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

Coby Lee Paugh died from complications related to alcohol withdrawal while being held in pretrial detention at Uintah County Jail in Vernal, Utah. His estate sued Uintah County and several of its jail officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of Paugh’s constitutional rights. The County and its jail officials moved for summary judgment, with the jail officials asserting qualified immunity. The district court granted qualified immunity for one but not all defendants. It also denied the County’s motion for summary judgment. The Individual Defendants and the County filed an interlocutory appeal, challenging the district court’s denial of qualified immunity, and the County asked the Tenth Circuit to exercise pendent appellate jurisdiction and reverse the court’s denial of its motion for summary judgment. We hold that the Individual Defendants are not entitled to qualified immunity. After review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of the Individual Defendants’ motion for summary judgment, and did not consider the County’s appeal, because it lacked jurisdiction to do so. View "Paugh, et al. v. Uintah County, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Larry Johnson was convicted by a jury for possessing a firearm and possessing crack cocaine with the intent to distribute. He sought to overturn his firearms convictions, arguing the trial court erred in instructing the jury on constructive possession. The Tenth Circuit found no plain error, finding that had the jury been given the proper instruction, it would have concluded nonetheless Johnson had both actual and constructive possession of the firearm: after police pulled Johnson over for a traffic violation, they saw a black pistol on the driver's seat where he had been sitting. "Johnson had been exerting physical control over the firearm by sitting on it." Further, the Court found Johnson was in constructive possession of the firearm based on physical contact; the fact the firearm was loaded; his previous statement admitting to possessing a firearm to aid in drug trafficking; and his simultaneous possession of drugs for distribution. View "United States v. Johnson" on Justia Law

In August 2019, Defendant-Appellant Francis Woody was tried and convicted of one count of aggravated sexual abuse, and two counts of abusive sexual contact. The district court sentenced him to life imprisonment on each count to run concurrently. Woody appealed his convictions, asserting that the district court should have suppressed his statements to federal agents because the agents violated his constitutional rights and, separately, should have excluded certain testimony as inadmissible hearsay. Woody also challenged his life sentence as substantively unreasonable. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals found no merit in these arguments and thus affirmed Woody’s convictions and sentence. View "United States v. Woody" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Henri Piette was convicted by jury in Oklahoma of kidnapping and traveling with intent to engage in sexual relations with a juvenile. The district court sentenced Piette to life imprisonment on the former conviction, and 360 months’ imprisonment on the latter. He sought to have his convictions overturned or his sentence reversed. After review, the Tenth Circuit held that the district court did not err by admitting evidence of Piette’s uncharged acts of molestation, and that statutes extending the unexpired charging period for the traveling-with-intent charge did not have an impermissible retroactive effect. However, the Court concluded the district court plainly erred by misallocating the burden of proof once Piette disputed the timing of the kidnapping by arguing that the victim, Rosalynn McGinnis, consented. The Court reversed Piette’s kidnapping conviction because the Tenth Circuit found there was a difference between what happened here—Piette failing to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that McGinnis ever consented—and what the Constitution required: the government proving beyond a reasonable doubt that she never consented at a time that would cause a statute of limitations problem. Finally, the Court rejected Piette’s argument that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to self-representation at sentencing. View "United States v. Piette" on Justia Law

Defendant Martavious Gross was convicted for crimes relating to a road rage drive-by shooting. Defendant sat in the passenger seat of a car driving on an Oklahoma highway when A.A. cut the car off, allegedly almost hitting it. The car sped up to pull beside A.A.’s car so that Defendant could yell at and flip off A.A. The car caught up to A.A. again, and this time Defendant fired a gun at A.A.’s vehicle. The car took off afterward, and Defendant gave the gun to his brother to hide in the trunk. A.A. then followed the car to collect its description and license-plate number, along with a description of Defendant, to report to the police. The sentencing court varied upward from the Guidelines range and sentenced Defendant to the statutory maximum. He appealed, challenging the sentence’s procedural and substantive reasonableness. But the waiver in his plea agreement prohibited procedural appeals. “Defendant tried to take a detour around his appeal waiver” by suggesting the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals evaluate how the court calculated the Guidelines range as part of its substantive analysis. But a defendant cannot transform procedural arguments into a substantive challenge to avoid an appeal waiver’s plain language. For this reason, the Court enforced the waiver and dismised his appeal insofar as Defendant’s arguments bore solely upon the procedural reasonableness of his sentence. View "United States v. Gross" on Justia Law

Petitioner Joshua Price Jr. appealed the district court’s dismissal of his motion for a sentence reduction pursuant to the First Step Act of 2018. The parties agreed that Price was eligible for a sentence modification because he was convicted of a covered offense: distribution of cocaine base under 21 U.S.C. § 841. But the parties disagreed about whether Price had standing to request a First Step Act sentence modification. Tenth Circuit precedent held that if the length of a prisoner’s sentence was determined by a concurrent non-covered offense, and that sentence exceeded the length of the covered offense, then the prisoner did not have constitutional standing for a sentence modification. The question presented here was whether the district court could modify Price’s sentence in light of the First Step Act. To this the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded the district court has discretion to reduce Price’s overall sentence. Since Price’s sentence was entirely driven by the drug offenses, the Court held he was eligible for a sentence modification. "And nothing prevents the district court from reviewing the murder cross reference in considering his sentence under the now-advisory Sentencing Guidelines. Since no statutory mandatory minimum applies for the murder cross reference, during sentence modification the court is entitled to apply the traditional sentencing factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)." View "United States v. Price" on Justia Law

Defendant William Gladney was convicted in 2007 on three criminal counts: violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act; conspiracy to distribute more than 50 grams of cocaine base; and using, carrying, or possessing a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking crime. Gladney was sentenced to concurrent life sentences on the RICO and drug conspiracy convictions, followed by a ten-year consecutive sentence on the firearms conviction. In 2020, Gladney filed a motion to reduce his sentence in light of changes that Congress implemented to the sentencing scheme for offenses involving cocaine base. Gladney also sought funds to hire an investigator to gather evidence to support his motion for reduction of sentence. The district court denied without prejudice Gladney’s request for funds. It then denied Gladney’s motion for reduction of sentence. Gladney appealed those rulings, arguing that the district court erred in finding him ineligible for a reduction of sentence under the First Step Act. The Tenth Circuit concluded Gladney’s arguments were largely foreclosed by its decision in United States v. Mannie, 971 F.3d 1145 (10th Cir. 2020). Because of Mannie, any reduction the district court could have made to the sentence on Gladney's covered offense under the First Step Act "would not actually reduce the length of [Gladney's] incarceration. The Tenth Circuit therefore concluded the district court could not redress Gladney's injury, and in turn, Gladney's motion for reduction of sentence under the First Step act "does not present a live controversy." The Court thus dismissed Gladney's appeal for lack of standing. View "United States v. Gladney" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Nathaniel Johnson was arrested on a Greyhound bus after an encounter with Special Agent Jarrell Perry. Law enforcement found two packages of methamphetamine in Johnson’s backpack, and Johnson gave several incriminating statements. The district court denied Johnson’s motion to suppress the physical evidence and his statements. Johnson appealed. The Tenth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. The Court determined Perry had probable cause to arrest Johnson and to seize the bundle of clothing and backpack. But while seizing the items from the bus, Perry conducted an illegal search of the bundle by reaching inside Johnson’s open backpack and feeling the bundle in an exploratory manner. Then later, at the DEA office, still without a warrant, Perry conducted a second illegal search of the backpack and the bundle. And contrary to the government’s position, the plain-view exception to the warrant requirement could not apply because at neither point in time were the contents of the bundle or backpack a foregone conclusion. View "United States v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Guy McDonald was arrested and charged for dealing methamphetamine. He pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate federal narcotics laws at the federal district court in Eastern Oklahoma. He received a sentence of 292 months’ imprisonment. McDonald appealed, arguing the district court erred in calculating his base offense level and in applying three sentencing enhancements to his sentence. Specifically, McDonald argued the district court improperly relied on facts alleged in his presentence investigation report given the objections he raised at the sentencing hearing. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "United States v. McDonald" on Justia Law

In 1981, defendant-appellee Richard Roberts was a federal prosecutor preparing for a murder trial. Appellant Terry Mitchell, then a teenager, was a key trial witness for the prosecution. Thirty-five years later, Mitchell sued Roberts alleging he sexually assaulted her through the criminal trial proceedings. Roberts moved to dismiss the complaint with prejudice, contending Mitchells’ claims were time barred. Mitchell conceded the claims had expired under the original statute of limitations, but claimed Utah’s Revival Statute made them timely. At Mitchell’s request, the magistrate judge certified questions to the Utah Supreme Court concerning the validity of the Revival Statute. The Utah Supreme Court issued a detailed opinion concluding the Utah legislature was prohibited from retroactively reviving time-barred claims in a manner that deprived defendants like Roberts of a vested statute of limitations defense. Based on the Utah Supreme Court’s conclusion that the Revival Statute was unconstitutional, Roberts again moved to dismiss with prejudice. Mitchell sought voluntary dismissal without prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(2). According to Mitchell, the Utah Supreme Court had not foreclosed the possibility that the Utah Constitution would be amended to permit legislative revival of time-barred child sexual abuse claims, and on that basis, she proposed a curative condition that would allow her to sue Roberts if such an amendment came to pass. The magistrate judge rejected Mitchell’s argument and dismissed her complaint with prejudice. She appealed, but finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the magistrate judge’s decision. View "Mitchell v. Roberts" on Justia Law