Hyatt M. Howard

Hyatt M. Howard, Associate

Second Circuit Criminal Law Blog

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The Second Circuit Criminal Law Blog is your place to follow the criminal law decisions rendered by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  With a rich 225-year history of legendary judges like Learned Hand and Henry Friendly, the Second Circuit has long been known for writing important and thoughtful opinions on many subjects, including the criminal law.  We review every published criminal law opinion handed down by the Second Circuit in order to provide you with a summary of the holding, an assessment of the key legal issues, and practice pointers based on the Court’s ruling.  Our focus is on white-collar criminal cases and matters relating to internal investigations.  Our blog is written by a team of experienced attorneys, including many former law clerks for the Second Circuit and other federal courts.  The blog’s editor in chief is a former Deputy Chief Appellate Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York who has appeared in more than 100 Second Circuit criminal appeals.

Circuit Upholds FIFA Convictions, Denying Extraterritoriality and Vagueness Challenges

by Sofie G. Syed, Hyatt M. Howard and Harry Sandick on July 1, 2020

In United States v. Napout, the Second Circuit (Sack, Hall and Bianco) affirmed the 2017 convictions of Juan Ángel Napout and José Maria Marin in the Eastern District of New York on charges arising out of commercial bribery related to the International Federation of Association Football (“FIFA”) scandal.  The Circuit rejected all of the defendants’ arguments:  the Circuit held that (i) that there had not been an impermissible extraterritorial application of the wire fraud statute, and (ii) the honest service wire fraud statute was not unconstitutionally vague as applied to them.  The Circuit also denied challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence and several trial rulings.  Judge Hall wrote a short concurring opinion that addressed one aspect of the parties’ contentions relating to their vagueness challenge.

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Second Circuit Continues To Scrutinize Drug Trafficking Offenses After Townsend

by Hyatt M. Howard and Harry Sandick on December 13, 2018

The Second Circuit has once again confronted the issue of what is a “controlled substance” for purposes of sentencing enhancements under the Guidelines.  Earlier this year, the Second Circuit held that the phrase “controlled substance” in U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(a)(2)—a section that enhances the guidelines sentence for a felon in possession of a firearm previously convicted of two felonies for either a crime of violence or a “controlled substance offense”—refers “exclusively to those substances in the [federal Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”)].” United States v. Townsend, 897 F.3d 66, 75(2d Cir. 2018).  This meant that not all state law drug offenses were suitable to be used as sentencing enhancements.  Now, in United States v. Guerrero, the Circuit held that the phrase “controlled substance offense” construed in Townsend has the same meaning as the term “felony drug trafficking offense” found in Section 2L1.2(b)(1)(B) of the 2014 Sentencing Guidelines, which is used for illegal reentry offenses.  United States v. Guerrero, No. 17-cv-851 (2d Cir. Dec. 10, 2018). 

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