U. S. Supreme Court Happenings and Favorable Federal Circuit Opinions for the Week of September 9-13, 2024--

U. S. Supreme Court Happenings– Week ending September 13, 2024 –

The Court is currently in summer recess. The first conference of the new term will be on September 30, 2024. The new term will begin in October 7, 2024.

Favorable Federal Circuit Opinions for the Week of September 9-13, 2024 –

4th Circuit

United States v. Elboghdady, (No. 22-4194)(4th Cir. September 9, 2024)– Elboghdady was convicted of traveling in interstate commerce for the purpose of engaging in illicit criminal conduct, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(b) and (e). The district court refused to allow an entrapment defense and sentenced him to 120 months’ imprisonment. Elboghdady appealed, arguing that he was entitled to an entrapment defense and that his sentence is nevertheless unreasonable. The Court vacated and remanded for resentencing without the application of the enhancement and cross reference found in U.S.S.G. § 2G1.3(b)(5) and (c)(3). The Court held that the district court abused its discretion when it applied the enhancements not supported by the record. The resulting improper Guidelines calculation amounts to procedural error.

7th Circuit

United States v. Mireles, (No. 22-1505)(7th Cir. September 12, 2024)– Mireles participated in a drug distribution conspiracy that flooded Chicago with hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and heroin. Mireles’s role was to retrieve drug shipments and deliver them to his boss’s customers in exchange for duffle bags of cash. Mireles then helped launder those proceeds back to Los Angeles, where he and the drug network’s ringleader lived. Eventually, the Drug Enforcement Agency shut down the network in a sting that involved the simultaneous arrests of multiple coconspirators, including Mireles. While en route to the Los Angeles federal courthouse to be arraigned, Mireles escaped from DEA custody. He was apprehended again about 18 months later—this time for good—and proceeded to trial. Mireles was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 342 months’ imprisonment. Mireles now challenges his sentence, among other things, contending that the court procedurally erred and imposed a substantively unreasonable sentence. This Court ordered a limited remand to reassess the propriety of applying the obstruction of justice enhancement to Mireles’s sentence, and, if necessary, to recalculate Mireles’s guidelines range and resentence him under the correct range.

8th Circuit

United States v. Thomas, (No. 24-2378)(8th Cir. September 10, 2024)– Thomas appealed after the district court revoked his supervised release and sentenced him to 3 months in prison. On appeal, Thomas argues that the district court erred by including a 2-year term of supervised release in the written judgment that was not orally pronounced at sentencing. Upon careful review, we conclude that the oral pronouncement of the sentence was ambiguous because, while the district court did not specifically state that it was imposing a new term of supervised release, it ordered Thomas to reside in a residential reentry center and abide by curfew requirements. See United States v. Mays, 993 F.3d 607, 622 (8th Cir. 2021) (while oral sentence controls over conflicting written judgment, mere imprecise language at a hearing will not negate the court’s obvious intent); United States v. Walker, 80 F.4th 880, 882-83 (8th Cir. 2023) (district court’s failure to specifically address conditions of supervised release which related to conditions that were orally pronounced was matter of mere oversight; vacating and remanding for resentencing to impose omitted conditions, giving defendant an opportunity to object). Accordingly, because it appeared that the omission may have been a mere oversight, the Court vacated the sentence and remanded to the district court for resentencing, with clarification regarding its imposition of a new term of supervised release.

10th Circuit

United States v. Hicks, (No. 23-7017)(10th Cir. September 9, 2024)– Hicks shot and killed his cousin Timothy Ray Buckley in the middle of a residential street. Defendant knew Buckley had a long history of violence in the community when intoxicated, as he was at the time of the shooting. Defendant offered evidence that Buckley knocked out his own girlfriend and then charged after him. Defendant shot Buckley four times and claimed self-defense. The Government, on the other hand, theorized Defendant intentionally murdered Buckley because he had disrespected him, pointing to a plethora of non-lethal alternatives Defendant could have exercised. Defendant recognized the issue as critical to his defense and requested a one-sentence instruction from our decision in United States v. Toledo, informing the jury he had no legal duty to retreat or exhaust alternatives before acting in self- defense. 739 F.3d 562 (10th Cir. 2014). The district court refused. The Court held that refusal deprived the jury of important law governing Defendant’s sufficiently raised self-defense claim and prejudiced his case. The Court reversed and remanded for a new trial.

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

Fair Sentencing/Retroactive Sentence Reductions 4,146 Orders Granted to date.
Elderly Offender Home Confinement 1,246. Approved to date.
First Step Act Releases 37,875 granted to date.
Compassionate Releases/Reduction in Sentences 4,754 granted to date.
Population in RRC’s 8,450.
Population in Home Confinement 4,837.

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