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

Defendant-appellant Jesus Arellanes-Portillo pled guilty to a collection of federal drug-trafficking, money-laundering, and immigration crimes. He challenged the procedural reasonableness of his sentence, arguing the district court misapplied a three-level aggravating-role adjustment in calculating his advisory guideline range for his money-laundering offenses. After review, the Tenth Circuit found the district court plainly erred by basing the aggravating-role adjustment on relevant conduct for his drug offenses and not exclusively for his money-laundering offenses, in violation of U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual 2S1.1 Application Note 2(C) (U.S. Sentencing Comm’n 2018). The sentence was vacated and the matter remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Arellanes-Portillo" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Devonte Starks appealed his convictions for possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, and possession with intent to distribute heroin. In its closing argument at trial, the government advised the jury that Starts' right to be presumed innocent no longer existed after the presentation of the trial evidence. Starks did not object to this presumption-of-innocence advisement. The Tenth Circuit's review was for plain error, and the court found the district court plainly erred in allowing the advisement to stand uncorrected before the jury, and this error had "some prejudicial effects." Those effects cumulated with the prejudicial effects stemming from two other errors (which the government conceded), Starks' convictions could not stand. Judgment was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Starks" on Justia Law

Defendants-Appellants Dalton Hartley and Corey Detter, in separate criminal cases, each moved for early termination of probation under 18 U.S.C. 3564(c). The same district judge denied their motions for the exact same reason. Hartley pled guilty to aiding and abetting the acquiring of a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, forgery, deception, or subterfuge, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 843(a)(3) and 18 U.S.C. 2. His plea agreement included an appeal waiver. The district court sentenced him to probation for three years, set to expire on August 1, 2022. On January 12, 2022, Hartley moved for early termination of his probation; the district court denied the motion on the day it was filed. Detter pled guilty without a plea agreement to one count of manufacturing counterfeit currency, and to two counts of possessing counterfeit currency. The district court sentenced him to probation for three years, set to end on July 30, 2022. The same district judge who denied Hartley’s motion also denied Detter’s. Hartley and Detter argued the district court abused its discretion by adopting a blanket policy to deny them relief under section 3564(c) and refusing to consider the statutory criteria. The Tenth Circuit found the Government had not and could not meet its burden to show that, absent the district court’s abuse of discretion here, the result would have been the same, especially in light of the court’s finding that each defendant’s conduct on probation was “meritorious. And it has not pointed to anything in the record to suggest that individualized consideration of the section 3553(a) factors and the interest of justice would lead to denial of Mr. Hartley’s and Mr. Detter’s motions for early termination of probation.” The Court denied the Government’s motion to dismiss Hartley’s appeal based on the appeal waiver provision in his plea agreement. Furthermore, the Court reversed the district court’s orders denying Hartley’s and Detter’s motions for early termination of probation under 18 U.S.C. 3564(c) and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Hartley" on Justia Law

Various City of Denver officials, and certain State of Colorado officials, authorized and/or conducted sweeps of homeless encampments throughout Denver, Colorado. The advocacy organization, Denver Homeless Out Loud and several people experiencing homelessness (“DHOL Plaintiffs”), alleged these sweeps violated the rights of persons experiencing homelessness and breached a settlement agreement resolving related litigation. The DHOL Plaintiffs therefore filed this putative class action and corresponding motion for a preliminary injunction, asking the federal district court in Colorado to enjoin all sweeps or, in the alternative, require seven days’ advanced notice for all sweeps. The district court granted the motion in part after concluding the DHOL Plaintiffs’ procedural due process claim was likely to succeed on the merits. The district court then issued a preliminary injunction requiring the Denver Defendants to satisfy additional notice and procedural requirements before conducting future sweeps. The Denver Defendants filed an interlocutory appeal challenging the injunction. Finding that the district court abused its discretion in ruling the first preliminary injunction factor weighed in the DHOL Plaintiffs' favor (and ultimately granting the preliminary injunction), the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the district court's order. View "Denver Homeless Out Loud, et al. v. Denver, Colorado, et al." on Justia Law

On June 13, 2014, Beaver County Correctional Facility (“BCCF”) officers responded to reports of a truck running into parked cars. The decedent, Troy Bradshaw, was arrested Bradshaw for driving under the influence and he was transported to Beaver Valley Hospital. A deputy completed the Initial Arrestee Assessment (IAA), which reflected that Bradshaw previously considered suicide; was not thinking about it currently; had a brother who committed or attempted suicide; and was intoxicated. Bradshaw stated that he would kill himself if placed in a cell. After the IAA, the officers placed Bradshaw on suicide watch. Bradshaw beat on the cell door for two to three hours. Officers did not place him in a safety smock or create a suicide watch log, in violation of BCCF’s suicide-prevention policy, but a corporal monitored Bradshaw by sitting in the booking area all night. By June 14, Bradshaw was no longer acting violently, and he was transferred from a suicide-watch cell two to cell three, pertinent here, a cell with bed linens. Just after noon on June 15, Bradshaw was found dead in his cell after he hanged himself with some of the provided bedding. Bradshaw’s mother, plaintiff Kathy George, sued on behalf of her son’s estate, asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 that prison defendants violated Bradshaw’s Fourteenth Amendment rights and “Utah Code Article I, Section 7.” The district court granted summary judgment to all prison defendants because the law entitled them to qualified immunity, and no Beaver County policy violated Bradshaw’s constitutional rights. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, finding that although Plaintiff proved that certain officers failed to follow Beaver County’s suicide-prevention policy, “failing to follow prison policy is not a constitutional violation in and of itself.” View "George v. Beaver County, et al." on Justia Law

While defendant-appellant Laquan Shakespeare was serving the supervised-release portion of his sentence for violating 18 U.S.C. sections 1153 and 2243(a) (the “2018 conviction”), he sexually assaulted a fourteen-year-old girl. Based on the events underlying that sexual assault, Shakespeare pleaded guilty to violating 18 U.S.C. sections 1153 and 2244(a)(5) (the “2020 conviction”). The government then moved to revoke Shakespeare’s supervised release. The district court set a combined (1) sentencing hearing on the 2020 conviction and (2) revocation hearing on Shakespeare’s supervised release. At that hearing, the district court first sentenced Shakespeare to a term of imprisonment of 293 months on the 2020 conviction. The district court then recessed the completed proceedings relating to the 2020 conviction and turned to the question whether Shakespeare’s supervised release on the 2018 conviction should be revoked. Acting pursuant to the provisions of 18 U.S.C. 3583(k), the district court concluded it was obligated to revoke Shakespeare’s supervised release and to impose a mandatory-minimum five-year term of imprisonment. For the first time on appeal, Shakespeare argued the district court’s application of § 3583(k) violated: (1) his jury-trial rights, as guaranteed by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments; and (2) his Fifth Amendment right to be free of double jeopardy. Finding no reversible error, however, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment. View "United States v. Shakespeare" on Justia Law

A confidential informant visited defendant-appellant Gaspar Leal and asked about buying drugs. Leal put the confidential informant in touch with several individuals, and the informant ultimately purchased methamphetamine twice from a third party (Daniel Carmona). These purchases led to Leal’s conviction for conspiring to distribute at least 50 grams of methamphetamine, for which he was sentenced to a thirty-year prison term. Leal appealed his conviction and sentence. The Tenth Circuit affirmed, finding: (1) the jury could reasonably find that Leal had known that the conspiracy involved at least 50 grams of methamphetamine; (2) Leal did not establish that the government’s conduct was clearly and obviously outrageous; and (3) the sentence was not substantively unreasonable: Leal’s crime carried a mandatory minimum of ten years in prison, and the district court reasonably considered Leal’s status as a career offender and his mental illnesses. View "United States v. Leal" on Justia Law

Defendant Richard Holzer was arrested and criminally charged after federal undercover agents determined that Holzer had taken substantial steps towards bombing a synagogue in Pueblo, Colorado. Holzer subsequently pleaded guilty, pursuant to a written plea agreement, to one count of intentionally attempting to obstruct persons in the enjoyment of their free exercise of religious beliefs through force, and one count of maliciously attempting to damage and destroy, by means of fire and explosives, a synagogue. The district court sentenced Holzer to a term of imprisonment of 235 months, to be followed by a fifteen-year term of supervised release. The district court also ordered Holzer to comply with eleven special conditions of supervised release, including Special Condition Nine, that prohibited him from acquiring, possessing, or using any material depicting support for or association with antisemitism or white supremacy. Holzer appealed, arguing that the district court erred in imposing Special Condition Nine. After review, the Tenth Circuit concluded Holzer’s challenge to Special Condition Nine was barred by the appellate waiver provision of his plea agreement. Consequently, his appeal was dismissed. View "United States v. Holzer" on Justia Law

Three out of four defendants in consolidated cases identified as minorities, and two were illegal immigrants. They claimed the district court abused its discretion in failing to ask the potential jurors whether they harbored racist views. One defendant posited that if “America as an institution harbors racial prejudice in the context of immigration law, it stands to reason that some members of that same institution also harbor similar views.” But the Supreme Court had long held that no constitutional presumption of juror bias existed for or against members of any particular racial or ethnic groups. The Tenth Circuit declined to create such a presumption in these cases, finding that without any substantial indication that racial or ethnic prejudice likely affected the jurors, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Defendants’ requests to directly examine the jurors about the subject. View "United States v. Murry" on Justia Law

In deciding defendant-appellant Ira Wilkins' sentence for unlawfully possessing a firearm, the district court considered the effect of Wilkins’ prior conviction in Texas for aggravated robbery. The district court characterized this offense as a “crime of violence” under the sentencing guidelines, which increased the base-offense level. Wilkins appealed, arguing for the first time that the district court shouldn’t have considered aggravated robbery as a crime of violence. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's sentence. View "United States v. Wilkins" on Justia Law