Justia U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant-appellant Jeffrey Jones was convicted of sexually abusing his stepdaughters, K.B. and C.B., which resulted in three concurrent life sentences. On appeal, he challenged the testimony of two witnesses: (1) Crystal Jones, the mother of K.B. and C.B., who repeatedly testified as to her belief in the truthfulness of her daughters’ accusations about Jones’s actions, which she herself did not directly observe; and (2) government witness Janetta Michaels, an FBI forensic interviewer, who testified that C.B. was “forthcoming” in her forensic interview and “appropriate with her knowledge.” On appeal to the Tenth Circuit, Jones argued the district court plainly erred by allowing both witnesses’ testimony about the credibility of K.B. and C.B. The Tenth Circuit rejected Jones’s contention that the district court plainly erred by admitting Ms. Michaels’s challenged testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, but agreed that the district court plainly erred in admitting Crystal’s challenged testimony under Rule 608. The convictions and sentences were reversed and the case remanded for a new trial. View "United States v. Jones" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Michael Phillips was stopped by police officers who observed him driving recklessly without a seat belt and suspected he lacked a valid driver’s license. The officers searched his vehicle and recovered cocaine base. Following a failed motion to suppress, Phillips was ultimately convicted on one count of possession of cocaine base with intent to distribute. Phillips challenged the denial of his motion to suppress, arguing that the arresting officers lacked reasonable suspicion for the stop and violated his Fourth Amendment rights by conducting a warrantless search of his vehicle. He also contended he was entitled to a mistrial based on the officer’s trial testimony. After review, the Tenth Circuit held the district court correctly found that the officers reasonably suspected Phillips of committing traffic violations and had probable cause to search the vehicle. The Court also found that any error concerning the challenged trial testimony was harmless. View "United States v. Phillips" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Quindell Maloid pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Years earlier, he pleaded guilty in Colorado state court to conspiring to commit felony menacing with a firearm. Under commentary in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual, conspiracies to commit crimes of violence count as crimes of violence and markedly increase a defendant’s advisory guideline range. After counting Maloid’s prior conspiracy conviction as a crime of violence, the district court sentenced him to 51 months’ imprisonment, the low end of the range. The issue this case presented for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals was the weight to be given to this commentary from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. To this, the Court held that in the Tenth Circuit, the commentary in the Guidelines Manual governs unless it runs afoul of the Constitution or a federal statute or is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the guideline provision it addresses. The Court elected not to extend Kisor v. Wilkie, 139 S. Ct. 2400 (2019), to the Commission’s commentary absent clear direction from the U.S. Supreme Court. View "United States v. Maloid" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Derald Geddes was convicted by a jury of tax obstruction, tax evasion, and three counts of willfully filing false tax returns in the years 2011, 2012, and 2013. He was sentenced to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay about $1.8 million in restitution. On appeal, he argued: (1) restitution was impermissibly ordered to begin during his imprisonment; (2) 16 conditions of supervised release not pronounced orally at sentencing improperly appeared in the written judgment; and (3) one of those 16 conditions, the risk notification to third parties condition, was invalid under United States v. Cabral, 926 F.3d 687 (10th Cir. 2019). After review, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s imposition of restitution to the extent it was ordered to be paid outside the term of supervised release and remanded for the court to modify the written judgment. The Court affirmed the district court’s imposition of the mandatory conditions of supervised release in the written judgment and reversed the imposition of the discretionary standard conditions of supervised release. The case was remanded for the district court to conform the written judgment to what was orally pronounced in a manner consistent with the Tenth Circuit's opinion. View "United States v. Geddes" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Hassan Alqahtani was convicted for illegally possessing a firearm and sentenced to 30 months in prison. The gun was discovered after Special Agent Jonathan Labuhn received a tip that Alqahtani was unlawfully in possession of a firearm, prompting Labuhn to begin an investigation. Alqahtani appealed his conviction and sentence, arguing: (1) the warrant application failed to establish probable cause to search his residence, and that the affidavit supporting the application contained material misstatements and omissions; (2) the district court improperly granted the Government’s peremptory challenge to the only Black member of the jury venire; (3) the district court impermissibly admitted hearsay testimony concerning statements made by Alqahtani’s wife to a Task Force Officer; (4) the district court improperly applied a four-level sentencing enhancement on the theory that Alqahtani had previously used the gun at issue here in connection with another felony. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed Alqahtani's conviction. View "United States v. Alqahtani" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Jimcy McGirt argued that because his alleged crimes took place on the Creek Reservation and he was an enrolled member of the tribe, the State of Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction to prosecute him. the U.S. Supreme Court agreed and his state convictions were overturned, but he was later indicted in federal court and convicted by jury on two counts of aggravated sexual assault in Indian country, and one count of abusive sexual contact in Indian county. He was sentenced to concurrent life sentences on each count. McGirt challenges his conviction and sentence, claiming: (1) the district court erred in instructing the jury that it could consider prosecution witnesses’ prior inconsistent sworn testimony for impeachment and not as substantive evidence; and (2) the district court plainly erred in calculating his sentence. The Tenth Circuit reversed and remanded to the district court for a new trial because of the incorrect jury instruction. Therefore, the Court did not address the sentencing issue. View "United States v. McGirt" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Matthew Spaeth sought to have his conviction and term of imprisonment vacated, or to have the sentence for his admitted participation in an extensive conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine reduced. He argued the government obtained and allegedly listened to recordings of telephone calls that he made from a pretrial-detention facility to his counsel. The Tenth Circuit found the record reflected that Spaeth’s guilty conduct was firmly established long before his arrest and that he received a very favorable sentence under a binding plea agreement. Even so, and despite his unconditional guilty plea, the Court found the law allowed Spaeth to challenge his conviction and sentence if his counsel’s deficient performance led to an involuntary and unknowing guilty plea when he otherwise would have chosen a trial. Though the Court condemned the conduct of the Kansas U.S. Attorney’s Office, Spaeth still needed to prove his claim for post-conviction relief, which the Tenth Circuit concluded he had not. Accordingly, the Court affirmed denial of relief. View "United States v. Spaeth" on Justia Law

Defendant Zechariah Freeman was convicted by jury of one count of sexual abuse. Appealing, Freeman argued: (1) the evidence presented at trial to sustain his conviction; (2) the district court erred by refusing to instruct the jury on an essential element of the offense; and (3) the district court erred by denying his request to use his peremptory challenges allotted by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 24(b)(2) to strike prospective alternate jurors. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment. View "United States v. Freeman" on Justia Law

After the government charged defendant-appellant Apache Young with one count of violating the felon-in-possession statute, he moved to suppress the firearms seized from his truck during an encounter with law enforcement. Young argued: (1) officers lacked reasonable suspicion to stop him; and (2) even if he was justifiably detained, the scope of his detention was not reasonably related to the justification for the initial encounter. The district court rejected both arguments. Young preserved the issue in a conditional plea agreement and made the same arguments he did at the district court to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Finding no reversible error in the district court's judgment, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "United States v. Young" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Jimmy Lee Brooks was convicted by jury of unlawful possession of ammunition and witness tampering. The ammunition charge stemmed from an incident in which Brooks shot a firearm at a car his then-girlfriend was riding in, striking her in the buttocks. Over Brooks’ objection, the sentencing court concluded he committed attempted second-degree murder and applied a cross-reference to the attempted murder guideline, U.S.S.G. § 2A2.1. The district court was also required to calculate the guidelines under U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1 and, in doing so, applied a heightened base offense level on the assumption that Oklahoma aggravated assault and battery was a crime of violence. On appeal to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, Brooks renewed his challenge to the attempted murder cross-reference, arguing that the district court was required to find he acted with specific intent to kill but instead found he acted with malice aforethought. To this, the Tenth Circuit agreed that the attempted murder cross-reference was appropriate only when the defendant intended to kill and that the court’s finding on malice aforethought was insufficient to support the cross-reference. Brooks also argued the district court plainly erred because, under United States v. Winrow, 49 F.4th 1372 (10th Cir. 2022), Oklahoma aggravated assault and battery was not a crime of violence. The government conceded, and the Tenth Circuit agreed, that Oklahoma aggravated assault and battery was not a crime of violence. But because Brooks’ argument that his substantial rights were impacted by this error was speculative, the Tenth Circuit left the issue open for the district court to consider on remand. Accordingly, Brooks’ sentence was vacated and his case remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Brooks" on Justia Law