The Third Department affirms the defendant’s conviction after conducting a comprehensive review of multiple appellate claims including evidentiary, procedural, and constitutional challenges.
The Court of Appeals vacated a portion of a criminal sentence that directed probation conditions to ‘be considered as conditions of parole,’ holding the language improperly invaded the executive branch’s exclusive parole authority.
The Wyoming Supreme Court affirmed the denial of self-defense immunity to a man who shot and killed his neighbor during a dispute over property boundaries, holding that Wyoming’s castle doctrine presumptions under § 6-2-602(b) and (d) do not extend to outdoor areas such as driveways, and that a defendant’s subjective belief that an intruder was about to enter his home — without objective corroboration — is insufficient to trigger the statutory presumptions.
The Oregon Court of Appeals remanded for resentencing after holding that the trial court violated the Sixth Amendment by imposing a true-life sentence under ORS 163.107(2)(b) based solely on its own factual findings, confirming that a constitutionally valid LWOP sentence for first-degree murder requires jury-found enhancement facts submitted through the Blakely-remedy procedure of ORS 136.760–136.792.
The First DCA affirms a first-degree murder conviction, holding that a trial court’s failure to hold a competency hearing is not fundamental error where the record lacks reasonable grounds to doubt the defendant’s competency.
The Third DCA affirmed a habitual violent felony offender sentence, holding that the trial court’s failure to submit prior-conviction findings to a jury under Erlinger v. United States was subject to harmless error review and was harmless where the record unambiguously established qualifying priors.
The Fourth DCA affirmed convictions for sexual battery of a child, holding that a six-person jury was proper where the death penalty was not legally available for the offense at the time it was committed, and rejecting the defendant’s Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment arguments for a twelve-person jury.
The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of a motion to suppress, holding that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless seizure of a computer suspected of containing child sexual exploitation material where the defendant repeatedly entered and exited his room under the guise of searching for a hard drive.
Ninth Circuit affirms firearms convictions, holding that silencers are optional accessories outside the Second Amendment’s plain text and that the NFA’s registration requirements are a constitutional shall-issue licensing regime.
The Virginia Court of Appeals affirmed a murder conviction obtained at retrial after a Brady violation, holding that dismissal of an indictment is available only where the violation causes irreparable prejudice or reflects a pattern of egregious prosecutorial misconduct—neither of which was present here where retrial gave the defense full opportunity to cross-examine the affected witness on the undisclosed agreement. The court also held that a Brady violation alone does not disqualify the prosecutor’s entire office.