United States Seventh Circuit

In a capital-murder case in which defendant killed his victim to prevent her from testifying about his Medicare fraud scheme, conviction and sentence are affirmed in part and remanded as to restitution where: 1) a premature seizure of guns owned by defendant during execution of a "sneak and peek" warrant did not require suppression of the guns as evidence; 2) defendant's right not to incriminate himself did not prevent the prosecutor from asking the jury to infer guilt based on the fact that one of his guns went missing; 3) expert testimony by an FBI firearms specialist was properly admitted; 4) defendant had the services of a publicly-funded expert witness and was not entitled to a second one; 5) defendant was not entitled to public funding for a jury-selection expert; 6) there was sufficient evidence to support the conviction; 7) the jury properly found aggravating factors for vulnerable victim and lack of remorse; 8) the Federal Death Penalty Act is constitutional; but 9) remand was necessary to determine the proper amount of restitution for the Medicare fraud convictions.

Appellate Information

• Argued 08/16/2007
• Decided 08/25/2008
• Published 08/25/2008

Judges

• EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge., Before EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, and POSNER and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Seventh Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• David E. Bindi (argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee., Barry Levenstam (argued), Jenner & Block, John M. Beal, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant.