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

Petitioner-Applicant Robert Burling sought a certificate of appealability (COA) to challenge the denial of his motion for post conviction relief by the district court. Petitioner was convicted by a jury on 12 counts of sexual abuse of a child and sentenced to 36 years in prison. On appeal, Petitioner asserted 6 claims of error at trial that entitled him to additional judicial review of his case and conviction: (1) impermissible vouching by two witnesses and the prosecutor, (2) ineffective assistance of counsel, (3) vagueness and indefiniteness in the information, (4) erroneous evidentiary rulings, (5) improper denial of a jury instruction on his eligibility for parole, and (6) cumulative error. Because Petitioner failed to make a "substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right," the Tenth Circuit denied Petitioner's COA and dismissed his appeal.

Defendants-Appellants Patrick Talk and Kenneth Martinez, both enrolled members of the Navajo Tribe, challenged the procedural reasonableness of their sixty-month sentences of imprisonment. The district court imposed the sentences after Defendants pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter in Indian Country in the death of Shawn Begay, also an enrolled member of the Navajo Tribe. Mr. Talk argued that the district court procedurally erred in finding that he did not fully accept responsibility for Mr. Begay's death, and by failing to adequately explain his sentence, because it explained neither why he received the same sentence as Mr. Martinez nor why his sentence was longer than the Sentencing Guidelines' range for aggravated assault. Mr. Martinez argued that the district court procedurally erred by enhancing his sentence pursuant to U.S.S.G. 3A1.1 because Mr. Begay was not a "vulnerable victim" and, even if he was, Mr. Martinez neither knew nor should have known that he was. Finding that Mr. Talk's challenge was "misguided" and that the district court "did not commit procedural error in explaining its upward variance," the Tenth Circuit affirmed his sentence. Because Mr. Begay was heavily intoxicated at the time of his death, the Tenth Circuit found that he was unable to protect himself, and was therefore "unusually vulnerable." The Court found that the district court did not err in finding Mr. Begay was a vulnerable victim, and that Mr. Martinez's challenge to the district court's ruling that he knew or should have known of Mr. Begay's vulnerability "[could not] succeed under plain-error review, regardless of whether his argument [was] framed as a factual or legal one." The Court affirmed Mr. Martinez's sentence.

Pro se prisoner Defendant-Appellant Mark Rice sought a certificate of appealability (COA) to challenge what he claimed was ineffective assistance of counsel and government misconduct when the district court denied his post-conviction motion to vacate, set aside or correct his sentence. In 2001, a school official where Defendant worked as a teacher, notified law enforcement that Defendant had been accessing child pornography on his work computer. Through counsel, Defendant moved to suppress the statements to law enforcement into evidence. After the district court denied the motion, Defendant entered a conditional plea in which he pled guilty to four counts of possessing child pornography. He was eventually sentenced to 262 months' imprisonment. In 2006, represented by a public defender, Defendant moved to withdraw his plea as legally ineffective. He also claimed the government withheld exculpatory evidence about the validity of the search warrant that would have persuaded him to go to trial. The district court denied the motion. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found that the district court's decision was not "even debatably incorrect," the Court denied Defendant's request for a COA and dismissed his appeal.

Defendant-Appellant Timothy Reeves challenged the district court's revocation of his supervised release and modification of the terms of his pending supervised release based on vindictive prosecution and failure to rule on his objectives. Defendant was convicted in 1994 of mailing a threatening communication based upon sexual demands made in a letter to a woman he did not know in violation of federal law. He served eighteen months for that conviction, consecutive to sentences for other state crimes, and then started a three-year term of supervised release. While on supervised release, Defendant admitted to Colorado authorities that he had left sexually explicit voicemail messages with a woman he did not know, in violation of state law. He received an additional ten months of imprisonment to be followed by twenty-six months of supervised release, including a condition that he participate in a sex offender treatment program. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit surmised that Defendant's experience of vindictiveness was "more akin to failed plea negotiation" and not clear evidence the government was motivated by vindictiveness against him. Furthermore, the Court found that Defendant's objections were not yet ripe as he was incarcerated as he made them, and the objections pertained to the "treatment contract" that was not yet final until he finished serving his time.

Pro se prisoner Defendant-Appellant Frederick Deberry sought a certificate of appealability (COA) to challenge the district court's denial of his motion for post-conviction relief following his conviction for assaulting another inmate at the U.S. Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado. In his motion, Defendant asserted four claims: (1) vindictive and/or discriminatory prosecution, (2) judicial bias, (3) abuse of discretion by the sentencing court, and (4) ineffective assistance of counsel. Taking each of his claims in turn, and after review of the trial court record and applicable legal authority, the Tenth Circuit found no merit to any of Defendant's claims, and denied his request for a COA and dismissed his appeal.

Plaintiff Donna Saterlee appealed a district court order that affirmed the Commissioner of Social Security's decision to deny social security disability and supplemental security income benefits. The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) denied benefits at the last step of the five-step process for determining disability. Plaintiff argued that the ALJ erred by (1) improperly rejecting her hand impairment as medically nondeterminable at step two and consequently not including it in the RFC that formed the basis of the dispositive hypothetical to the Vocational Expert; and (2) failing to perform a proper credibility analysis in determining that complaints of limitations other than, or in excess of, those later included in the RFC were not credible. The Tenth Circuit found that the ALJ was "undeniably wrong" about the lack of documented medical evidence of Plaintiff's condition that gave rise to the alleged numbness, "undercutting the categorical rejection of such an impairment on this threshold basis." The Court remanded the case for an administrative decision that properly accounted for all of the evidence of record.

Petitioner Omar Garcia-Tinoco, a native and citizen of Mexico, challenged the Bureau of Immigration Appeals' (BIA's) decision dismissing his appeal of a removal order. Petitioner entered the U.S. without inspection in 1994. Five years later, he pled guilty in Colorado to possession of cocaine. In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security commenced removal proceedings against him. He appeared before an immigration judge (IJ) and conceded that he was in the country illegally, but contested removal on the basis of his controlled-substance conviction because he was "in the process of withdrawing his guilty plea pursuant to a violation of his constitutional rights." To that end, Petitioner filed a post-conviction petition in state court, arguing that his guilty plea was the result of ineffective assistance of counsel. The IJ denied the motion and ordered Petitioner removed. The BIA affirmed, stating that the IJ was not required to grant a continuance because Petitioner's "collateral attack upon his conviction d[id] not … negate its validity." Petitioner asked the Tenth Circuit to reverse the decision of the IJ and hold that he established good cause for a continuance. Upon review, the Court found that it lacked jurisdiction to review the case: "constitutional infirmities in collateral proceedings are 'categorically' beyond the scope of [the Court's] review."

Pro se prisoner Petitioner-Appellant Jose Flores sought a certificate of appealability (COA) to challenge the district court's dismissal of his petition for habeas relief as untimely. Petitioner was convicted of first-degree murder in 1976 for which he was sentenced to death. On appeal, the Wyoming Supreme Court reversed his conviction and remanded for a new trial. Instead of facing another trial, Petitioner pled guilty and was resentenced to life. After unsuccessfully pursuing post-conviction relief in state court in 2010 and 2011, Petitioner filed a federal habeas petition in April, 2011. The district court dismissed the petition as untimely, noting that Petitioner filed the petition over a decade after the deadline mandated by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. In doing so, the district court concluded that Petitioner had not demonstrated exceptional circumstances to warrant equitable tolling of his untimely petition. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit denied his request for a COA and dismissed his appeal: "[r]egardless of how we interpret [Petitioner's] arguments, they are insufficient to justify tolling the AEDPA statute of limitations. The argument that [Petitioner] only recently learned of the legal bases for his claims [was] meritless."

Plaintiff Kansas Penn Gaming, LLC (KPG), a limited liability corporation formed by Penn National Gaming, Inc. (Penn National), entered into a real estate sale contract with HV Properties of Kansas, LLC (HV), pursuant to which KPG purchased from HV parcels of land in southeast Kansas for $2.5 million for the purpose of seeking to develop a lottery gaming facility on the land. KPG ultimately chose not to develop a lottery gaming facility on the land. HV thus did not receive $37.5 million of payments that it had hoped to receive from KPG under the contract. KPG filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment that it did not breach the terms of the contract. HV filed a counterclaim alleging that KPG breached the terms of the contract. HV also filed a separate action against Penn National alleging breach of Penn National’s obligation as guarantor to make the payments due under the contract between KPG and HV. The district court consolidated the two cases and granted summary judgment in favor of KPG and Penn National. Following the entry of judgment, the district court awarded attorneys' fees and expenses to KPG and Penn National. HV appealed these rulings. Upon review of the trial court record and the applicable legal authority, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's order.

Defendant Ivan Rochin argued that his constitutional rights were violated following a traffic stop in which the arresting officer frisked him and confiscated several items from his pockets. In his appeal, Defendant asked the Tenth Circuit to suppress the items the officer found and to dismiss the charges against him following the encounter. Specifically, Defendant argued that the arresting officer violated the Fourth Amendment because he removed the items from Defendant's pockets for inspection when he had no idea what they were. "This argument makes the common mistake of emphasizing the officer's (subjective) state of mind." Holding that the officer's subjective knowledge was legally irrelevant ("a reasonable officer isn’t credited with x-ray vision and can’t be faulted for having failed to divine the true identity of the objects"), the Tenth Circuit found that following a review of the record that the officer performed a lawful protective frisk of Defendant. As such, Defendant's constitutional rights were not violated, and the Court affirmed the charges levied against him.