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

Daniel Cookson pled guilty to two counts of possessing child pornography after the FBI identified him in the course of a large-scale sting operation involving the website “Playpen.” At his sentencing hearing, the district court determined Cookson’s criminal history and total offense level correlated to a Guidelines range of 97–121 months. The district court announced its intention to sentence Cookson to a term of seventy-two months’ imprisonment. But after entertaining argument from both parties, the district court imposed a sentence of five years’ probation. The Government appealed, challenging Cookson’s sentence as substantively unreasonable. Cookson cross-appealed, arguing the district court erred in refusing to suppress evidence obtained from his computer by the FBI pursuant to a warrant issued in the Eastern District of Virginia. After review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s suppression ruling based on United States v. Workman, 863 F.3d 1313 (10th Cir. 2017), but vacated Cookson’s sentence as unreasonable. The matter was remanded back to the district court for resentencing. View "United States v. Cookson" on Justia Law

Defendants-Appellees Air Methods Corporation and Rocky Mountain Holdings, LLC provide air ambulance services. Defendants provided air ambulance services to Plaintiffs-Appellants, or in some cases to their minor children. Plaintiffs dispute their obligation to pay the full amounts charged by Defendants because Plaintiffs claim to have never agreed with Defendants on a price for their services. Plaintiffs filed suit, asserting jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act, 28 U.S.C. 1332(d), to determine what, if any, amounts they owe Defendants. Plaintiffs also sought to recover any excess payments already made to Defendants. Defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that Plaintiffs’ claims were pre-empted by the Airline Deregulation Act (ADA), 49 U.S.C. 41713. The district court agreed and dismissed Plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of all Plaintiffs’ breach of implied contract claims, the Scarlett Plaintiffs’ declaratory judgment claim, all Plaintiffs’ unjust enrichment claims, and the Scarlett Plaintiffs’ due process claims; the Court reversed the district court’s dismissal of the Cowen Plaintiffs’ declaratory judgment claim, only with respect to the existence of contracts between the Cowen Plaintiffs and Defendants; and the Court remanded for further proceedings. View "Scarlett v. Air Methods Corporation" on Justia Law

Benjamin Grice suffered severe burns after an oil pump exploded at the refinery where he worked. He and his wife brought suit against the refinery’s two parent corporations, CVR Energy and CVR Refining, alleging the parent companies assumed responsibility for workplace safety at the oil refinery by entering into a services agreement for the benefit of Grice’s employer, Coffeyville Resources. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the parent companies, concluding that the agreement did not obligate them to provide safety services to the oil refinery. On appeal, the Tenth Circuit concluded: (1) CVR Refining should have been dismissed as a party under 28 U.S.C. 1332, to preserve complete diversity of citizenship; and (2) the company did not have a duty to Grice to maintain the oil pump since the services agreement was for administrative and legal services and not for safety services that would subject CVR Energy to liability under Kansas law. View "Grice v. CVR Energy" on Justia Law

In 2008, Aaron Copeland pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The district court imposed an enhanced sentence of 15 years in prison under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”) based on his two prior drug offenses and one prior burglary. Copeland did not appeal. After he brought several unsuccessful motions for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2255, the Tenth Circuit authorized Copeland to bring a successive Section 2255 motion to assert that his sentence was invalid under Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), which held that the ACCA’s definition of violent felony in its residual clause was unconstitutionally vague. In his motion, Copeland claimed the sentencing court relied on the unconstitutional residual clause to find that his prior burglary was a violent felony and therefore the court should not have enhanced his sentence. The district court denied the motion, finding that it did not sentence Copeland under the residual clause and that his motion accordingly could not rely on Johnson. The Tenth Circuit reversed, finding Copeland showed the district court relied on the residual clause when it sentenced him in 2008. Further, the Court determined Copeland showed he should have prevailed on the merits. View "United States v. Copeland" on Justia Law

Sixty-one year old defendant Joan Osborn has been diagnosed at different times with schizophrenia, possible depression, and possible post-traumatic stress disorder. In mid-October 2014, Defendant allegedly called a United States district court judge and left a voicemail conveying a variety of brutal and obscene threats. A grand jury subsequently indicted Defendant for threatening to assault and murder a United States judge. Based on a forensic psychologist's evaluation, defendant's disorder would interfere with her ability to assist in her own defense. The district court found Defendant incompetent to stand trial, and committed her to the custody of the Attorney General for hospitalization to gauge whether she could be restored to competency. The district court stayed its order of commitment so Defendant could appeal its competency determination to the Tenth Circuit. While that appeal was pending, the United States Marshals Service held Defendant at the Salt Lake County Jail in Utah. And while at jail, employees there forcibly injected Defendant with an antipsychotic drug against her will from approximately June to October 2016 without notifying her attorney. The district court initially ordered the jail to stop this practice after Defendant’s attorney brought an emergency motion to halt it. But after a hearing, the district court allowed the jail to continue its forcible medication of Defendant based on Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210 (1990, "Harper") “after finding [that] her mental state had deteriorated so severely to the point where she presented a significant danger to herself and to other inmates and officers.” Two hearings pursuant to Sell v. United States, 539 U.S. 166 (2003) were held. Although just a little over a year prior, the district court had allowed Salt Lake County Jail officials to forcibly medicate Defendant under Harper because she was a danger, the district court concluded that “involuntary commitment pursuant to Harper is unwarranted.” After determining that the government had met each of Sell’s stringent requirements, the district court permitted the government to medicate Defendant with antipsychotic medication, every two weeks for six months. Defendant appealed the district court's order allowing her to be forcibly medicated under Sell. The issue this appeal presented to the Tenth Circuit was whether changed circumstances necessitated defendant be forcibly medicated under Harper but after the trial court already authorized forced medication under Sell. The Court held courts generally should vacate the Sell order and begin anew "armed with the findings of the intervening Harper proceedings." View "United States v. Osborn" on Justia Law

Gaspar Leal appealed the denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment. He argued the drug conspiracy charged in this case was the same conspiracy for which he was convicted in a previous case, and that continued prosecution would violate his double jeopardy rights. The district found the conspiracies were not interdependent, the indictment therefore charged a separate offense, thus double jeopardy did not apply. Finding no reversible error in that judgment, the Tenth Circuit affirmed denial of Leal’s motion. View "United States v. Leal" on Justia Law

Defendant Lucio Lozano was charged with involvement in a multi-year cocaine trafficking conspiracy between individuals in Mexico and Colorado. In October 2017, defendant pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. He was subsequently sentenced to 180 months imprisonment and five years supervised release. He challenged the district court’s application of two sentencing enhancements: (1) a two-level guidelines increase for maintaining a premise for the purpose of distributing a controlled substance, and (2) a three-level aggravated role enhancement. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence. View "United States v. Lozano" on Justia Law

In this shareholder-derivative action, Shareholders of The Western Union Company averred several of Western Union’s Officers and Directors breached their fiduciary duties to the company by willfully failing to implement and maintain an effective anti-money-laundering-compliance program (AML-compliance program), despite knowing of systemic deficiencies in the company’s AML compliance. The Shareholders didn’t make a pre-suit demand on Western Union’s Board of Directors to pursue this litigation, and the district court found no evidence that such demand would have been futile. The district court thus dismissed the case, reasoning that the Shareholders’ obligation to make a pre-suit demand on the Board was not excused. The Tenth Circuit concurred with the district court's decision to dismiss, and affirmed. View "City of Cambridge Retirement v. Ersek" on Justia Law

Defendants ultimately filed two motions based on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e). The motions were decided by different judges. After the first judge denied the first motion, he retired and the court reassigned the case to another judge. Defendants then filed their second motion, reurging or elaborating on what they had argued in their prior motion. This time, the second judge granted the motion. The Tenth Circuit determined the motion as presented was an improper Rule 59(e) motion because it had simply rehashed arguments from the first motion. Because the motion was improper, the district court erred in granting it. The Court therefore reversed. View "Nelson v. Board of County Commissioners" on Justia Law

Arnold Jones pleaded guilty to child abuse for driving on a reservation while intoxicated with his minor son in the car. He entered a guilty plea both before a tribal court and, after serving his tribal sentence, before a federal district court. Although child abuse itself was not a federal offense, federal law incorporated state law offenses committed by Native Americans on tribal land. After Jones pleaded guilty in federal court, the district court imposed a forty-month sentence. But, as all parties agreed, the district court made a miscalculation, imposing twelve unintended months. Jones appealed, asking the Tenth Circuit to vacate his sentence and to remand for imposition of the intended sentence. The government requested that the Court affirm the erroneous sentence because, it argued, the miscalculation was harmless due to the district court’s failure to impose a six-year mandatory minimum sentence. Concluding that the error was not harmless, the Tenth Circuit reversed and remanded for the district court to correct the sentence. View "United States v. Jones" on Justia Law