United States v. Hunter, No. 13-2452 (8th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed his conviction and sentence for numerous federal offenses stemming from his involvement in controlled buys of various controlled substances. The court rejected defendant's claim that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence found during a 2012 warrant search of his apartment; the court need not decide whether the dog sniff violated the Fourth Amendment because suppression of the evidence seized during the warrant search is foreclosed by United States v. Davis, which held that evidence obtained during a search conducted in reasonable reliance on binding precedent is not subject to the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule; the court rejected defendant's claim that he was denied a fair trial because of prosecutorial misconduct during examination of government witnesses and closing argument; defendant's contention that the district court violated his Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury pursuant to Alleyne v. United States was foreclosed by the court's prior decisions; in United States v. Alvarez, the court held that Apprendi v. New Jersey did not overrule Almendarez-Torres v. United States, and therefore district courts may continue to impose career offender enhancements without having a jury determine the fact of prior convictions; in United States v. Abrahamson, the court upheld a post-Alleyne challenge to an enhanced mandatory minimum statutory sentence, where Alleyne left intact the rule that enhancements based on the fact of a prior conviction are an exception to the general rule that facts increasing the prescribed range of penalties must be presented to a jury; and the court denied pending pro se motions.
Court Description: Criminal case - Criminal law and Sentencing. Police officers relied on binding Eighth Circuit precedent in obtaining and executing a warrant, and the exclusionary rule did not apply to preclude the use of the drug dog's sniff evidence in the search warrant application; claims of prosecutorial misconduct during trial and during closing argument rejected; Apprendi did not overrule Almendarez-Torres and district courts may continue to impose career offender enhancements without having a jury determine the fact of prior convictions; Alleyne left intact the rule that enhancements based on the fact of a prior conviction are an exception to the general rule that facts increasing the prescribed range of penalties must be presented to a jury; appellant's motion for permission to file a pro se brief is denied as he represented by appointed counsel and no reason has been shown for the court to deviate from its general rule that a party represented by counsel may not file his own pro se brief. Judge Bright, concurring.
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