Elena Steiger Reich, Associate

On November 13, 2019, the Second Circuit (Hall, Lynch, Gardephe) issued a decision in United States v. Balde, vacating the defendant’s guilty plea for unlawful possession of a firearm by an alien who is in the United States illegally or unlawfully, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(5)(A) and 924(a)(2).  The panel initially upheld Balde’s conviction on appeal, but eight days after the Court’s original decision, the United States Supreme Court decided Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), holding that a conviction under the relevant statutes required the government to prove that the defendant knew that he or she was in the country illegally at the time he or she possessed the firearm.  Prior to Rehaif, every Circuit to consider the question held that the defendant’s knowledge of this fact was not an element.  The Second Circuit then granted Balde’s petition for rehearing and concluded that the district court had committed plain error in failing to ensure that Balde was apprised of this knowledge requirement before pleading guilty (even though the district court had no reason at the time to think it was an element of the crime) and because the record did not contain facts sufficient to support a conclusion that Balde was aware that he was in the country illegally. 

On November 4, 2019, the Second Circuit (Kearse, Wesley, Chin) issued a decision in United States v. Murphy, vacating a defendant’s guilty plea for traveling interstate for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor, in violation of 18 U.S.C § 2243(b).  The panel sided with several sister circuits in concluding that § 2243(b) is not a strict liability crime, and requires that the defendant travel interstate with the requisite intent, regardless of the actual age of the victim.  The Court concluded that the district court had committed plain error in failing to ensure both that the defendant was adequately informed of this essential element of the crime to which he was pleading guilty, or that there was an adequate factual basis for the plea.  Notwithstanding the awful nature of the crime committed here, it is important for courts to make sure that a defendant is advised of the elements of the offense, as required by Rule 11, and that he admits to those elements.

In United States v. Derek Armstrong, 18-368, the Second Circuit (Sack, Raggi, Kaplan) issued a summary order vacating a three-month prison sentence imposed on the defendant by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York for violating probation by failing to report for random drug testing.  The defendant had previously been sentenced in 2015 to three years’ probation for filing false tax returns and it was his violation of that probation that resulted in the challenged sentence.  On appeal, he argued that his prison sentence was procedurally unreasonable because it was based on an erroneous fact asserted by the government at sentencing: that the defendant had failed to pay any of the back-tax payments ordered by the district court. 

In United States v. Gonzales, 16-4318 (March 13, 2018), the Second Circuit (Sack, Parker, Carney) in a per curiam order vacated the conviction of a defendant who had pled guilty without being informed that he was likely to be deported at the end of his sentence.  On June 23, 2015, Wilfredo Gonzales appeared before the Western District of New York (Geraci, C.J.) and pled guilty pursuant to a plea agreement to one count of conspiracy to manufacture, possess with intent to distribute, and distribute cocaine, and one count of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense.  During the plea colloquy, the District Court failed to inform Gonzales, who was a lawful permanent resident, that he could be removed from the United States as a result of his conviction.

On July 19, 2017, in United States v. Allen, et al. (16-cr-98) (Cabranes, Pooler, Lynch), the Second Circuit issued a decision reversing the convictions of defendants Anthony Allen and Anthony Conti for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud.  This was the first federal criminal appeal in connection with the London Interbank Offered Rated (“LIBOR”) prosecutions, which involved allegations that various individuals and banks manipulated the LIBOR.  The LIBOR is a benchmark interest rate intended to reflect the available rates at which banks borrow money from other banks; the LIBOR is incorporated into the terms of financial transactions worldwide. We provided a brief summary of the opinion a few hours after the decision was rendered; here is our more detailed summary.

A Second Circuit panel has ruled that infamous mob boss Carmine “The Snake” Persico will continue serving his 100-year sentence in federal prison.  In United States v. Persico, 16-2361, the Second Circuit (Walker, Jacobs, Parker) affirmed by summary order the decision of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Duffy, J.), denying Persico’s motion to shorten his sentence pursuant to the old Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(a).

In United States v. Viktor Bout, 15-3592, the Second Circuit (Walker, Hall, Chin) issued a summary order affirming the decision of the District Court for the Southern District of New York (Scheindlin, J.) denying the defendant’s motion for a new trial.  Bout was convicted following trial on four counts arising from a sting operation that involved Bout’s participation in a conspiracy to sell 100 surface-to-air missiles to the Colombian terrorist group Fuerzas Armadas Revoluncionarias de Colombia (“FARC”), and sentenced to 300 months in prison.

In Jane Doe v. USA, 15-1967, the Second Circuit (Pooler, Livingston, Lohier) vacated the decision of the District Court (Gleeson, J.) granting the petitioner’s motion to expunge all records of her criminal conviction and holding that the District Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to entertain the motion.

In United States v. Stavros Ganias, 12-240, the Second Circuit, in a rare en banc ruling jointly written by Judges Livingston and Lynch, sidestepped a complicated Fourth Amendment issue related to the government’s retention of files from a hard drive outside the scope of a warrant, and instead affirmed the defendant’s conviction on the ground that, regardless of whether there was a Fourth Amendment violation, the government reasonably relied in good faith on a later warrant to search those files.  The en banc holding reversed the decision of a divided Second Circuit panel that came down nearly a year ago, which reversed the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress and vacated the judgment of conviction.  All of the judges on the Court, except for Judge Chin, either joined in the opinion or concurred in the result.  The novel and important question raised in this appeal—whether the government can retain electronic files collected pursuant to a search warrant and later search those files for a separate purpose, pursuant to a second search warrant—will need to be addressed in another case or by Congress.