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

In 2013, Defendant Joseph Pacheco was indicted on one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. At trial, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts, and Pacheco was sentenced to a within-guidelines term of 355 months in prison. On appeal, Pacheco argued the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence gleaned from a cell phone recovered by officers at the scene of his arrest because the device was originally seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In the alternative, he maintained the evidence from the cell phone should have been suppressed because the warrant ultimately authorizing officers to search the phone was authorized in Kansas but executed at a computer lab in Missouri. Further, Pacheco contended the district court abused its discretion by denying his request for a jury instruction on the lesser-included charge of simple possession. As for his sentence, Pacheco argued the district court further abused its discretion in how it defined the amount and type of methamphetamine with which Pacheco was charged for sentencing purposes. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed Pacheco’s conviction and sentence. View "United States v. Pacheco" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Michael Banks of sixteen drug-related crimes, and the district court sentenced him to life in prison plus 60 months. In a direct appeal to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, Banks challenged his convictions. A split panel of the Tenth Circuit found and rejected Banks’ sufficiency arguments, finding he largely ignored the evidence presented at trial. Furthermore, the Court determined the evidence was sufficient to support most, if not all, of the crimes he was ultimately convicted of, “Banks appears to make the curious assertion that when a victim disputes that a defendant committed a particular offense against him or her, the evidence is necessarily insufficient to support a conviction for that offense. The Court rejected Banks’ argument the evidence at trial did not constructively amend the indictment, resulting in a fatal variance requiring reversal. Furthermore, the Court found the district court did not miscalculate the sentence Banks received. View "United States v. Banks" on Justia Law

Richard Trent was convicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm. His sentence was enhanced under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”) to 196 months in prison. On direct appeal, Trent argued that the ACCA enhancement should not have applied to him because his past conviction under Oklahoma’s general conspiracy statute was not a serious drug offense under the ACCA. The Tenth Circuit rejected this argument and affirmed. Trent subsequently filed a 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion to challenge his sentence. While that motion was pending, the Supreme Court decided Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243 (2016), which abrogated one of the two rationales the Tenth Circuit used to affirm Trent’s sentence. Trent argued that “Mathis” entitled him to relief. The district court denied his motion on several grounds, but granted a certificate of appealability (“COA”). After review of Trent’s appeal of his Section 2255 motion, the Tenth Circuit affirmed denial of the motion under the “law of the case” doctrine. “Although Mathis undercut one of this court’s rationales to affirm Mr. Trent’s sentence, it did not affect our alternative rationale to affirm.” View "United States v. Trent" on Justia Law

Paul Knopf, the former Director of the Planning and Development Department (“City Planner”) in Evanston, Wyoming (“City”), sued Mayor Kent Williams under 42 U.S.C. 1983. Knopf claimed Mayor Williams did not reappoint him to his position as City Planner because he had sent an email to the City Attorney raising concerns about impropriety relating to a City project. Thus, Knopf alleged that Mayor Williams retaliated against him for exercising his First Amendment rights. Mayor Williams moved for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, which the court denied. In this interlocutory appeal, the Mayor asked the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse that denial, arguing that a reasonable person in his position would not have understood Knopf to have spoken outside of his official duties, and that a “reasonable official: would have believed the email at issue here exceeded the scope of Knopf’s official duties. A split panel concluded Knopf failed to show a violation of clearly established federal law on an essential element of his claim, thus the Court reversed the district court’s denial of sovereign immunity to Mayor Williams. View "Knopf v. Williams" on Justia Law

Steven Ford was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment for various firearms-possession charges, followed by three years of supervised release. Because of a sex-offense conviction nineteen years earlier, the district court placed sex-offense-specific conditions on Ford’s term of supervised release. Specifically, the court required Ford to undergo a sex-offender assessment, and if recommended by the assessment, to submit to treatment which could include polygraph questioning about his sexual past. Ford contended on appeal that the district court abused its discretion because the sex-offender conditions are not reasonably related to the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. 3583. After review, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals held that, notwithstanding Ford’s long custodial sentence and new life sentence for a different crime, Ford’s challenge was ripe for review. Furthermore, the Court determined the district court did not abuse its discretion by requiring Ford to undergo a sex-offender risk assessment as a condition of supervised release. View "United States v. Ford" on Justia Law

Kay Tee appealed his conviction on three federal criminal counts: (1) attempted coercion and enticement to travel to engage in prostitution; (2) interstate transportation in aid of racketeering enterprises; and (3) money laundering. These counts grew out of Tee’s discussions with a government informant (known as “Lucy”). The government’s trial theory was that Tee had tried to help Lucy, thinking that she wanted to buy a massage parlor and operate it as a prostitution business. Tee denied guilt and pressed an affirmative defense of entrapment. The jury rejected the entrapment defense and found guilt on the three counts. Tee appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence, arguing racial discrimination during voir dire, and trial court errors in admitting certain evidence. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed Tee’s convictions. View "United States v. Tee" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Jeffrey Stevens was indicted on 10 counts of interstate communication with intent to injure for posting 10 messages on the Tulsa Police Department’s (“TPD”) online “Citizen Complaint” form. The messages discussed committing violence against specific members of the TPD or TPD officers generally. Stevens moved to dismiss the indictment on First Amendment grounds, arguing his messages were not true threats. The district court denied the motion because a reasonable jury could construe the messages to be true threats. Stevens pled guilty to five counts conditioned on his right to appeal the denial of his motion. The Tenth Circuit determined the district court properly denied Stevens’s motion: “a reasonable jury could understand his messages to be true threats.” View "United States v. Stevens" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Jason Greer appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence, contenting the Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), finding unconstitutional the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act, also invalidated the identically worded provision in the mandatory United States Sentencing Guidelines. He argued that he was entitled to resentencing because the court relied on the residual clause of the mandatory Guidelines to enhance his sentence. The district court denied Greer’s motion, holding that he was sentenced under the element clause of the mandatory Guidelines rather than the residual clause. Finding no reversible error in that decision, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "United States v. Greer" on Justia Law

Defendant Joseph Lynch, II was a first-class passenger on a flight from Philadelphia to Denver. Defendant had consumed at least six beers prior to boarding, and began behaving in a loud, unruly manner once the flight was underway. He repeatedly placed his hands on first-class flight attendant’s lower back as she was serving him beverages, which made her feel “very uncomfortable,” and she tried to move out of his reach each time. Flight attendants refused to serve defendant any more alcohol during the flight, at which point defendant became “irate” and started shouting obscenities to the cabin crew. Defendant was arrested upon landing; while in custody, he continued shouting expletives. A jury found Defendant guilty of violating 49 U.S.C. 46504, which prohibits the in-flight assault or intimidation of a flight crew member or flight attendant that interferes with his or her duties. He received a sentence of four months, followed by a three-year term of supervised release. On appeal, Defendant challenged the district court’s interpretation of the statute, the constitutionality of the statute, and the length of his sentence. After reviewing the district court’s sentencing decision, the Tenth Circuit found no evidence of error and affirmed defendant’s conviction and sentence. View "United States v. Lynch" on Justia Law

Defendants-Appellants Matthew and Brandi Channon s used fictitious names and addresses to open rewards accounts at OfficeMax, known as “MaxPerks” accounts. They used these accounts to fraudulently obtain more than $100,000 in OfficeMax products. The scheme came to light when Steven Gardner, an OfficeMax fraud investigator, noticed an unusually high number of online-adjustments across several different accounts. Gardner observed that most of the accounts were registered to one of three email addresses, differing only with interspersed periods between the characters of each address. OfficeMax recognized the variations as unique email addresses, but gmail did not. Defendants then used these fraudulent email addresses to claim purchases by other customers, thus generating rewards to which they were not entitled. They also used various accounts to sell more than 27,000 used ink cartridges, receiving $3 in rewards from OfficeMax for each after paying an average of $.32 per cartridge on eBay. In total, over the 21 months of their scheme, Defendants redeemed $105,191 in OfficeMax rewards. Defendants were ultimately were convicted by a jury of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud relating to a scheme to defraud OfficeMax. They appealed, challenging the district court’s decision to: (1) admit exhibits derived from computer records and (2) enter a money judgment forfeiture. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal upheld the district court’s admission of the exhibits but remanded so the district court may conduct further proceedings on the money judgment of forfeiture. View "United States v. Channon (Matthew)" on Justia Law