James E. Novak
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Recently, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear a case involving a defendant’s sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). The ACCA is a federal law that provides for enhanced sentencing for someone who is convicted of a crime involving the use or possession of a gun, if the defendant has prior convictions for “violent felonies.” In recent years, there has been significant litigation over what constitutes a violent felony. The case is important for Arizona defendants because the Court’s decision may significantly affect potential sentences for many defendants charged with Arizona gun crimes.

The case arose out of an appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. According to that court’s opinion, the defendant was charged with possession of ammunition. The defendant was found guilty by a jury. At sentencing, the prosecution moved to sentence the defendant as a repeat offender under the ACCA. The prosecution claimed that the defendant had five prior violent felonies, including a 1982 conviction out of Texas for robbery. Although the defendant would typically only be eligible for a sentence of up to 10 years, because of his prior convictions, the court sentenced the defendant to 15 years.

After the U.S. Supreme Court declared part of the ACCA unconstitutional in 2015, the defendant appealed his sentence. The defendant claimed that under the post-2015 ACCA, several of his convictions no longer qualified as violent felonies. The court agreed, finding that two of the defendant’s convictions were no longer considered violent felonies. However, that still left the defendant with three violent felonies:  two Tennessee robberies and the Texas robbery. The defendant appealed, arguing that his Texas conviction for robbery should not have been considered a violent felony under the ACCA.

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Police officers make assumptions about their environment all the time. In fact, rarely is a police officer’s behavior based on something that they know to be the case. Police officers may assume, for example, that someone who called 911 reporting a crime was accurate in their description of the perpetrator. Arizona criminal law allows for police officers to make some assumptions; however, there are limits to a police officer’s discretion.

In a recent case in front of the United States Supreme Court, the Court was tasked with determining whether a police officer can reasonably assume that the driver of a vehicle is also the vehicle’s registered owner. The case came to the Court by way of a traffic ticket that was issued by Kansas police officers.

Evidently, while on a regular patrol, a police officer ran a registration check on the defendant’s pickup truck. The check revealed that the registered owner of the truck had a suspended license. Assuming that the driver of the pickup was the registered owner (who had a suspended license), the police officer initiated a traffic stop. During the stop, the officer confirmed that the driver of the truck was indeed the truck’s registered owner, and he had a suspended license. The officer issued the defendant a citation for being a habitual violator of state traffic laws.

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Earlier this month, a state appellate court issued a written opinion in an Arizona gun crime case involving the defendant’s challenge to the legality of the search conducted by police officers that led to the discovery of the firearm. Ultimately, the court held that the defendant voluntarily answered the questions posed by police, and he was not seized before the police officers developed probable cause to search his vehicle. Thus, the court affirmed the defendant’s conviction.

According to the court’s opinion, two police officers pulled into a dark parking lot and saw the defendant sitting in a car with another person. The officers observed the two men for about a minute before approaching the defendant’s car. One officer approached on each side of the car, and as they approached, they recognized the smell of burnt marijuana.

One of the officers asked the defendant, “Real quick, [are] there any guns, bombs, knives, Bazookas, or dead bodies inside the vehicle that I need to learn about?” The defendant replied that there were not. When the officer followed up with a request that the defendant exit the car, the defendant told him no and asked for a supervisor or a lawyer. The defendant was removed from the car, and the officers recovered a firearm and narcotics from the car. Subsequent to his arrest, the defendant admitted to possession of the gun and the drugs.

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If an Arizona criminal trial ends up in a conviction, the defendant is entitled to an appeal to review any and all alleged legal errors that were made by the court during the trial. While the right to an appeal is automatic, there is not necessarily a corresponding right for the appellate court to hear every issue that the defendant raises on appeal. Typically, to preserve an issue for appeal, the defendant must lodge an appropriate objection during the trial allowing the trial judge to correct the alleged error. If a defendant fails to make an objection to a judge’s legal decision during the trial, they may be precluded from raising the issue on appeal.

Importantly, not every issue needs to be objected to in order to preserve a defendants’ appellate rights. For example, a defendant can always challenge the sufficiency of the evidence on appeal, even if the issue was not raised in a post-trial motion. However, most other potential issues, including evidentiary issues and weight-of-the-evidence issues, must be raised to be preserved. If an issue is not preserved, an appellate court can still review the record for plain error; however, this is an exceedingly difficult standard to meet.

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear argument on a case involving the purported waiver of a defendant’s right to challenge the reasonableness of his sentence. In that case, the defendant was convicted of a federal drug crime and sentenced to 24 months of incarceration to be followed by a period of supervised release. While on supervised release, the defendant was arrested for another drug case. The defendant was convicted of the second drug offense, which was a violation of his supervised released. The defendant conceded that he was in violation of his supervised release, and asked the court for a concurrent 12-month sentence. However, the court sentenced the defendant to a consecutive 12-month term of imprisonment.

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When someone is charged with an Arizona crime, they have the ability to file a motion to suppress, challenging the admission of evidence that the prosecution plans to introduce at trial. In essence, a motion to suppress argues that certain evidence obtained by police was done so in violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights. Most often, motions to suppress are litigated in Arizona drug cases or cases in which there was a weapon recovered. However, a motion to suppress can be argued any time that evidence is illegally seized or when a statement is illegal taken.

One important aspect of a motion to suppress is the concept of standing. Standing refers to the defendant’s ability to argue a motion to suppress. In order to bring a motion to suppress, the defendant must have standing. Standing is a complex legal concept, but at its most basic it requires a defendant to have a subjective expectation of privacy in the place searched. In addition, that sincerely held expectation of privacy must be one that is recognized by society as reasonable. For example, a defendant who tosses a gun into a trash can as police drive by may not have standing to bring a motion to suppress. This is because the defendant abandoned the gun, eliminating any expectation of privacy that he may have otherwise had.

If the court grants a motion to suppress, the challenged evidence cannot be admitted at trial. In many cases, this results in the prosecution withdrawing the case because there is no longer sufficient evidence to prove the case. However, there are cases in which a successful motion does not end the case. For example, a motion to suppress may preclude only some of the evidence from admission.

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Earlier this month, a state appellate court issued a written opinion in an Arizona gun case requiring the court to determine if the lower court should have granted the defendant’s motion to suppress. The case contains an informative discussion on police officers’ ability to stop a motorist. Specifically, the case presented the court with the opportunity to discuss whether the police had a reasonable suspicion that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity when they stopped his car. Finding that such a suspicion existed, the court affirmed the denial of the defendant’s motion to suppress.

According to the court’s opinion, detectives responded to a sexually explicit ad on backpages.com, a website known to the detectives as one that frequently contained ads for prostitution. Through text messages, the detectives set up a meeting with two women. The detectives waited at the pre-arranged meeting place. They saw the defendant driving a car into the apartment complex and drop off two women. Police stopped the women, and detectives determined the vehicle was registered to the defendant, who was on supervised release for a robbery.

The detectives stopped the defendant’s car and approached. Ultimately, a handgun was recovered from the front seat, by where the defendant was sitting. The defendant was arrested and charged accordingly. Before trial, he filed a motion to suppress the gun, arguing that it was recovered as the result of an illegal stop. The trial court denied the motion, and the defendant appealed.

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Earlier this month, a state appellate court issued an opinion in an Arizona manslaughter case involving a defendant’s claim that he should have been entitled to fully inform the jury about the prior aggressive actions taken by the victim against the defendant’s pregnant step-daughter. Ultimately, the court rejected the defendant’s claim, affirming his conviction.

According to the court’s opinion, the plaintiff lived with his wife and step-daughter and her boyfriend, M.R. One day, the defendant got into an argument with M.R., and pulled out a gun. The defendant put the gun down, but then the two men got into a subsequent argument, and the defendant shot M.R., killing him. The defendant claimed that M.R. tried to wrestle the gun from him; however, no other family members were present to corroborate the defendant’s account.

The defendant was charged with manslaughter. Before trial, the defendant sought to introduce evidence of the prior aggressive and abusive actions of M.R. toward his step-daughter, who was pregnant at the time several of the incidents took place. The court reviewed the defendant’s request, and determined that the jury should be permitted to hear about the incidents, but not that the defendant’s step-daughter was pregnant at the time. The court explained that “the fact of the pregnancy is prejudicial and raises a greater possibility that the jury would be misled by focusing on the unborn baby as opposed to the Defendant’s state of mind.” Thus, the court allowed evidence of the incidents, but left out the fact that the step-daughter was pregnant.

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Earlier this month, a state appellate court issued a written opinion in an Arizona homicide case discussing the admissibility of the defendant’s statement. Ultimately, the court allowed the admission of the defendant’s inculpatory statement, although it was made after he invoked his right to an attorney, because the defendant “reinitiated communication” with law enforcement.

According to the court’s opinion, an inmate was allegedly attacked by the defendant and several others while in prison. The inmate died as a result of his injuries, and the state brought murder charges against the defendant. After the incident, the criminal investigations unit (CIU) tried to speak with the defendant, who invoked the right to an attorney.

The next morning, members of the prison’s special security unit (SSU) tried to talk with the defendant, who again refused to speak about the incident. However, as the SSU members were leaving, the defendant stated that he would talk to one specific member of the SSU. The defendant explained that he had “game-changing information” for this individual. The SSU arranged to have the requested member of SSU meet with the defendant, and the defendant admitted he was involved in the incident, but claimed he was not the killer.

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Earlier this year, a state appellate court issued a written opinion in an Arizona child pornography case discussing whether the lower court correctly denied the defendant’s motion to suppress. The defendant’s motion sought suppression of the illicit images as well as information that officers obtained through a subpoena sent to his internet service provider (ISP). Ultimately, the court concluded that such information could only be obtained with a warrant, however, because officers were acting in good-faith at the time they gathered the information, the evidence in the defendant’s case was not suppressible.

According to the court’s opinion, undercover detectives working in a child pornography sting placed an ad in an online forum, asking those interested in child pornography and incest to join a messaging group. Several users responded to the advertisement, including a user by the name of “tabooin520.” Within days of being added to the group, tabooin520 posted images portraying child pornography. Detectives sent a private message thanking the user for posting the photos, and the user responded with additional pornographic pictures of children.

Arizona detectives were working with federal investigators on this particular sting, and asked investigators to serve a subpoena on the messaging application, seeking the user’s IP address. With this information, detectives determined the defendant’s internet service provider. Detectives then issued a subpoena seeking the physical address associated with the IP address.

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Recently, the Arizona Supreme Court issued a written opinion in an Arizona homicide case discussing whether the defendant’s conviction for murder was invalid based on a double-jeopardy violation. The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” While the language used in the clause is somewhat archaic, this case illustrates that the principles behind the clause are as essential today as they ever were.

According to the court’s opinion, the defendant was tried for murder in 2013, after he shot his neighbor. Evidently, the neighbor approached the defendant after the defendant asked him to leave. The defendant testified that he believed the neighbor was armed.

After the parties presented their cases, the jury could not agree on whether the defendant was guilty of first-degree murder, marking the box “unable to agree” next to the first-degree murder charge. The jury found the defendant guilty of second-degree murder, and the court sentenced him to 16 years incarceration. An appellate court later reversed the conviction based on procedural grounds, remanding the case for a new trial.

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