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

Defendant Nathan Russell Cates appeals the denial of his motion to suppress evidence following his entry of a conditional guilty plea. Cates was initially indicted on one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine (Count 1), and one count of possession with intent to distribute tetrahydrocannabinol (Count 2). These charges arose from a traffic stop by a Wyoming Highway Patrol (WHP) Trooper, which was followed by a drug-detection dog alerting to the presence of drugs in Cates’s rental vehicle. After the district court denied his motions, Cates pleaded guilty to Count 1 of the indictment. Under the terms of his conditional plea agreement, Cates reserved the right to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress. The Tenth Circuit rejected Cates' arguments made on appeal and affirmed the denial of Carts' motion to suppress. View "United States v. Cates" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Isaiah Redbird, a member of the Kiowa Nation, was convicted by jury of first-degree murder and assault resulting in serious bodily injury. On appeal. he argued the district court improperly admitted character evidence about his propensity for violence under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(a)(2)(B). The Tenth Circuit found Redbird did not raise that specific objection at trial. Because Redbird did not argue plain error on appeal, the Tenth Circuit concluded he waived his evidentiary challenge and therefore affirm his convictions. View "United States v. Redbird" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellant Justin Hooper and the City of Tulsa disputed whether the Curtis Act, 30 Stat. 495 (1898), granted Tulsa jurisdiction over municipal violations committed by all Tulsa’s inhabitants, including Indians, in Indian country. Tulsa issued a traffic citation to Hooper, an Indian and member of the Choctaw Nation, and he paid a $150 fine for the ticket in Tulsa’s Municipal Criminal Court. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, Hooper filed an application for post-conviction relief, arguing the municipal court lacked jurisdiction over his offense because it was a crime committed by an Indian in Indian country. Tulsa countered that it had jurisdiction over municipal violations committed by its Indian inhabitants stemming from Section 14 of the Curtis Act. The municipal court agreed with Tulsa and denied Hooper’s application. Hooper then sought relief in federal court—filing a complaint: (1) appealing the denial of his application for post-conviction relief; and (2) seeking a declaratory judgment that Section 14 was inapplicable to Tulsa today. Tulsa moved to dismiss. The district court granted the motion to dismiss Hooper’s declaratory judgment claim, agreeing with Tulsa that Congress granted the city jurisdiction over municipal violations by all its inhabitants, including Indians, through Section 14. Based on this determination, the district court dismissed Hooper’s appeal of the municipal court’s denial of his petition for post-conviction relief as moot. Hooper appealed. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding that the federal district court erred in dismissing Hooper's declaratory judgment claim because even if the Curtis Act was never repealed, it was no longer applicable to Tulsa. The Court also agreed with Hooper that the district court erred in dismissing his appeal of the municipal court decision as moot based on its analysis of Section 14, but the Court determined the district court lacked jurisdiction over Hooper’s appeal from the municipal court. View "Hooper v. The City of Tulsa" on Justia Law

Defendant Paul Gallimore pleaded guilty to committing three robberies on three consecutive days in different locations at age 16. These convictions pushed his criminal history category to VI under USSG § 4B1.4(c)(2) which, in turn, set his guideline imprisonment range at 188 to 235 months. The statutory range, because of the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”) enhancement, was fifteen years to life. The ACCA sentencing enhancement applied to defendants with three prior convictions for committing violent felonies on separate occasions. Defendant appealed the calculation of the sentence he received (200 months imprisonment), arguing he committed these robberies on one occasion (which would have reduced the range of his sentence). The Tenth Circuit disagreed, finding that the time between each robbery and their different locations both decisively differentiated "occasions" here. View "United States v. Gallimore" on Justia Law

The district court sentenced Defendant Kenneth Lee, but failed to apply U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3(b)(1), which applied to Defendant and provided a downward sentencing adjustment if a defendant already served time for another offense that was relevant conduct to the offense at issue. The Tenth Circuit vacated Defendant’s sentence and remand for resentencing. "We cannot say that the error here did not affect Defendant’s sentence. At the sentencing hearing, the district court said that although it was not inclined to vary downward fifteen months, it had no objection to the BOP giving Defendant credit—hardly a firm declaration that the district court would have imposed the same sentence either way. Because we do not know whether the district court would have imposed a different sentence had it applied U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3(b)(1), we must vacate Defendant’s sentence and remand for resentencing." View "United States v. Lee" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Jeffrey Jones was convicted of sexually abusing his stepdaughters, K.B. and C.B., which resulted in three concurrent life sentences. On appeal, he challenged the testimony of two witnesses: (1) Crystal Jones, the mother of K.B. and C.B., who repeatedly testified as to her belief in the truthfulness of her daughters’ accusations about Jones’s actions, which she herself did not directly observe; and (2) government witness Janetta Michaels, an FBI forensic interviewer, who testified that C.B. was “forthcoming” in her forensic interview and “appropriate with her knowledge.” On appeal to the Tenth Circuit, Jones argued the district court plainly erred by allowing both witnesses’ testimony about the credibility of K.B. and C.B. The Tenth Circuit rejected Jones’s contention that the district court plainly erred by admitting Ms. Michaels’s challenged testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, but agreed that the district court plainly erred in admitting Crystal’s challenged testimony under Rule 608. The convictions and sentences were reversed and the case remanded for a new trial. View "United States v. Jones" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Michael Phillips was stopped by police officers who observed him driving recklessly without a seat belt and suspected he lacked a valid driver’s license. The officers searched his vehicle and recovered cocaine base. Following a failed motion to suppress, Phillips was ultimately convicted on one count of possession of cocaine base with intent to distribute. Phillips challenged the denial of his motion to suppress, arguing that the arresting officers lacked reasonable suspicion for the stop and violated his Fourth Amendment rights by conducting a warrantless search of his vehicle. He also contended he was entitled to a mistrial based on the officer’s trial testimony. After review, the Tenth Circuit held the district court correctly found that the officers reasonably suspected Phillips of committing traffic violations and had probable cause to search the vehicle. The Court also found that any error concerning the challenged trial testimony was harmless. View "United States v. Phillips" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Quindell Maloid pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Years earlier, he pleaded guilty in Colorado state court to conspiring to commit felony menacing with a firearm. Under commentary in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual, conspiracies to commit crimes of violence count as crimes of violence and markedly increase a defendant’s advisory guideline range. After counting Maloid’s prior conspiracy conviction as a crime of violence, the district court sentenced him to 51 months’ imprisonment, the low end of the range. The issue this case presented for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals was the weight to be given to this commentary from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. To this, the Court held that in the Tenth Circuit, the commentary in the Guidelines Manual governs unless it runs afoul of the Constitution or a federal statute or is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the guideline provision it addresses. The Court elected not to extend Kisor v. Wilkie, 139 S. Ct. 2400 (2019), to the Commission’s commentary absent clear direction from the U.S. Supreme Court. View "United States v. Maloid" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Derald Geddes was convicted by a jury of tax obstruction, tax evasion, and three counts of willfully filing false tax returns in the years 2011, 2012, and 2013. He was sentenced to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay about $1.8 million in restitution. On appeal, he argued: (1) restitution was impermissibly ordered to begin during his imprisonment; (2) 16 conditions of supervised release not pronounced orally at sentencing improperly appeared in the written judgment; and (3) one of those 16 conditions, the risk notification to third parties condition, was invalid under United States v. Cabral, 926 F.3d 687 (10th Cir. 2019). After review, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s imposition of restitution to the extent it was ordered to be paid outside the term of supervised release and remanded for the court to modify the written judgment. The Court affirmed the district court’s imposition of the mandatory conditions of supervised release in the written judgment and reversed the imposition of the discretionary standard conditions of supervised release. The case was remanded for the district court to conform the written judgment to what was orally pronounced in a manner consistent with the Tenth Circuit's opinion. View "United States v. Geddes" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Hassan Alqahtani was convicted for illegally possessing a firearm and sentenced to 30 months in prison. The gun was discovered after Special Agent Jonathan Labuhn received a tip that Alqahtani was unlawfully in possession of a firearm, prompting Labuhn to begin an investigation. Alqahtani appealed his conviction and sentence, arguing: (1) the warrant application failed to establish probable cause to search his residence, and that the affidavit supporting the application contained material misstatements and omissions; (2) the district court improperly granted the Government’s peremptory challenge to the only Black member of the jury venire; (3) the district court impermissibly admitted hearsay testimony concerning statements made by Alqahtani’s wife to a Task Force Officer; (4) the district court improperly applied a four-level sentencing enhancement on the theory that Alqahtani had previously used the gun at issue here in connection with another felony. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed Alqahtani's conviction. View "United States v. Alqahtani" on Justia Law