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

Law enforcement searched defendant-appellant Tyrell Braxton’s backpack after arresting him and found a gun. Braxton moved to suppress the gun. The government conceded that the warrantless search was not a valid search incident to arrest, but invoked the inevitable-discovery doctrine to avoid suppression of the illegally obtained evidence. The district court agreed with the government and denied the motion to suppress. The Tenth Circuit determined the government’s stated community-caretaking interest in safeguarding Braxton’s personal property by impounding it was significantly undercut by the presence of an individual who arrived on the scene at Braxton’s request and repeatedly asked to take possession of the backpack throughout the arrest process. "The government’s explanation for why the officers could have properly refused this individual’s requests is not persuasive. Nor is it dispositive, on these facts, that Braxton himself did not ask the officers to turn the backpack over." Thus, the Court ruled the government failed to meet its burden to show that law enforcement would have validly retained the backpack, and the inevitable-discovery doctrine did not apply to excuse application of the exclusionary rule to suppress evidence discovered during the illegal search. Accordingly, the district court’s order refusing to suppress the gun was reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Braxton" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Appellant Elsa Palacios, personal representative of the estate of the deceased, Bernardo Palacios Carbajal, filed suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Defendants-Appellees Salt Lake City Police Officers Neil Iversen and Kevin Fortuna in their individual capacities, as well as Salt Lake City Corporation. Plaintiff alleged the officers violated Palacios’ Fourth Amendment rights when he was fatally shot during a police pursuit. The district court granted summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity in favor of Defendants, finding a lack of a constitutional violation and that Plaintiff failed to show a violation of clearly established law. On appeal, Plaintiff contended that disputes about material and historical facts precluded summary judgment. According to Plaintiff, the district court erred by not making reasonable factual inferences in Plaintiff’s favor, primarily that: (1) Palacios may have been unaware he was being pursued by police because officers did not verbally identify themselves, because he was severely intoxicated, and he did not match the full description of the robbery suspect; (2) once Palacios fell onto his side during the shooting and did not point his gun at officers, he was effectively subdued; and (3) Palacios’ conduct showed he was attempting to avoid confrontation, not evade arrest. Plaintiff also contended that officers exaggerated the seriousness of the offenses that precipitated the pursuit and that officers should have used less intrusive means of apprehension because Palacios did not pose an imminent threat. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's dismissal of Plaintiff's case. View "Palacios v. Fortuna, et al." on Justia Law

For years, the High Lonesome Ranch restricted access to two roads by locking a gate. But in 2015, during a county meeting, the Garfield County Commission directed the Ranch to remove the locked gate after concluding that the two disputed roads were subject to public rights-of-way. The Ranch refused and filed a declaratory-judgment action in Colorado state court opposing the County’s position. At first, the County asked the state court to dismiss the case for failure to name the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) as a party. But rather than dismissing, the state court ordered the Ranch to join the United States (BLM) as a necessary party, and the Ranch did so. The United States removed the case to federal district court. In October 2020, after a five-day bench trial, the district court ruled that the entire lengths of the two disputed roads were subject to public rights-of-way. On appeal—and for the first time—the Ranch contended that various procedural shortcomings deprived the district court of subject-matter jurisdiction. It also challenged the district court’s rights-of-way rulings. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s adverse-use ruling, but reversed its Colorado R.S. 2477 ruling and remanded for the court to reconsider that ruling under recent circuit authority governing acceptance of R.S. 2477 rights. The Court also remanded for the district court to determine the locations and widths of the rights-of-way by survey. View "High Lonesome Ranch v. Board of County Commissioner, et al." on Justia Law

The Northern Arapaho Tribe and the Indian Health Service (IHS) entered into a contract under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act for the Tribe to operate a federal healthcare program. Under the contract, the Tribe provided healthcare services to Indians and other eligible beneficiaries. In exchange, the Tribe was entitled to receive reimbursements from IHS for certain categories of expenditures, including “contract support costs.” The contract anticipates that the Tribe will bill third-party insurers such as Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers. The Tribe contended that overhead costs associated with setting up and administering this third-party billing infrastructure, as well as the administrative costs associated with recirculating the third-party revenue it received, qualified as reimbursable contract support costs under the Self-Determination Act and the Tribe’s agreement with the IHS. But when the Tribe attempted to collect those reimbursements, IHS disagreed and refused to pay. Contending it had been shortchanged, the Tribe sued the government. The district court, agreeing with the government’s reading of the Self-Determination Act and the contract, granted the government’s motion to dismiss. A divided panel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals voted to reverse (for different reasons). Under either of the jurists' interpretations, the administrative expenditures associated with collecting and expending revenue obtained from third-party insurers qualified as reimbursable contract support costs. View "Northern Arapaho Tribe v. Becerra, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant Brandon Williams pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, and was sentenced to 180 months’ imprisonment. On appeal, he challenged his lengthy sentence as an improper application of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). He claimed that his two prior Arkansas drug convictions were not categorically “serious drug offenses” under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(A)(ii) because his state convictions could have applied to hemp, and hemp was no longer a federally controlled substance at the time of his federal sentencing. Since there was a categorical match between Arkansas’ definition of marijuana at the time of Williams’ prior convictions and the federal definition at the time he committed his federal offense, the Tenth Circuit determined the district court properly applied the ACCA enhancement. View "United States v. Williams" on Justia Law

Petitioner Firestorm Pyrotechnics, Inc. (“Firestorm”) sought review of a decision by the Acting Director (“Director”) of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“ATF” or “Bureau”) revoking Firestorm’s license to import and sell fireworks. Firestorm challenged the revocation decision, maintaining the Director misapplied the willfulness standard in 27 C.F.R. § 771.42 and 27 C.F.R. § 771.5 and contending further the Director’s decision was unsupported by substantial evidence. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals discerned no error in the Director’s understanding and application of the willfulness standard. The Court found Firestorm made several contrary arguments, but none was persuasive. Furthermore, the Court found the Director's decision was supported by substantial evidence. View "Firestorm Pyrotechnics v. Dettelbach, et al." on Justia Law

Longtime demonstrators outside the Abortion Surgery Center in the City of Norman, Oklahoma (Appellants) contended a disturbing-the-peace ordinance was unconstitutional both facially and as applied to their demonstrations. The Tenth Circuit found, as did the district court, Appellants failed to furnish evidence that the ordinance was content-based, infected with religious animus, or enforced unconstitutionally. "In fact, the record reveals the opposite: Norman police officers enforced the ordinance only when the demonstrators’ speech became so loud or unusual that it breached the peace." View "Harmon, et al. v. City of Norman, Oklahoma, et al." on Justia Law

Cases consolidated for review all centered on attorneys’ fees awarded following a historic class action settlement. Numerous plaintiffs from multiple different states sued Syngenta AG (“Syngenta”), an agricultural company. The suits against Syngenta were organized into complex, federal multi-district litigation (“MDL”) based in a court in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas (“Kansas district court”). Syngenta ultimately settled with the class action plaintiffs. The Kansas district court allocated approximately $503 million in attorneys’ fees and expense awards stemming from the settlement to the myriad firms participating in the class action. Appellants in this case—the various plaintiffs’ lawyers and law firms that took part in the MDL against Syngenta—challenged numerous orders published by the Kansas district court concerning the apportionment and allocation of that $503 million. Having concluded it possessed significant authority to craft the allocation of attorneys’ fees in the most reasonable manner, the Kansas district court had adopted a two-stage, “general approach” of an appointed special master to the allocation of the attorneys’ fee award. Appellees, also lawyers and law firms from Kansas, Minnesota, and Illinois, that acted as co-lead counsel (“CLCs” or “Leadership”) and by-and-large, spearheaded the litigation against Syngenta in the three main fora, opposed Appellants’ arguments, and they asked the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm the Kansas district court’s fee- allocation orders. Finding no reversible error in the Kansas court's distribution of the fees, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "In re: Syngenta AG MIR162" on Justia Law

Defendant Monterial Wesley was convicted by jury of drug trafficking. In a post-conviction motion, Wesley alleged his prosecutor suborned perjury about the drug quantities attributable to him, in turn increasing his sentencing exposure. But, rather than asking the district court to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, he asked for a sentence reduction under the compassionate release statute, which permitted a sentencing court to reduce a federal prisoner’s sentence for “extraordinary and compelling reasons.” Wesley’s motion asserted various grounds for finding extraordinary and compelling reasons in his case, including the alleged prosecutorial misconduct. The district court concluded that the claim of prosecutorial misconduct must be interpreted as a challenge to the constitutionality of his conviction and sentence, which can only be brought under § 2255. Because Wesley had previously brought a § 2255 motion attacking the same judgment, and because the Tenth Circuit had not authorized him to file another one, the district court dismissed that portion of Wesley’s motion for lack of jurisdiction. As to the remaining grounds for relief, the district court found they did not justify a sentence reduction. On appeal, Wesley challenged the district court’s jurisdictional dismissal. He did not move for a certificate of appealability (COA), but Tenth Circuit case law required one for this appeal to proceed. “This in turn requires us first to consider whether jurists of reason would find debatable the district court’s decision to construe [Wesley’s compassionate release] motion as a motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence pursuant to § 2255.” To this, the Tenth Circuit found the question debatable among jurists of reason, so it granted a COA. On the merits, however, the Court agreed with the district court that Wesley’s motion included a successive § 2255 claim because it attacked the validity of his sentence. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court’s jurisdictional dismissal. View "United States v. Wesley" on Justia Law

Jose Diaz-Menera challenged the sentence he received for money laundering, arguing that the district court erroneously determined his base offense level under § 2S1.1(a)(1) rather than § 2S1.1(a)(2) of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. The district court applied § 2S1.1(a)(1) based on its finding that Diaz-Menera was a member of the underlying drug conspiracy. Diaz-Menera argued that such finding was insufficient to trigger application of § 2S1.1(a)(1) because he did not personally possess or distribute drugs. However, because the Tenth Circuit concluded that a drug conspiracy can be an underlying offense for purposes of applying § 2S1.1(a)(1), it found no error in the district court’s sentencing decision. But because the government conceded Diaz-Menera’s second argument— agreeing that it breached the plea agreement by failing to move for a one-level reduction under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1(b)—the Court vacated Diaz-Menera’s sentence and remand for resentencing. View "United States v. Diaz-Menera" on Justia Law