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

Defendant Aaron Shamo was convicted by jury on 12 charges arising from his distribution of controlled substances, including fake oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl. He received a mandatory life sentence on his conviction of being a principal leader of a continuing criminal enterprise (CCE). On appeal, Defendant challenged the sufficiency of evidence of his guilt of the CCE charge because: (1) the government failed to prove that the drug he was distributing was the chemical designated in the criminal statute; and (2) the government failed to prove that he knew he was distributing a controlled substance. He also challenged the admissibility: (a) of screenshots of his illicit online storefront to prove the quantity of drugs distributed; and (b) of testimony by an expert witness who allegedly opined on the meaning of certain language in the CCE statute. He also raised allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in suggesting that he was responsible for uncharged overdose deaths and should be punished because of the social costs of unlawful narcotics. After careful consideration of defendant's arguments, the Tenth Circuit found no reversible error and affirmed defendant's convictions. View "United States v. Shamo" on Justia Law

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

Three Tulsa police officers were dispatched late at night to a parking lot, finding plaintiff-appellant Ira Lee Wilkins asleep in the driver’s seat of a running vehicle. They smelled alcohol on him, ordered him out of his car, and eventually forced him to the ground, where they pepper sprayed him. Wilkins sued the officers under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging they used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The district court granted summary judgment to the officers, concluding they were entitled to qualified immunity because they did not use excessive force. The Tenth Circuit reversed, finding a reasonable jury could have found that the officers’ use of pepper spray was excessive force. The Court thus remanded this case for further proceedings, including consideration of the municipal liability claim against the City of Tulsa. View "Wilkins v. City of Tulsa, 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