will not only cover our costs, but will allow us to expand our coverage. Should you be interested, your outside contact may call us direct at (832) 346-0220 or you may email us at Alertupdate2020@gmail.com for details.

If you are serious about fighting your case and want us to evaluate your case to see if you may have relief coming, request a Written Case Evaluation.