In US v. Pineda-Doval, No. 08-10240, the court affirmed defendant’s conviction for transportation of illegal aliens resulting in death, holding that 1) a defendant may be found guilty of transportation of illegal aliens resulting in death only if the government proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant’s conduct was the proximate cause of the charged deaths, and the government made this showing; and 2) because there was no “reasonable likelihood that the jury” thought the greater and lesser offenses were equivalent, there was no error, let alone plain error, in the verdict form.  However, the court vacated defendant’s sentence where, because the court required strict compliance with Fed. R. Crim. P. 32, it could not give the district court the benefit of the doubt and assume it meant “malice aforethought” when it said “recklessness.”

Yepremyan v. Holder, No. 05-76746, involved a petition for review of a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denying petitioner’s motion to reopen for adjustment of status.  The court denied the petition on the grounds that 1) the day after Thanksgiving was a legal holiday for purposes of calculating time under Fed. R. App. P. 26(a); and 2) petitioner did not submit sufficient supporting documentation to show by clear and convincing evidence that her marriage was bona fide. 

In US v. Wahid, No. 09-50036, the court affirmed defendant’s sentence for mail fraud, theft of government property, aggravated identity theft, and tax evasion, on the grounds that 1) while a district court may not reduce the sentence of a predicate felony to compensate for the mandatory two-year consecutive term, it may exercise its discretion to reduce a sentence for a non-predicate felony; and 2) the district court did not plainly err in considering its discretion to reduce the sentences for the non-predicate felonies; and 3) defendant failed to present any evidence that he did not make a knowing and intentional waiver of his right to counsel or that his conviction otherwise was unconstitutional.

Related Resources

  • Full Text of US v. Pineda-Doval, No. 08-10240
  • Full Text of In re: JTS Corp., No. 07-15970
  • Full Text of Yepremyan v. Holder, No. 05-76746
  • Full Text of US v. Wahid, No. 09-50036

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