Sorry for the irregular posts. I’m in trial. Things should be back to normal next week.

Today is the third anniversary of the date we published the first post on Taking the Fifth. In that time we have written 643 posts. This week we are in the top four percent of criminal law blogs on Justia and also in the top four percent of all blogs. We continue to try to keep people up to date on interesting stories in the field of criminal law and new changes in the law.

We can be followed on Twitter and Linked-In. Soon we will introduce a new Facebook page which will allow more space for people to comment on criminal law subjects. In the mean time we urge you to continue commenting on our posts and let us know anyway we can better serve you.

Zadik Shapiro

Former Memphis police officer Arthur Sease had a scam going. He would arrange for a third party to make a drug deal with a dealer. In the middle of the deal Sease or a cohort would arrest the dealer, steal the drugs and take any money they found.

He was fired and convicted on 44 counts in Federal Court. Among the charges were violations of conspiracy to deprive another of their civil rights under the color of law, deprivation of civil rights under the color of law, and robbery and extortion under the color of official right interfering with interstate commerce. He was sentence to life plus 255 years ¹.

Well established constitutional law states that when considering the constitutionality of a search or an arrest under the Fourth Amendment you do not consider the intent of the police officers. (See Whren v. United States) Sease had the chutzpa to argue that because the drug deal which he set up was illegal, it made no difference whether his taking of the drugs and the money was for legal reasons or for illegal reasons. If there was no constitutional violation he could not be convicted of depriving the drug dealers of their civil rights.

The Sixth Circuit held that “[u]nlike the officers in Whren, Sease and his co-conspirators were not engaging in bona fide law enforcement activities. Instead, they were using the appearance of law enforcement activities as an element of their conspiracy.”

The issue in Whren involved the exclusionary rule where officers have to make snap decisions in difficult situations. Here there were no snap decisions, Sease had everything planned out. Furthermore the deprivation of rights statutes require that the court consider the intent of the officer. To obtain a conviction the government must show that the defendant “acted with a corrupt, personal, and pecuniary purpose.” As a result the court upheld the conviction and Sease is going to spend the rest of his life in prison. ²

I’m in trial for the next week. Postings may be somewhat irregular as a result. If you want to know when a a new posting is on line feel free to follow us on Twitter for news of all new postings.

Thank You

Follow TakingTheFifth on Twitter for news regarding the latest postings.

Sorry Folks, but I’ve been busy with fiscal year billing and I haven’t been very regular in writing. But all should be well by the middle of the week. I’m working on an article on an interesting search and seizure case, out of the First Circuit, United States v. Bailey and I will try to get it out sometime today,

At 13 years old the respondent, in a Supreme Court case, began sexually assaulting a ten year old boy on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana. The assaults continued for two years. In 2005 the respondent admitted to juvenile delinquency allegations in Federal Court. He was sentenced to two years of juvenile detention followed by juvenile supervision until his 21st birthday with the first six months of the supervision served in a prerelease center.

In 2006 Congress passed the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) which requires sex offenders to register wherever they live, work or go to school. The attorney general determined that SORNA retroactively applied to convictions occurring prior to SORNA’s enactment.

In 2007 the respondent was found to be in violation of his prerelease conditions and he was sentenced to an additional six months and required to register as a sex offender at least until his 21st birthday.

He appealed the registration requirement. By the time the Ninth Circuit ruled on the appeal he was 22 years old. The Ninth Circuit ruled that “that applying SORNA to juvenile delinquents who committed their offenses before SORNA’s passage violates the Ex Post Facto Clause.”

The Supreme Court reversed, finding that at the time the Ninth Circuit ruled, the issue was moot. An issue is moot on appeal unless there is “an actual injury traceable to the defendant and likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.’ In most criminal cases at the time of the appeal the defendant is either incarcerated, on parole or on probation–all of which are considered “actual injuries.” In the present case there were two possible injuries. One was the confinement and supervision but that terminated prior to the Ninth Circuit decision and the other was the registration required which terminated at his 21st birthday. ¹ Thus the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit ruling. The only real effect of the reversal is that the Ninth Circuit decision does not serve as a precedent for future cases. ²

At age 14 Omer Ninham committed a vicious murder. While accompanied by four of his friends he purposelessly dropped a 13 year old boy from the fifth floor of a parking facility. The kid fell to the ground and died. Ninham was tried as an adult in Wisconsin and given the maximum sentence for an intentional homicide–life without parole (LWOP).

The Supreme Court has dictated a two step process in determining whether the Eighth Amendment’s cruel and unusual punishment clause is violated:

First, the Supreme Court considers “‘objective indicia of society’s standards, as expressed in legislative enactments and state practice’ to determine whether there is a national consensus against the sentencing practice at issue” . . . Second, notwithstanding the objective evidence of society’s standards, the Supreme Court “determine[s] in the exercise of its own independent judgment whether the punishment in question violates the Constitution.”

The majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court found that the Eighth Amendment was not violated. It ruled that there is no national consensus opposing the use of LWOP for teenagers in intentional homicide cases and using its own judgment it did not find a constitutional violation.

The United States Supreme Court has found that in determining whether there is an Eighth violation teenagers must be treated differently from adults. Punishment must be proportionate to the offense. Teenagers are less culpable than adults and therefore, at least in the cases of the death penalty and LWOP in nonhomicide cases teenagers are treated differently. The US Supreme Court has given three reasons:

1) Juveniles possess a lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility, qualities which often result in impulsive actions and decisions; (2) juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and peer pressure; and (3) a juvenile’s character is not as well formed as that of an adult.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that despite the significant changes in Confrontation Clause interpretation over the past several years hearsay remains admissible at sentencing.

Solomon S. Powell was convicted of mail fraud. He collected money for sale of merchandise over the internet, but he rarely delivered the merchandise. Though eight victims testified at trial at sentencing the court relied upon the investigation of Postal Inspector Evelyn Cross who testified at the hearing that he harmed over fifty people and that there was a loss of more than $200,000. This would have led to a guideline sentence of between 120 and 150 months. In an abundance of caustion the Court found that there were over 10 victims and a loss of $199,000, sentencing him to 102 months. While her report was thorough only the eight victims testified and the rest was based on hearsay.

Powell pointed to a line of Supreme Court cases, beginning with the 2004 case Crawford v. Washington limiting testimonial hearsay to cases where the witness is unavailable and where the defendant has had a chance to cross examine the witness. But the court held that once a person is convicted the right of confrontation no longer exists. The Supreme Court limited Crawford and its prodigy to evidence at trial and absent a change by the Supreme Court there was suffficient precedents to reject the confrontation clause at sentencing. It found that a wide variety of evidence is admissible at sentencing and that traditionally, as long as the evidence is reliable, hearsay has been admissible. As a result it upheld the sentence.

http://twitter.com/TakingTheFifth