United States First Circuit

District court's conviction of defendant for use of a facility of interstate commerce in the commission of murder-for-hire and solicitation to commit a crime of violence, and imposition of a 300-month sentence, are affirmed where: 1) defendant's constructive amendment claim is rejected as the district court instructed the jury on the specific obstruction of justice felony at issue, the murdering of witnesses, and it properly told the jury that this felony includes as an element physical force against a person or property; 2) defendant's claim that the district court improperly instructed the jury as to its power to nullify is rejected; and 3) defendant's sentence is substantively reasonable and, because the murder-for-hire conduct was only one of seven independent factors considered in calculating defendant's fraud sentence, district court's decision to have the first sixty months of defendant's 300-month sentence run concurrently with the fraud sentence is also reasonable.

Appellate Information

• Decided 11/24/2010
• Published 11/24/2010

Judges

• STAHL

Court

• United States First Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Terrance J. McCarthy, Kelly Begg Lawrence