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

Two Yellowstone Park rangers received an alert that a park employee had spotted Michael Bullinger, a fugitive wanted for allegedly shooting and killing three women in Idaho. The report said Bullinger was leaving the park in a white Toyota with a Missouri license plate. But the employee was mistaken—he had instead spoken with Brett Hemry, a man on vacation with his wife, Genalyn, and his seven-year-old daughter. The rangers spotted the white Toyota leaving the park and trailed it. Hemry noticed the rangers and pulled over near a campground sixteen miles east of the park entrance. Waiting for reinforcements, the rangers exited their patrol car and from a distance held the Hemrys at gunpoint until county law enforcement arrived. Once county law enforcement arrived, the rangers moved Mr. and Mrs. Hemry to separate police cruisers. After examining Mr. Hemry’s driver’s license, they set the couple free. The Hemrys sued the rangers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating their Fourth Amendment rights. On a motion to dismiss, the district court denied the rangers qualified immunity for Mrs. Hemry’s false-arrest claim and for Mr. and Mrs. Hemry’s excessive force claims. The rangers appealed. The Tenth Circuit reversed: in the context presented, the Court found the law did not clearly establish this investigative stop amounted to (1) an arrest of Mrs. Hemry without probable cause, or (2) excessive force against the Hemrys. View "Hemry, et al. v. Ross, et al." on Justia Law

After months of delay in his drug-conspiracy prosecution, defendant-appellant Aaron Keith unsuccessfully moved to dismiss the indictment on speedy-trial grounds. After his motion was denied, a jury convicted him of all charges. He renewed those speedy-trial arguments before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, attacking all five ends-of-justice findings of the district court. The Tenth Circuit determined Keith could not point to any prejudice stemming from the delays in his case. The Court therefore affirmed denial of Keith's motion to dismiss. View "United States v. Keith" on Justia Law

Law enforcement searched defendant-appellant Tyrell Braxton’s backpack after arresting him and found a gun. Braxton moved to suppress the gun. The government conceded that the warrantless search was not a valid search incident to arrest, but invoked the inevitable-discovery doctrine to avoid suppression of the illegally obtained evidence. The district court agreed with the government and denied the motion to suppress. The Tenth Circuit determined the government’s stated community-caretaking interest in safeguarding Braxton’s personal property by impounding it was significantly undercut by the presence of an individual who arrived on the scene at Braxton’s request and repeatedly asked to take possession of the backpack throughout the arrest process. "The government’s explanation for why the officers could have properly refused this individual’s requests is not persuasive. Nor is it dispositive, on these facts, that Braxton himself did not ask the officers to turn the backpack over." Thus, the Court ruled the government failed to meet its burden to show that law enforcement would have validly retained the backpack, and the inevitable-discovery doctrine did not apply to excuse application of the exclusionary rule to suppress evidence discovered during the illegal search. Accordingly, the district court’s order refusing to suppress the gun was reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Braxton" on Justia Law

Defendant Brandon Williams pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, and was sentenced to 180 months’ imprisonment. On appeal, he challenged his lengthy sentence as an improper application of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). He claimed that his two prior Arkansas drug convictions were not categorically “serious drug offenses” under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(A)(ii) because his state convictions could have applied to hemp, and hemp was no longer a federally controlled substance at the time of his federal sentencing. Since there was a categorical match between Arkansas’ definition of marijuana at the time of Williams’ prior convictions and the federal definition at the time he committed his federal offense, the Tenth Circuit determined the district court properly applied the ACCA enhancement. View "United States v. Williams" on Justia Law

Longtime demonstrators outside the Abortion Surgery Center in the City of Norman, Oklahoma (Appellants) contended a disturbing-the-peace ordinance was unconstitutional both facially and as applied to their demonstrations. The Tenth Circuit found, as did the district court, Appellants failed to furnish evidence that the ordinance was content-based, infected with religious animus, or enforced unconstitutionally. "In fact, the record reveals the opposite: Norman police officers enforced the ordinance only when the demonstrators’ speech became so loud or unusual that it breached the peace." View "Harmon, et al. v. City of Norman, Oklahoma, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant Monterial Wesley was convicted by jury of drug trafficking. In a post-conviction motion, Wesley alleged his prosecutor suborned perjury about the drug quantities attributable to him, in turn increasing his sentencing exposure. But, rather than asking the district court to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, he asked for a sentence reduction under the compassionate release statute, which permitted a sentencing court to reduce a federal prisoner’s sentence for “extraordinary and compelling reasons.” Wesley’s motion asserted various grounds for finding extraordinary and compelling reasons in his case, including the alleged prosecutorial misconduct. The district court concluded that the claim of prosecutorial misconduct must be interpreted as a challenge to the constitutionality of his conviction and sentence, which can only be brought under § 2255. Because Wesley had previously brought a § 2255 motion attacking the same judgment, and because the Tenth Circuit had not authorized him to file another one, the district court dismissed that portion of Wesley’s motion for lack of jurisdiction. As to the remaining grounds for relief, the district court found they did not justify a sentence reduction. On appeal, Wesley challenged the district court’s jurisdictional dismissal. He did not move for a certificate of appealability (COA), but Tenth Circuit case law required one for this appeal to proceed. “This in turn requires us first to consider whether jurists of reason would find debatable the district court’s decision to construe [Wesley’s compassionate release] motion as a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence pursuant to § 2255.” To this, the Tenth Circuit found the question debatable among jurists of reason, so it granted a COA. On the merits, however, the Court agreed with the district court that Wesley’s motion included a successive § 2255 claim because it attacked the validity of his sentence. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court’s jurisdictional dismissal. View "United States v. Wesley" on Justia Law

Jose Diaz-Menera challenged the sentence he received for money laundering, arguing that the district court erroneously determined his base offense level under § 2S1.1(a)(1) rather than § 2S1.1(a)(2) of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. The district court applied § 2S1.1(a)(1) based on its finding that Diaz-Menera was a member of the underlying drug conspiracy. Diaz-Menera argued that such finding was insufficient to trigger application of § 2S1.1(a)(1) because he did not personally possess or distribute drugs. However, because the Tenth Circuit concluded that a drug conspiracy can be an underlying offense for purposes of applying § 2S1.1(a)(1), it found no error in the district court’s sentencing decision. But because the government conceded Diaz-Menera’s second argument— agreeing that it breached the plea agreement by failing to move for a one-level reduction under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1(b)—the Court vacated Diaz-Menera’s sentence and remand for resentencing. View "United States v. Diaz-Menera" on Justia Law

While investigating the overdose death of plaintiff Walter Shrum’s wife, law enforcement officers searched Shrum’s home and discovered drugs, firearms, and ammunition. He was charged with various crimes in federal court. Before trial he argued the officers had illegally searched his home, and that the evidence discovered could not be used against him at trial. The district court disagreed, and Shrum entered a conditional plea of guilty, reserving the right to appeal the suppression order. On appeal, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded the search violated the Constitution, and any resulting evidence should have been excluded. Without this evidence, the government dismissed its prosecution. Shrum then sued various state and federal law enforcement officials for civil rights violations arising from the illegal search and subsequent prosecution. The district court dismissed the action as time-barred and insufficiently pled. To this, the Tenth Circuit agreed: (1) Shrum failed to prove he was entitled to equitable tolling under Kansas or federal law; and (2) Shrum’s complaint inadequately alleged all of the requirements for a malicious prosecution claim against the City and County defendants. View "Shrum v. Cooke, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Ian Batara-Molina appealed the denial of his motion to suppress methamphetamine found in a car he was driving. The methamphetamine was discovered after Molina was stopped for speeding on his way to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. During this traffic stop, two deputies deployed a drug-sniffing dog around the perimeter of the car and were alerted to the presence of contraband. The car was searched, and methamphetamine was found in the trunk. Molina moved to suppress the methamphetamine on the basis that his traffic stop was delayed for the dog sniff and that the deputies lacked reasonable suspicion for this delay. After the district court denied this motion, Molina pled guilty to one count of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. On appeal, Molina maintained his traffic stop was delayed for the dog sniff and that the deputies lacked reasonable suspicion for this delay. After review, the Tenth Circuit concluded the traffic stop was justified by reasonable suspicion, so it affirmed the district court’s denial of Molina’s motion to suppress. View "United States v. Batara-Molina" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Asael Linares was indicted as a felon in possession of a firearm after an attempted carjacking. He pled guilty, but objected to a sentencing enhancement and the failure to apply a sentencing decrease proposed by the government, arguing that he did not complete an attempted carjacking, nor did he meet the required mental state for the carjacking enhancement. Finding that Linares was about to complete a carjacking while possessing an AK-47, the district court overruled Linares’s objections and sentenced him to 63 months. The Tenth Circuit affirmed, finding the district court did not err in concluding that the facts—the presence of a rifle while confronting a car owner, demanding the keys, approaching the car, threatening the car owner and her family while they were calling 911, and leaving the scene when the victims continued calling 911—met the Sentencing Guideline requirements for carjacking. View "United States v. Linares" on Justia Law