Recently in Criminal Law Category

During a special session of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held at the University of Arkansas’ law school, the court heard arguments in an appeal from a doctor accused of a 2009 bombing.

Randeep Mann was sentenced to life in prison in 2010 for the bombing that nearly killed Dr. Trent Pierce, the head of the Arkansas State Medical Board. Mann allegedly planted the bomb because the board had suspended his license following his patients’ deaths from drug overdoses.

Nebraska death row inmate John Lotter, one of the infamous inspirations to the 1999 Oscar-winning movie "Boys Don't Cry," is seeking review of his case from the nation's highest court.

Lotter was sentenced to death for his role in murdering Teena Brandon, Lisa Lambert and Philip DeVine in Humboldt in 1993. Brandon was a 21-year-old woman who lived briefly as a man, while the two other victims were witnesses to the killing. Their deaths brought outrage against the convicted killers and Richardson County authorities for their role in the case. Days before his murder, Brandon had reported being raped by Lotter and co-defendant Thomas Nissen.

A Burnsville man convicted of pimping a teenage girl in the Twin Cities is getting a second chance at presenting his case in court. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the jury instructions given at Arthur Chappell’s original trial for sex trafficking were so flawed that it warranted throwing out his original verdict.

“Considering the magnitude of this plain and prejudicial error, we conclude that failing to correct the error would seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings,” the Eighth Circuit wrote.

The Republican Party may be known to be conservative, but its National Convention in 2008 was anything but unadventurous, with the reported arrests of 800 people.

The Eighth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by 32 of those people arrested on opening day of the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The plaintiffs, comprised of protestors, legal observers, medics, the media and innocent bystanders, alleged that the police violated their constitutional rights to free speech and freedom from unreasonable seizures. Their case was dismissed in a lower court in 2010.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a federal lawsuit brought by Tony Alamo Christian Ministries connected with the removal of dozens of children from its compound.

Citing the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Younger v. Harris, the Eighth Circuit held that the federal courts cannot consider civil claims brought by plaintiffs who are being prosecuted at the state level on matters related to their federal claims.

The church and two of its members had filed the lawsuit in federal district court, alleging that the federal authorities' seizure of 36 children from its compound violated their First and Fourth Amendment rights.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a sentence of 144 months in prison and a lifetime of supervised release for a Minnesota man convicted of one count of traveling to have sex with a minor.

Darrin Anderson, a 36-year-old resident of Middle River, Minnesota, received the lengthy sentence for targeting young girls on Facebook for sex. The victim Anderson was arrested for contacting was 13 at the time.

After receiving reports of the incident with the young teen, authorities obtained a search warrant of the Facebook profile and chats of a fictitious person Anderson had created. Using the fake identity, Anderson engaged in hundreds of private chats with local minors and attempted to sexually solicit them, according to KFYR-TV.

Minnesotan Tom Petters may have been able to scheme dozens of people out of $3.7 billion, but he wasn’t able to convince the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn his 50-year sentence.

Petters was sentenced to prison after his 2009 conviction on 20 counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and conspiracy for his billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. The charges were connected to allegations that Petters, under the guise of Petters Co. Inc., tricked investors into thinking he was using their money to purchase electronics that he would resell to discount retailers.

After his hefty sentence, Petters claimed he wasn’t given a fair trial due to faulty jury instructions, faulty venue, and sentencing hearing and his inability to fully question key prosecution witness Larry Reynolds, a business association from California who provided assistance in the fraud.

It seems former-college-basketball-star-turned-NBA-disappointment Rumeal Robinson’s hard-partying ways have finally caught up with him. And there’s no one left to bail him out. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed his convictions on eleven counts of fraud and bribery charges and upheld his 78-month prison sentence.

An Iowa jury found Robinson guilty of using such underhanded tactics as bribing a Community State Bank loan officer, submitting a fake tax return, recruiting straw borrowers, and using his mother’s home in order to fund his extremely extravagant lifestyle.

The list of items Robinson reportedly blew his money on is enough to make a European playboy envious: clothes and jewelry from Louis Vuitton, steak dinners, plane tickets, stays at the Jamaican Ritz-Carlton, hundreds-of-dollars worth of cigars, a $10,000 M16 machine gun, a Maserati, Ducati motorcycles, and strip clubs.

The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, while generally strict, aren't entirely unfair; a defendant who "accepts responsibility," (i.e. cooperates and pleads guilty), can receive a sentence reduction.

Unfortunately for defendants, judges in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals employ a "no take-backs" rule: if a defendant recants his confession at any time, he doesn't qualify for a sentence reduction.

Appellant Kevin Shade, formerly an auto theft detective with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, was charged with "knowingly devising and intending to devise a scheme to defraud by material falsehoods" the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department of its material and intangible rights to honest services.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has greater tolerance for misstatements from courts than it does for misstatements from criminal defendants.

Michael Buck pleaded guilty to participating in a commercial sex trafficking operation in Missouri. Under the operation, Buck forced female victims to engage in sex acts by threatening them with physical harm. By way of a telephone service, Buck would sell the services of the women in strip clubs, motels, apartments, and houses to his customer base.