Criminal Law & Process – Page 73 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

SCOTUS Decides Blueford, Declines Opportunity to Tighten Up Double Jeopardy “Manifest Necessity” Rule

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:May 25, 2012
Post category:Constitutional Law Criminal Law & Process Public U.S. Supreme Court

On some apparently flimsy evidence of intent to kill, the State of Arkansas prosecuted Alex Blueford for the capital murder of his girlfriend’s one-year-old son. After deliberating for some time, the jury reported that it had unanimously voted to acquit on both capital murder and a lesser-included murder charge, but was deadlocked on another lesser-included offense, manslaughter. The judge sent the jurors back to deliberate further. Meanwhile, Blueford requested that the jury be given a new verdict form on which it could enter a partial verdict of acquittal on the greater offenses. The judge declined and, after another half hour of fruitless deliberations, declared a mistrial.

Can Blueford now be retried in front of a new jury on the capital-murder charge? The prosecutor announced an intention to try, and Blueford predictably objected on double jeopardy grounds. Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court overruled his objections, clearing the path for a second trial.

Seventh Circuit Affirms Money-Laundering, Conspiracy Convictions of Car Dealers for Cash Sales to Drug Traffickers

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:May 7, 2012
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Federal Criminal Law & Process Public Race & Law Religion & Law Seventh Circuit

Amir Hosseini and Hossein Obaei, who operated three Chicago-area automobile dealerships, sold many luxury cars to drug dealers over a ten-year period. Hosseini and Obaei were apparently popular with this market segment because of their willingness to take large cash payments in small bills. Eventually, federal prosecutors caught up with them, and, following a five-week trial, they were convicted by a jury on 97 counts of conspiracy, money laundering, mail fraud, illegal transaction structuring, bank fraud, and aiding and abetting a drug conspiracy. The Seventh Circuit has now affirmed these convictions and the 15- and 20-year sentences that went along with them.

Had it been properly preserved, the most substantial legal issue on appeal would have been the question left open by United States v. Santos, 553 U.S. 507 (2008): whether, in a traditional money-laundering prosecution, the government must prove that the allegedly laundered proceeds are net profits, as opposed to gross receipts, of the underlying crime. (See my blog post about Santos here). However, since the Santos issue was raised for the first time on appeal, the court used plain-error review and found that the defendants could not satisfy the standard given the “unsettled state of the law.” (2)

Hosseini and Obaei also raised an interesting voir dire issue.

Setser v. United States: Bureaucratic Sentencing on Trial in the Supreme Court, Again

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:May 5, 2012
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Federal Criminal Law & Process Federal Sentencing Public U.S. Supreme Court

While he was already on probation for another offense, Monroe Setser was arrested for trafficking in meth. The arrest led to three separate criminal proceedings: a revocation of Setser’s probation in state court and fresh prosecutions in both state and federal court. (One wonders why our law-enforcement authorities have nothing better to do with their time than pile on the charges in these sorts of redundant prosecutions. Oh, to overturn the Supreme Court’s regrettable decision in Bartkus v. Illinois!) The federal prosecution reached the sentencing stage first, and the district court decided that it should rule on whether the 151-month federal sentence should be served consecutively to or concurrently with the anticipated state sentences. The court split the difference, determining that the federal sentence would be consecutive to the sentence for the probation violation, but concurrent with the sentence for the fresh state charge. Then — wouldn’t you know it! — the state court made the federal sentence a logical impossibility by ordering the two state sentences to run concurrently with one another.

On appeal, Setser argued unsuccessfully that the district court lacked authority to make a concurrent/consecutive decision relative to a state sentence that had not yet been imposed. In Setser’s view, it was up to the Bureau of Prisons to make the call, based on its authority under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) to decide whether federal sentences are to be served in a state or federal facility. The Fifth Circuit rejected this view, and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in a 6-3 decision earlier this spring.