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

Defendant-appellee Curtis Anthony was convicted of child-sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit child-sex trafficking. He was sentenced to prison and ordered to pay restitution to R.W. and M.M. On appeal, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal recognized that Anthony’s conduct was reprehensible, but vacated the restitution order as to R.W. because the district court failed to apply but-for causation to determine restitution as required by 18 U.S.C. 1593. In doing so, the Court rejected the Government’s argument that the statute permitted restitution based on a sufficient-causation theory. The case was remanded to the district court with instructions to recalculate restitution based on actual losses resulting directly from Anthony’s offenses. On remand, the Government sought restitution under the sufficient-causation theory previously rejected. The district court denied the Government’s request for Anthony to pay $1,143,000 in restitution to R.W., finding that the Government’s expert report failed to determine which losses compensable by restitution she would not have suffered but for Anthony’s conduct. The Government appealed. Although the parties agreed that R.W. suffered trauma from Anthony and was thus potentially entitled to restitution from him, under the prior decision, Anthony I, the Government had to show he was the but-for cause of the loss that a restitution award would compensate. "And although this showing should be attainable in many instances and likely could have been made here, the Government failed to make it on remand." Accordingly, the district court's judgment was affirmed. View "United States v. Anthony" on Justia Law

Municipal authorities in Oklahoma fined Plaintiff BNSF Railway Company for violating its Blocked Crossing Statute—setting up a preemption challenge between the federal Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act (“ICCTA”) and the Blocked Crossing Statute. Defendants argued the Federal Railroad Safety Act (“FRSA”), not the ICCTA, applied to Oklahoma’s statute and did not preempt it. The district court held that the ICCTA preempted Oklahoma’s Blocked Crossing Statute because it regulated railroad operations. The Tenth Circuit agreed with the federal district court and affirmed its decision. View "BNSF Railway v. City of Edmond, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant Victor Sanchez entered a blind plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The district court varied downward from Defendant’s advisory guideline range of 110 to 120 months and sentenced him to 96 months in prison. Defendant challenged the district court’s calculation of his base offense level for the purpose of determining his advisory guideline range, particularly the court’s decision to increase his base offense level by four levels pursuant to U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) (2018). On appeal, Defendant renewed his objection to the district court’s four-level increase. The Tenth Circuit affirmed, finding that "All § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) requires under our precedents is that Defendant’s possession of the firearm had the potential to facilitate his possession of the stolen vehicle. The district court was well within its authority to find it did." View "United States v. Sanchez" on Justia Law

Nkemchap Nelvis Takwi sought review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) dismissing his appeal from a removal order entered by an Immigration Judge (IJ) and denying his motion to remand. Mr. Takwi was a 36-year-old native and citizen of Cameroon. In August 2019, he came to the United States without authorization and claimed he would be persecuted if returned to Cameroon. An asylum officer conducted an interview and found Mr. Takwi had a “credible fear of persecution.” Shortly thereafter, the government charged Mr. Takwi as “subject to removal” because he was a noncitizen who attempted to enter the United States without valid entry documents. The Tenth Circuit granted the petition and remanded this matter to the BIA because the IJ did not make an explicit adverse credibility determination, and the BIA did not afford Mr. Takwi the required rebuttable presumption of credibility. View "Takwi v. Garland" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellee Camille Sturdivant sued her former coach on a high school dance team, Carley Fine, invoking 42 U.S.C. 1983, and alleging race discrimination in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Fine moved for summary judgment, urging qualified immunity based on the absence of: (1) an act under color of state law; and (2) a denial of equal protection. The district court denied the motion, concluding that a reasonable factfinder could infer that Fine had acted as head coach and “intentionally deprived [Camille] of educational benefits based on [her] race.” Fine appealed, presenting two alternative arguments for qualified immunity: (1) She did not act under color of state law because she was no longer employed as the head coach when she allegedly violated Camille’s rights; and (2) She did not violate a clearly established constitutional right. The Tenth Circuit determined it lacked jurisdiction to consider Fines first argument; the Court's jurisdiction in an interlocutory appeal did not extend to the applicability of section 1983. Thus, this portion of the appeal was dismissed. The Court did have jurisdiction on Fine's section argument, and found that a reasonable factfinder could find the violation of a clearly established right to equal protection. So the Court affirmed the district court’s denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity. View "Sturdivant v. Fine, et al." on Justia Law

In 2008, a jury found Johnny Warren guilty of trafficking crack cocaine and unlawfully possessing a firearm. The court sentenced him to 240 months’ imprisonment. Shortly thereafter, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 which prospectively ameliorated excessive sentences for crack cocaine offenses. With the passage of the First Step Act in 2018, Congress made the Fair Sentencing Act retroactive to the extent it granted judges the discretion to impose reduced sentences for crack cocaine offenders who were sentenced before the enactment of the Fair Sentencing Act. In 2019, Warren moved for a reduced sentence; Warren’s original sentence included a downward variance from the applicable United States Sentencing Guidelines range. He therefore asked for the same percentage variance from the Guidelines range that would have been generated had the Fair Sentencing Act applied to his original sentencing. The district court denied Warren’s motion. Seven months later, Warren moved for reconsideration. Although the motion was untimely, the Government agreed to waive any procedural or timeliness bars. In his motion, Warren primarily argued he had been improperly designated a career offender by the sentencing court, which resulted in an inappropriately inflated Guidelines range. Warren also presented other arguments, including that the COVID-19 pandemic should be considered as part of the sentencing factors. The district court denied Warren’s motion for reconsideration. On appeal, Warren challenged only the district court’s denial of his motion to reconsider, arguing the district court erred: (1) in applying the legal standard for reconsideration despite the Government’s waiver; (2) in holding he could have raised COVID-19 in his initial motion for sentence reduction; and (3) by failing to make an alternative holding anchored in the proper Guidelines calculation. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court. View "United States v. Warren" on Justia Law

Linda Zotigh was murdered, and her trailer, in which her boyfriend Tommy Bullcoming also periodically resided, was set on fire. The day after law enforcement found Zotigh’s body, they arrested Bullcoming pursuant to a warrant for failure to appear in court on an earlier marijuana possession charge. At the time of his arrest, Bullcoming had a black duffel bag in his possession, and he asked law enforcement to bring the bag with them during his transport to the courthouse. Law enforcement searched the bag on three separate occasions and used information from these searches in the affidavit filed in support of the search warrant. Following issuance of a search warrant, law enforcement found a pair of sandals spotted with blood inside the bag. Authorities later matched the blood to Zotigh. Prior to his trial, Bullcoming moved both for an order to access Zotigh’s trailer and to suppress evidence from the duffel bag. The district court denied both motions. A jury ultimately convicted Bullcoming of felony murder, kidnapping, carjacking, and arson. On appeal, Bullcoming challenged the denial of both of his motions. At the time Bullcoming filed his motion for access to the trailer, a third party, not the Government, possessed it. The district court ultimately held it did not have authority “to order entry and inspection of property that is not within the government’s possession, custody, or control.” The Tenth Circuit concurred the district court lacked authority to grant Bullcoming access to the trailer. With regard to the search of the bag, Bullcoming argued the searches were illegal. The Tenth Circuit concluded probable cause supported the search warrant for Bullcoming's bag. The district court's denials of Bullcoming's motions were affirmed. View "United States v. Bullcoming" on Justia Law

At issue in this appeal was a contract dispute between Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation (the Tribe) and Lynn Becker, a non-Indian. The contract concerned Becker’s work marketing and developing the Tribe’s mineral resources on the Ute reservation. Becker sued the Tribe in Utah state court for allegedly breaching the contract by failing to pay him a percentage of certain revenue the Tribe received from its mineral holdings. Later, the Tribe filed this lawsuit, challenging the state court’s subject-matter jurisdiction under federal law. The district court denied the Tribe’s motion for a preliminary injunction against the state-court proceedings, and the Tribe appealed. After its review, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding the Tribe was entitled to injunctive relief. The appellate court found the trial court’s factual findings established that Becker’s state-court claims arose on the reservation because no substantial part of the conduct supporting them occurred elsewhere. And because the claims arose on the reservation, the state court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction absent congressional authorization. Accordingly, under the particular circumstances of this appeal, the Tenth Circuit "close[d] this chapter in Becker’s dispute with the Tribe by ordering the district court to permanently enjoin the state-court proceedings." View "Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah, et al. v. Lawrence, et al." on Justia Law

Deborah Laufer was qualified as disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and was a self-described ADA “tester.” In that capacity, she visited the Elk Run Inn’s online reservation system (“ORS”) to determine whether it complied with the ADA, though she had no intention to stay there. Laufer sued Randall and Cynthia Looper, the owners of the Elk Run Inn, alleging that the ORS lacked information about accessibility in violation of an ADA regulation. The district court dismissed Laufer’s complaint without prejudice for lack of Article III standing because she failed to allege that she suffered a concrete and particularized injury. Finding no reversible error in the district court's judgment, the Tenth Circuit affirmed dismissal. View "Laufer v. Looper, et al." on Justia Law

This appeal raised a question of first impression: whether, under 18 U.S.C. 3553(a), it was unreasonable for a district court to impose a harsher sentence based on a defendant’s decision to plead guilty without a plea agreement. Defendant-appellant Leroya Cozad was indicted on a single charge of aiding and abetting the making of counterfeit currency. During plea negotiations, she offered to plead guilty in exchange for the government’s recommendation that she be sentenced to 48 months’ probation. The government countered with an offer to recommend a custodial sentence at the low end of the guideline range. She declined and entered an open plea. Following her plea, probation prepared a presentence investigation report that recommended a custodial sentence of between 24 and 30 months based on the United States Sentencing Guidelines. The PSR’s guideline calculation reflected probation’s conclusion that Cozad had “clearly demonstrated acceptance of responsibility for the offense” and was therefore due a reduction of two levels under section 3E1.1(a) of the guidelines. Neither party objected to the PSR, although both submitted sentencing memoranda advocating for their preferred outcome: Cozad advocated for a term of probation; the government recommended the same recommendation it had offered to make during the plea negotiations. The district court rejected both recommendations and sentenced Cozad to a prison term of 27 months, the midpoint of the guideline range. "That Ms. Cozad’s sentence was the result of the district court’s own custom is significant." The Tenth Circuit held that under 18 U.S.C. 3553(a), it was procedurally unreasonable for the district court to impose a harsher sentence based on defendant's decision to enter an open plea. Because the district court abused its discretion, Cozad’s sentence was vacated and her case remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Cozad" on Justia Law