United States v. Maloney

513 F.3d 350, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 998, 2008 WL 151270
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedJanuary 17, 2008
Docket06-3745
StatusPublished
Cited by74 cases

This text of 513 F.3d 350 (United States v. Maloney) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Maloney, 513 F.3d 350, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 998, 2008 WL 151270 (3d Cir. 2008).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

SLOVITER, Circuit Judge.

The District Court found Sharif Maloney guilty of violating three conditions of his supervised release and sentenced him to imprisonment for a year and a day and one additional year of supervision. Maloney appeals. We must consider whether there was adequate evidence to support the District Court’s findings. Although we review the record relating to all three conditions, the principal legal issue is whether the condition of supervised release requiring Maloney to notify his probation officer of questioning by law enforcement officers was impermissibly vague.

I.

In 2001, while on parole from a felony conviction in New Jersey state court, Ma-loney was convicted in federal court of possessing a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and was sentenced to a term of twenty-eight months and eighteen days imprisonment and a three-year term of supervised release. After completing his term of imprisonment and beginning his period of supervision on January 12, 2004, Maloney undertook work as a shoe peddler in Newark.

It was the view of the Probation Office that Maloney “made a poor adjustment to supervision.” App. at 215. In early 2006, it filed a petition charging Maloney with violating a number of the conditions of his supervised release. On May 16, 2006, Ma-loney pled guilty to one of the charges, i.e., that he had violated his conditions of supervision by associating with convicted felons; he was continued on supervised release with the additional condition that he serve six months in a halfway house. Before Maloney was designated to a facility, however, the Probation Office learned that he had attended the trial of a member of the “Bloods” street gang, entering and leaving the courtroom in close proximity with another convicted felon. The Probation Office also learned that Maloney had been issued a summons by the Newark Police Department for failing to display a peddler’s license. Suspecting that Malo-ney had further violated the conditions of his supervised release, the Probation Office sought a warrant for his arrest.

While Maloney was detained pending a revocation hearing, the Probation Office learned that Maloney had been charged with eluding the police. This charge arose from New Jersey State Trooper Marcos Arroyo’s report that a red Mercedes Benz registered to and driven by Maloney had fled after Trooper Arroyo attempted to stop the vehicle. Consequently, the Probation Office filed a petition charging Ma-loney with four violations of his supervised release: (1) failing to notify his probation officer that he had been questioned by police in connection with the summons for failure to display his peddler’s license; (2) associating with a convicted felon; 1 (3) failing to report that he had purchased or had access to the red Mercedes; and (4) committing the crime of eluding a law enforcement officer during his period of supervision (hereafter referred to as Charges No. 1, No. 3, and No. 4).

*353 At Maloney’s revocation hearing, the government introduced testimony by Ma-loney’s probation officer, Anthony Nisi, and by Trooper Arroyo. Nisi testified about the summons Maloney was issued for failing to display his peddler’s license on May 4, 2006 (Charge No. 1). When Nisi asked the Newark Police Department about the issuance of the summons, he “was informed that in order for this summons to be issued, contact is necessary” because “the law enforcement officer simply just does not write a summons and walk away.” App. at 51. Nisi testified that Maloney did not notify him of this incident, although the two had met on May 23, 2006, more than two weeks after the summons was issued. When Nisi asked Maloney why he did not notify him of the summons, Maloney simply shrugged and responded that he did not know. The summons was ultimately dismissed.

Trooper Arroyo testified about the facts underlying the charge of eluding a law enforcement officer (Charge No. 4). In the early hours of May 7, 2006, Arroyo spotted the red Mercedes near the highway, recognizing the vehicle from an unsuccessful pursuit he had engaged in earlier that week. As the car slowly turned onto the highway Arroyo verified the license plate number and then illuminated the vehicle’s interior with his spotlight for approximately ten seconds. Arroyo activated the overhead lights of his patrol car, the signal to stop. Instead, the car “fled,” at a speed that Arroyo estimated was in excess of 110 miles per hour. App. at 21-22. Before the Mercedes fled, Arroyo viewed four black males in the car, but he concentrated on the driver, whom he later described as having dreadlocks. Later that day, Arroyo learned that the red Mercedes was registered to Maloney, obtained pictures of him from state databases, and identified him as the driver of the vehicle that he had pursued that morning.

Arroyo testified that he encountered the red Mercedes a third time the very next day, and on this occasion a woman identified as Summer Sprofera was driving the car. Arroyo testified that Sprofera told him Maloney was driving the red Mercedes in the early hours of May 7. Nisi confirmed that the red Mercedes and two additional vehicles were registered in Ma-loney’s name, and that Maloney failed to report his ownership of those vehicles in his monthly supervision report.

In his defense, Maloney presented the testimony of his girlfriend, a friend, and an investigator from the Federal Public Defender’s office. Saleemah Graham, Malo-ney’s girlfriend, testified that she was with Maloney during the early hours of May 7, that she did not believe Maloney would have purchased the red Mercedes, and that she had spoken to Tamar Watson, later identified as Rajan Ali, who stated that Maloney had registered the vehicle for him as a favor. Graham also stated that Maloney had braids, rather than dreadlocks. Maloney’s friend, Otto Chase, testified that he had never seen Maloney in a red Mercedes and did not know him to own such a vehicle. The investigator, Ben Grade, testified that he interviewed the red Mercedes’ previous owners and that they did not identify Maloney as the purchaser of the vehicle. He also testified that he interviewed Sprofera, and that she asserted that her boyfriend, Ali, was the red Mercedes’ actual owner, that she had never seen Maloney in the car, and that she did not remember telling Arroyo that Maloney was driving the car on May 7. Sprofera did not testify, nor did Ali. Investigator Grade did not interview Ali.

In a statement that he made to the Court at the end of the hearing, Maloney denied that he owned .or had driven the red Mercedes; rather, he stated that he had registered the car as a favor to Ali, *354 whom he had met through his peddling business and who was the actual driver on the night in question. Regarding his failure to list the car in his monthly report, Maloney stated that he did not consider himself the owner of the vehicle, that the car was no longer registered in his name at the time he turned in his written report, and that he simply forgot to put it in his report.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

United States v. William Barksdale
98 F.4th 86 (Third Circuit, 2024)
BALCACER v. NOGAN
D. New Jersey, 2022
ROSS v. NOGAN
D. New Jersey, 2022
United States v. Charles Senke
986 F.3d 300 (Third Circuit, 2021)
United States v. Jon Ewens
Ninth Circuit, 2019
United States v. Rivera-Rodríguez
321 F. Supp. 3d 278 (U.S. District Court, 2018)
United States v. Vaughn Johnson
861 F.3d 474 (Third Circuit, 2017)
United States v. Jason Erickson
692 F. App'x 81 (Third Circuit, 2017)
United States v. Munoz
812 F.3d 809 (Tenth Circuit, 2016)
United States v. Salvatore Stabile
637 F. App'x 678 (Third Circuit, 2016)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
513 F.3d 350, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 998, 2008 WL 151270, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-maloney-ca3-2008.