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

Jeffery Morrison, Sr. pled guilty to one count of possession of material involving the sexual exploitation of minors and was sentenced to 120 months. He appealed his sentence, arguing that it was procedurally unreasonable. He further claimed the district court erred by imposing special conditions of supervised release, including a ban on the use of a camera and the internet. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "United States v. Morrison" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellant David Brown was imprisoned on two sentences: one was in Tulsa County and the second one was in Muskogee County. Both sentences were two years, and the Muskogee County sentence was to run concurrently with the Tulsa County sentence. Brown thought the second sentence should have ended when the first one did. When Brown was eventually released from prison, he sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that authorities refused to release him after his Muskogee sentence had ended. The district court granted summary judgment to the Defendants, concluding that Brown had not been held beyond the expiration of the Muskogee sentence. That conclusion was correct, and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. View "Brown v. Parker" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Alondo Gay appealed the district court's denial of his motion for a sentence reduction. The Tenth Circuit found that defendant attempted to use the district court proceedings to collaterally attack his original sentence under the Fifth and Eighth Amendments. When asked, Gay’s counsel acknowledged at oral argument that she had no authority supporting the use of a 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2) remedy to advance new, unrelated constitutional claims on appeal. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of a sentence reduction. Though the Court had no authority to grant relief on defendant's constitutional claims, the Court addressed them simply to show them as meritless. View "United States v. Gay" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Joseph Farmer challenged his conviction for being a felon found in unlawful possession of a firearm. On direct appeal to the Tenth Circuit, he argued that the district court erred in admitting at trial evidence that Tulsa police had previously found Farmer unlawfully possessing another firearm in 2010. Farmer maintained the district court should have suppressed evidence of his 2010 firearm possession, offered under Fed. R. Evid. 404(b), because Tulsa police obtained that evidence during an unlawful search. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that any error in admitting this 404(b) evidence was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Furthermore, the Court rejected Farmer’s challenges to the prosecutor’s closing argument and his claim of cumulative error. As such, the Court affirmed Farmer's conviction. View "United States v. Farmer" on Justia Law

Defendant John Ervin Titley pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a controlled substance. The sentencing court based Titley's 15-year Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) sentence on his previous three state felony convictions. The issue this case presented for the Tenth Circuit's review centered on an equal protection challenge to the provision in the ACCA that defined a “serious drug offense” to include a state crime for “manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to distribute, a controlled substance . . . for which a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more is prescribed by law.” Titley conceded his conviction for armed robbery in Missouri qualified as a “violent felony” under the ACCA. Although his convictions for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute in Arkansas and unlawful possession of marijuana with intent to distribute in Oklahoma otherwise qualified for the ACCA enhancement, he argued these crimes should not count because they would not be “serious drug offense[s]” had he committed them in 19 other states or the District of Columbia. Disagreeing with defendant's contention, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's order. View "United States v. Titley" on Justia Law

Defendant Wesley Bear pled guilty to one count of failing to register or update a registration as a sex offender. At sentencing, the district court imposed certain special sex offender conditions of supervised release in addition to its standard conditions of supervised release. Bear objected to the conditions restricting his contact with children and requiring him to submit to sex offender mental health assessment and treatment. The district court overruled his objections, and Bear appealed, arguing: (1) it was an abuse of discretion for the district court to impose sex offender conditions where his conviction of the prior sex offense occurred twelve years before this conviction; (2) the conditions involved a greater deprivation of liberty than reasonably necessary to achieve the purposes of sentencing; and (3) the special conditions were not consistent with pertinent policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission. The Tenth Circuit affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded this case for further proceedings. The Court held Bear’s prior sex offense was reasonably related to the imposition of the special sex offender conditions and survive his 3583(d)(1) challenge. The assessment and treatment condition also survived Bear’s 3583(d)(1) challenge. The Court vacated the conditions limiting Bear’s ability to be at his children’s residence and his ability to be alone with his children without supervision, finding the district court record did not provide compelling evidence that could support the restrictions on Bear's contact with his own children. View "United States v. Bear" on Justia Law

The South Carolina Supreme Court granted certiorari in this post-conviction relief (PCR) action to review the Court of Appeals' decision, which remanded for a determination of the lawfulness of Antonio Bordeaux's sentence. Bordeaux's plea agreement was capped at a sentence of twenty-five years. He pled guilty to two counts of armed robbery and two counts of burglary. He was sentenced to twenty-four years' imprisonment on the armed robbery charges, and to twenty-five years' imprisonment, suspended upon the service of twenty years with three years' probation on the burglary counts. Bordeaux's plea proceeding was conducted simultaneously with that of a co-defendant, Wesley Washington. Washington had been indicted on two counts of first degree burglary, but pleaded guilty to two counts of second degree burglary. The transcript reflected that the plea colloquy with the trial judge alternated between Bordeaux and Washington. During Bordeaux's plea colloquy, he acknowledged on at least seven occasions that he was pleading guilty to two counts of first degree burglary. At sentencing, Bordeaux was again reminded, and acknowledged, that he was being sentenced pursuant to his plea negotiations for two counts of first degree burglary, each of which carried a minimum fifteen-year sentence, and a maximum of life imprisonment. The State argued the Court of Appeals erred because the unambiguous plea colloquy and imposition of sentence control over the ambiguous written sentence. To this point, the Supreme Court agreed: it was clear Bordeaux pleaded guilty to first degree burglary, was sentenced within the legal limits for that crime, and in consonance with his negotiated plea agreement. The Court therefore affirmed in part and reversed in part. View "United States v. Margheim" on Justia Law

In February 2011, the United States indicted defendant and his co-defendant Mark Akins on eighty offenses stemming from an allegedly fraudulent investment scheme. Defendant pled guilty to two of the charged offenses and the district court sentenced him at the bottom of the advisory guideline range, to forty-one months in prison. Three weeks after sentencing, defendant met with prosecutors, provided information about his and his co-defendant Akins’s role in the charged fraud, and offered to testify against Akins. At the conclusion of that meeting, an assistant United States attorney (“AUSA”) told defendant and his attorney that the AUSA “would recommend a reduction of defendant's sentence in light of the interview and his cooperation.” Akins later pled guilty to two of the charged offenses and the district court sentenced him to twenty-seven months in prison. Akins’s guilty plea and sentencing occurred within one year of defendant's sentencing. Twice during this one-year period, defendant and his attorney asked the Government to file a Rule 35(b) motion to reduce defendant's sentence. But because the Government thought it still might need defendant's testimony during Akins’s restitution hearing, the Government delayed filing the Rule 35(b) motion. As it turned out, the Government did not need defendant's testimony during the restitution hearing. After that hearing, more than one year after defendant's sentencing, defendant and his attorney again asked the Government to file a Rule 35(b). The Government did so more than fifteen months after sentencing. Because the Government had waited more than one year to file the Rule 35(b) motion, however, the district court’s jurisdiction to consider that motion was limited. The Government, therefore, filed the motion under Rule 35(b)(2)(B), which permitted the district court to reduce a defendant’s sentence if he provided the Government with information within one year of his sentencing, but the information “did not become useful to the government until more than one year after sentencing.” The district court, however, concluded it did not have jurisdiction to consider that motion because the Government acknowledged that the information Baker provided was useful both before and after the one-year mark. Defendant appealed that decision. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision. View "United States v. Baker" on Justia Law

Samuel Rodriguez pleaded guilty to the distribution of five grams or more of methamphetamine. In determining the sentence, the district court applied an enhancement based on a finding that Rodriguez was a career offender because he had at least two earlier felony convictions for a crime of violence or a controlled substance. One of these convictions involved simple assault under the Texas Penal Code. The parties disagreed on whether the assault conviction involved a "crime of violence." In an earlier appeal, Rodriguez’s attorney argued that the district court should not have considered the Texas conviction a crime of violence. A panel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the argument, affirming the conviction. Rodriguez then sought collateral relief, claiming that his attorney had mishandled the issue both at sentencing and in the direct appeal. The district court recharacterized the request as a motion to vacate the sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255 and denied relief. Rodriguez asks the Tenth Circuit for a certificate of appealability so that he could appeal the denial of relief . Upon review, the Tenth Circuit concluded Rodriguez was ineligible for a certificate of appealability, and dismissed his appeal. View "United States v. Rodriguez" on Justia Law

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) grants grazing permits to private individuals who own land adjacent to public lands; adjacent, private lands are called "base properties." Grazing permits limit both the number of animals grazing on a specific allotment of public land and the number of days they are permitted to graze. Appellant Stanley Jones appealed his convictions for one count of unlawful use or occupation of public lands, and two counts of allowing his livestock to graze without authorization on public lands. While Mr. Jones owned cattle in Wyoming, he was not the owner of the base properties adjacent to the two BLM public lands or allotments involved in this suit. Instead, his brother owned the adjacent base properties During the periods at issue, no grazing permit had been issued to Mr. Jones or his brother, nor has Mr. Jones leased his brother's property, as required for obtaining such a permit. After issuing Mr. Jones multiple administrative trespass notices and fines over the years for grazing his cattle on these and other allotments without a permit, the BLM, through the United States Attorney's Office for Wyoming, brought criminal charges against him, including one count of unlawful use or occupation, and for unauthorized grazing. A jury convicted Mr. Jones of all three criminal counts, and thereafter, the district court sentenced him to two years of supervised probation for each count, to be served concurrently, together with a $3,000 fine, contingent on his compliance with certain terms and conditions, and a $75 special assessment. Appearing pro se, Mr. Jones appealed, arguing that "the handling of the district court proceeding caused the jury to come to the wrong conclusion and that the true and honest facts should have been considered." Furthermore, Mr. Jones argued: (1) the district court improperly granted the government's motion in limine and excluded his witness from testifying, thereby depriving him of a fair trial; and (2) the proceedings against him were fundamentally unfair and denied him due process for a multitude of reasons. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court. View "United States v. Jones" on Justia Law