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

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

Petitioner Sarah Farum filed a frivolous asylum application. An immigration judge determined the application rendered her permanently ineligible for immigration benefits under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Farnum did not challenge the frivolousness finding made by the immigration judge, nor did she challenge she had proper notice of the consequences of filing a false application. She instead challenged the timing of when the frivolous-asylum bar was effective. In her view, the frivolous-application bar outlined in 8 U.S.C. § 1158(d)(6) could not be invoked in the same proceeding as a frivolousness finding was made, thus allowing an immigration court to consider other potential claims that might support a finding that the Attorney General should withhold her deportation. To this, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed: "Once an immigration judge or the Board of Immigration Appeals makes the required frivolousness finding, the statutory bar is effective." View "Farnum v. Garland" 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

Defendant-appellant Jimcy McGirt argued that because his alleged crimes took place on the Creek Reservation and he was an enrolled member of the tribe, the State of Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction to prosecute him. the U.S. Supreme Court agreed and his state convictions were overturned, but he was later indicted in federal court and convicted by jury on two counts of aggravated sexual assault in Indian country, and one count of abusive sexual contact in Indian county. He was sentenced to concurrent life sentences on each count. McGirt challenges his conviction and sentence, claiming: (1) the district court erred in instructing the jury that it could consider prosecution witnesses’ prior inconsistent sworn testimony for impeachment and not as substantive evidence; and (2) the district court plainly erred in calculating his sentence. The Tenth Circuit reversed and remanded to the district court for a new trial because of the incorrect jury instruction. Therefore, the Court did not address the sentencing issue. View "United States v. McGirt" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellant Sharhea Wise worked as a mail carrier for the United States Postal Service. When she got pregnant, she asked to avoid handling heavy items. The Postal Service agreed to provide help when items were too heavy, but Wise needed to tell someone when she needed help. On two occasions, Wise allegedly had to handle items that were too heavy. Both times, she blamed the Postal Service for failing to accommodate her need for help. The Postal Service argued in response that Wise hadn’t asked for help. Days after Wise allegedly had to handle the heavy items, she walked off the job and the Postal Service fired her. Wise claimed retaliation, attributing the firing to her requests for help. The Postal Service denied retaliation, explaining that it had fired Wise because she walked off the job. Wise characterized this explanation as pretextual. The district court granted summary judgment to the Postal Service, and Wise challenged the rulings. The Tenth Circuit agreed with her challenge on the failure-to-accommodate claim. "On this claim, a reasonable factfinder could find that the Postal Service had failed to accommodate Ms. Wise’s need to avoid handling heavy items." But the Court agreed with the grant of summary judgment on the retaliation claim because: (1) the Postal Service presented a neutral, nonretaliatory explanation for the firing; and (2) Wise lacked evidence of pretext. View "Wise v. DeJoy" on Justia Law

Plaintiff National Nurses Organizing Committee, Missouri & Kansas/National Nurses United filed a grievance and sought arbitration under the grievance procedure set forth in the parties’ collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”). Defendant Midwest Division MMC, LLC refused to arbitrate. Although Plaintiff and Defendant agreed to arbitrate disputes under many provisions of their CBA, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal found "with positive assurance" the parties did not intend to arbitrate disagreements related to staffing plans. And, at its core, the dispute between Plaintiff and Defendant was about a staffing plan. The Court applied the presumption of arbitrability “only where a validly formed and enforceable arbitration agreement is ambiguous about whether it covers the dispute at hand.” The Court found parties did not consent to arbitrate the kind of dispute Plaintiff’s grievance asserted and affirmed the grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendant. View "National Nurses Organizing v. Midwest Division MMC" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Matthew Spaeth sought to have his conviction and term of imprisonment vacated, or to have the sentence for his admitted participation in an extensive conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine reduced. He argued the government obtained and allegedly listened to recordings of telephone calls that he made from a pretrial-detention facility to his counsel. The Tenth Circuit found the record reflected that Spaeth’s guilty conduct was firmly established long before his arrest and that he received a very favorable sentence under a binding plea agreement. Even so, and despite his unconditional guilty plea, the Court found the law allowed Spaeth to challenge his conviction and sentence if his counsel’s deficient performance led to an involuntary and unknowing guilty plea when he otherwise would have chosen a trial. Though the Court condemned the conduct of the Kansas U.S. Attorney’s Office, Spaeth still needed to prove his claim for post-conviction relief, which the Tenth Circuit concluded he had not. Accordingly, the Court affirmed denial of relief. View "United States v. Spaeth" on Justia Law