United States v. Farah, No. 16-4363 (8th Cir. 2018)
Annotate this CaseThe Eighth Circuit affirmed Defendants Farah, Daud, and Omar's convictions and sentences for several federal offenses related to their participation in a conspiracy to join the foreign terrorist organization known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The court held that the record demonstrated that the district court conducted a sufficient inquiry into Farah's concerns about his attorney; the district court did not improperly instruct the jury as to conspiracy to commit murder and any error was harmless where there was overwhelming evidence that all three defendants understood they would engage in killing if they reached Syria; the district court did not err in refusing to instruct the jury on the affirmative defenses of combatant immunity and defense of others; the district court did not procedurally err by failing to consider the need to avoid disparities between their sentences and those of their coconspirators who entered guilty pleas; and defendants' sentences were not substantively reasonable where the district court varied below a properly calculated guidelines range.
Court Description: Gruender, Author, with Loken and Erickson, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. The district court conducted a sufficient inquiry over the course of two hearings into defendant Farah's concerns, and it did not abuse its discretion by denying defendant Farah's attorney's eve-of-trial motion to withdraw and by refusing to appoint substitute counsel; the district court's instruction on conspiracy to commit murder was not erroneous, as the instruction correctly defined murder and any error concerning the question of specific intent to kill was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, given the evidence in the case clearly showed all defendants understood they would engage to kill on behalf of ISIL if they reached Syria; the district court did not err in rejecting defendants' requests for instructions on the affirmative defenses of combatant immunity and defense of others; based on this record, the court can presume the district court considered the defendants' arguments regarding sentencing disparities; defendants' sentences, all of which were downward variances, were not substantively unreasonable.
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