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Case Summaries

Criminal Law & Procedure

[02/22] US v. Lewis
Conviction on firearm offenses is vacated because a firearm found on the defendant during a traffic stop should have been suppressed as the fruit of an unlawful search and seizure, where neither illegal tints on the vehicle's windows nor the tip that firearms were in the possession of the individuals in the vehicle provided the requisite reasonable suspicion of criminal activity under the Fourth Amendment.

[02/22] US v. Moore
On appeal of the district court's denial of a motion to suppress a confession, judgment of conviction after plea is affirmed, where: 1) the confession, given after Miranda warnings but also after a previous interrogation without Miranda warnings, was given voluntarily and without coercion, and was not elicited by the two-step technique proscribed by Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600 (2004); and 2) the confession did not offend the Sixth Amendment because the defendant's right to counsel had not yet attached.

[02/21] Kawashima v. Holder
In removal proceedings against resident aliens who were convicted of willfully making and subscribing a false tax return under 26 USC section 7206(1) and aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return under 26 USC section 7206(2), the orders of removal are affirmed, as violations of sections 7206(1) and (2) are crimes "involv[ing] fraud or deceit" under 8 USC section 1101(a)(43)(M)(i) and are therefore aggravated felonies subjecting the respondents to removal when the loss to the government exceeds $10,000.

[02/21] Howes v. Fields
On petition for habeas corpus challenging the admissibility of a confession given while the prisoner was questioned by corrections officers within a prison, the Sixth Circuit's granting of habeas relief is reversed, where: 1) there is no categorical rule that isolation from the general prison population, combined with questioning about conduct occurring outside the prison, makes any such interrogation custodial per se; and 2) under the circumstances, the respondent was not taken into custody for Miranda purposes, so his confession was admissible.

[02/21] US v. Banki
In a prosecution for offenses involving transfers of money from Iran, the convictions are: 1) affirmed as to two counts, where: a) the indictment was not constructively amended; and b) there was no prejudice from an alleged impermissible variance between the evidence and the charge; and 2) vacated as to the other counts, where: a) the district court erred by failing to instruct the jury that non-commercial remittances to Iran, including family remittances, are exempt from the Iranian Transactions Regulations' service-export ban; and b) there was jury-instruction error in failing to define "money transmitting business" as an enterprise (not a single transaction) that is conducted for a fee or profit.

[02/21] Wetzel v. Lambert
On petition for habeas corpus claiming, inter alia, that the state's failure to disclose a "police activity sheet" violated his rights under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), the Third Circuit's grant of the writ is vacated, where the state court ruling that the document contained ambiguous and speculative references could be reasonable.

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Family Law

[02/15] In re K.P.
The juvenile court's termination of parental rights of both parents over their son is affirmed, where substantial evidence supported the juvenile court's findings and the court did not abuse its discretion in declining to apply the parent-child relationship exception to the statutory preference for adoption.

[02/14] In re A.A.
In a case in which an incarcerated mother's parental rights were terminated, the juvenile court order of termination is affirmed, where: 1) the juvenile court was not required to consider placing the child with the mother where she was not a nonoffending parent and where custody had previously been removed upon a finding of risk that had not been alleviated; and 2) the mother presented no material change of circumstances to justify a modification of the dispositional order where she was still incarcerated at the time of the petition.

[02/14] In re Michael G.
On parents' appeal of orders terminating their parental rights over their son under Welfare and Institutions Code section 366.26, the findings and orders of the juvenile court are affirmed, where: 1) although the juvenile court erred when it did not order a brief continuance of the hearing to allow time to receive the child's psychological evaluation and an updated report from his therapist, the error was harmless in light of other evidence supporting the finding that the child was likely to be adopted within a reasonable time; and 2) there was ample evidence to support the juvenile court's finding there were no applicable exceptions to termination of parental rights.

[02/10] Marriage of Thorne
In marital dissolution proceedings involving the division of property interests in the husband's military pension, the trial court's modification of the judgment to divide the pension according to the "time rule" is reversed, where: 1) the trial court had no jurisdiction to modify the judgment under the relevant statutes of limitations; 2) the omitted-asset exception to the statutes of limitation did not apply, as the words of the judgment expressly divided the entire pension; and 3) the extrinsic-mistake exception did not apply, as the judgment was not unlawful and any mistake by the wife was intrinsic.

[02/07] Perry v. Brown
In a challenge to Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative approved by the voters amending the state constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry, the district court's judgment invalidating the initiative is affirmed, with the following rulings: 1) the proponents of Proposition 8 had standing to bring the appeal on behalf of the State of California, whose people must be allowed to defend in federal courts the validity of their use of the initiative power; 2) however, Proposition 8 violated the Equal Protection Clause of the federal constitution, as the people may not employ the initiative power to single out a disfavored group for unequal treatment and strip them, without a legitimate justification, of a right as important as the right to marry; and 3) the district court properly denied a motion to vacate the judgment, as the trial judge, who had been in a same-sex relationship for ten years, had no obligation to recuse himself or to disclose any personal conflict.

[02/03] In re Gabriel K.
On appeal from an order of the juvenile court declaring minors to be dependent children and denying the request of their mother for reunification services, the order is affirmed, where: 1) the juvenile court's denial of further reunification services to the mother for her younger son was consistent with the legislative intent and thus, fell within the spirit of the reunification services statute; 2) the evidence before the juvenile court supported its conclusion that the mother failed to make reasonable efforts to treat her drug issues; and 3) the mother demonstrated no basis for setting aside the juvenile court's decision to deny reunification services.

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