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

In 2015, a federal grand jury indicted Defendant Martin Perea on nine counts of production of a visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct. In 2016, Defendant produced a report by Dr. Alexander Paret, which opined that Defendant lacked competency to stand trial. In light of this report, the Government moved for a psychiatric and psychological examination of Defendant, and Defendant was sent for evaluation. In 2017, Dr. Lisa Bellah, a licensed psychologist with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”), reported that Defendant suffered from a mental disease or defect which rendered him unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him or to properly assist in his defense. Dr. Bellah thus determined Defendant was presently incompetent to stand trial. But she also suggested that Defendant could achieve competency within a reasonable amount of time if he were educated on criminal matters. In response, the district court entered an order finding Defendant incompetent to stand trial. And upon the Government’s motion, the court ordered that Defendant be committed for treatment and restoration. In 2018, Dr. Jacob X. Chavez, another psychologist with the BOP reported that Defendant was incompetent and substantially unlikely to be restored to competency in the foreseeable future. Upon recommendation, the district court ordered a risk assessment. During the pre-risk assessment and risk assessment interviews, however, Dr. Chavez observed that Defendant presented as “notably different” from his previous presentation, revealing a “higher level of understanding than portrayed previously.” Based in part on this observation, Dr. Chavez issued a new report which found Defendant was, more likely than not, competent to proceed. At competency hearings, Dr. Chavez testified, leading the district court to enter an order finding Defendant competent to stand trial. Defendant filed an interlocutory appeal challenging the district court’s last order. Because a competency determination was a non-final order, and the collateral order doctrine did not apply, the Tenth Circuit granted the Government's motion to dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction. View "United States v. Perea" on Justia Law

Arapaho James Oldman and Matthew Whiteplume severely beat Charles Dodge III. One of them cut his throat. Dodge died from blunt-force trauma and/or sharp-force injuries. Oldman was convicted by jury of first-degree murder, both as a principal and an aider and abettor. The trial court refused his request for a lesser-included offense instruction on assault resulting in serious bodily injury (ARISBI). On appeal, Oldman argued the trial court erred by refusing to give the ARISBI instruction. He also contended the court erred when it “mishandled” graphic photos of Dodge’s body, allowed a defense witness to invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege, communicated ex parte with a juror, and misapplied the spousal privilege. Finally, he claimed his trial counsel was ineffective. Rejecting these arguments, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Oldman's convictions. View "United States v. Oldman" on Justia Law

Daniel Koch pleaded guilty to receipt of child pornography. The district court sentenced him to a twenty-year term of incarceration, to be followed by a ten-year term of supervised release. Without objection, the district court ordered Koch to comply with a special condition of supervised release (the “Sexual Material Prohibition”). For the first time on appeal, Koch asserts the district court erred in imposing upon him the Sexual Material Prohibition without first making particularized findings justified by compelling circumstances and based on an individual assessment of his case. Koch argued the condition interfered with his fundamental First Amendment right to access legal, sexually oriented materials. Upon review of the relevant Tenth Circuit authorities, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded the district court plainly erred in imposing the Sexual Material Prohibition without first making the necessary case-specific findings. Accordingly, the condition was vacated and the matter remanded to the district court for further proceedings. View "United States v. Koch" on Justia Law

Pretrial detainee Thomas Pratt exhibited alcohol withdrawal symptoms while in a county jail. Healthcare providers diagnosed and treated Pratt’s symptoms, but their course of treatment proved ineffective. Plaintiff Faye Strain, as Pratt’s guardian, sued. "Disagreement about course of treatment or mere negligence in administering treatment do not amount to a constitutional violation." To state a claim for deliberate indifference, a plaintiff must allege that an official acted (or failed to act) in an objectively unreasonable manner and with subjective awareness of the risk. "Indeed, the word deliberate makes a subjective component inherent in the claim." The Tenth Circuit concluded Plaintiff's allegations did not rise to the "high level" of deliberate indifference, and affirmed the district court's dismissal of Plaintiff's federal claims (in addition to the court's decision not to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff's remaining state law claims). View "Strain v. Regalado" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Jose Jesus Cruz entered a conditional guilty plea to possession of heroin with intent to distribute and to possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime. Cruz appealed the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence, arguing that evidence should have been excluded because it was the result of an unlawful search and seizure. The district court concluded that there was probable cause for Cruz’s warrantless arrest, and that two exigent circumstances justified the warrantless entry into his residence: (1) the destruction of evidence and (2) the hot pursuit of a suspect. Finding "abundant evidence" in the record to support probable cause for Cruz's arrest, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of his motion to suppress. View "United States v. Cruz" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Randolfo Librado Chavez, Jr. was convicted by jury of two counts of distributing methamphetamine. His appeal of those convictions centered on the district court’s admission into evidence of three transcripts, which purportedly were of audio recordings of incriminating conversations that he had had in Spanish and in English. The district court did not admit into evidence the audio recordings themselves or play the recordings for the jury. In addition, the district court instructed the jury that they could not question the accuracy of the English-language translations in the transcripts. To the Tenth Circuit, Chavez challenged both the district court’s admission of the transcripts and the jury instructions relating to them, arguing the district court: (1) violated the best-evidence rule by admitting the transcripts into evidence without admitting the recordings themselves; and (2) committed plain error by instructing the jury to accept the accuracy of the translations in the transcripts. As to Chavez’s first contention, the Tenth Circuit concluded the district court’s admission of the transcripts, without also admitting the recordings they purported to transcribe, violated the best-evidence rule and constituted reversible error. Accordingly, it reversed and remanded the case to the district court with instructions to vacate Chavez’s convictions and grant him a new trial. In light of that disposition, the Court did not reach the merits of Chavez's jury-instruction challenge. View "United States v. Chavez" on Justia Law

Defendant David Ansberry attempted to detonate a bomb in front of the Nederland, Colorado police station. He pled guilty to use or attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against a person or property in the United States. At sentencing, the parties disputed the application of three provisions contained in the United States Sentencing Guidelines: (1) whether Ansberry knowingly created a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to another person (which under section 2K1.4(a)(1) would create a base offense level of twenty-four); (2) whether the individual officers who came into contact with the bomb were victims (which under section 3A1.2(a) would increase Ansberry’s offense level by three); and (3) whether Ansberry’s offense involved a federal crime of terrorism because it was calculated to retaliate against government conduct (which under section 3A1.4 would increase his offense level by twelve and convert his criminal history category from I to VI). The district court sided with the government on all three provisions and sentenced Ansberry to 324 months in prison. Ansberry challenged application of each of the three guidelines provisions. The Tenth Circuit concluded the district court did not err in applying the section 2K1.4(a)(1) base offense level because the court found that Ansberry actually created a risk of death or serious bodily injury, and this finding was not clearly erroneous. But the Court agreed with Ansberry that the court erred in applying: the section 3A1.2(a) enhancement because the court impermissibly relied on relevant conduct rather than on the facts immediately related to his offense of conviction; and the section 3A1.4 terrorism enhancement, because the district court expressly refused to determine whether the conduct Ansberry retaliated against was objectively government conduct. Ansberry’s sentence was vacated and the matter remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Ansberry" on Justia Law

Defendant Christian Delgado-Lopez pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine or a mixture containing methamphetamine. He appealed the district court’s denial of a "minor-role" reduction under United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual section 3B1.2(b). The Tenth Circuit reversed, finding the district court did not compare Delgado-Lopez’s culpability to other participants in the enterprise, and found the court's credibility determination was wholly predicated on impermissible speculation. "We cannot say with certainty that the district court’s decision would stand if its foundation was removed. Therefore, we are compelled to remand this case to the district court for resentencing based on the proper legal standard." View "United States v. Delgado-Lopez" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Patrick Begay assaulted a man in the Navajo Nation with a baseball bat and a knife. The crime thus occurred in Indian country, within the boundaries of the reservation. Both Begay and the victim were enrolled members of the Navajo Nation. Begay was indicted in federal court on two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of assault resulting in serious bodily injury. He pled guilty to these charges. The Probation Office issued a Presentence Report (“PSR”) calculating Begay’s guidelines imprisonment range to be 46 to 57 months. Begay requested that the court vary from this range because significantly higher penalties are imposed on Native Americans convicted of assault in New Mexico federal court than in New Mexico state court. Defense counsel requested to submit testimony regarding this asserted sentencing disparity. The government objected, arguing that under our precedents, if the district court “even considers this argument or this train of argument in any way whatsoever, any sentence rendered by the [c]ourt becomes invalid.” The sentencing judge agreed stating that she could not consider Begay’s sentencing-disparity argument pursuant to Tenth Circuit precedent. Moreover, the judge stated should would not consider the argument because the evidence Begay offered to present lacked sufficient detail to make any comparison of his sentence to state-court sentences meaningful. Begay was sentenced to 46 months' imprisonment. Although the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals was sympathetic to Begay’s argument that but for an “an accident of history and geography,” he would have received a lighter sentence, the Court concluded its precedents foreclosed the consideration of federal/state sentencing disparities under 18 U.S.C. 3553(a)(6). Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "United States v. Begay" on Justia Law

Defendant Dymond Brown appealed an amended judgment reducing his sentence pursuant to section 404 of the First Step Act of 2018, 132 Stat. 5194. At his original sentencing in 2007, the district court sentenced Brown as a career offender under the 2006 United States Sentencing Guidelines based on two predicate state convictions for crimes of violence: (1) feloniously pointing a firearm and (2) shooting with intent to kill. The district court did not differentiate between the elements clause, U.S.S.G. 4B1.2(a)(1), or the residual clause, U.S.S.G. 4B1.2(a)(2), in holding that these two convictions were crimes of violence under the Guidelines. On appeal, Brown argued that at his First Step Act sentencing, the district court should have used the Guidelines in effect when Congress passed the First Step Act, the 2018 Guidelines. Furthermore, he argued the district court should have revisited his career offender status. After Brown’s conviction, the Tenth Circuit interpreted the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) and held that the feloniously pointing a firearm was not a violent felony as defined by the ACCA because it did not necessarily have “as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another[.]” The Court found the ACCA contained similar language to the elements clause of the 2006 Guideline definition of a crime of violence. Brown argued the district court erred by not considering his challenge to his career offender status at his First Step Act sentencing on this basis. The Tenth Circuit found the language of the First Step Act was narrow and did not authorize plenary resentencing. "But it allows a district court to at least consider Mr. Brown’s claim that sentencing him as a career offender would be error given subsequent decisional law that clarifies (not amends) the related career offender provision at issue." The Court therefore reversed Brown's sentence and remanded for further consideration and resentencing. View "United States v. Brown" on Justia Law