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

Four appellants: David Zabel, Sheri Catania, Kim Flannigan, and Terra Morehead, were Assistant United States Attorneys (AUSAs) for the District of Kansas who testified in court about practices of the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO). At the close of the proceeding, the district court made statements reflecting negatively on the four AUSAs. They appealed, arguing the district court deprived them of due process. The Tenth Circuit dismissed the appeals for lack of appellate standing: as fact witnesses, the four AUSAs lacked a particularized and significant stake in the appeal. View "United States v. Carter" on Justia Law

This appeal grew out of United States v. Black, et al., which involved allegations of drug crimes committed at a detention facility. In the course of this prosecution, the United States Attorney’s Office in Kansas (USAO) obtained video and phone call recordings from the detention facility. Some of the recordings involved attorney-client communications between detainees and their attorneys. After learning that the USAO had these recordings, the Federal Public Defender (FPD) intervened for the defendants in Black, who had been housed at the detention facility. After intervening, the FPD moved for return of the recordings containing attorney-client communications, invoking Rule 41(g) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. This motion spurred the district court to order an investigation into the USAO and its possession of the recordings. When the investigation ended, the district court: (1) dismissed the indictment against the last remaining defendant in Black (Defendant. Karl Carter); and (2) ordered the USAO to provide the FPD with all of the recordings of attorney-client communications in the USAO’s possession. In the course of these rulings, however, the district court made statements adverse to the USAO and found contempt based partly on a failure to preserve evidence. The investigation led over a hundred prisoners to file post-conviction motions. The USAO didn’t question the dismissal of Carter’s indictment or the order to furnish the FPD with the recordings. Instead, the USAO argued that the investigation was unlawful, the district court made erroneous statements and findings about possible violations of the Sixth Amendment, the district court clearly erred in its contempt findings, and the district judge erred by stating that she would reassign herself to the post-conviction cases. The Tenth Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction and prudential ripeness. View "United States v. Carter" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Hunter Venezia appealed following his conditional plea to one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. He argued the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence found after a traffic stop led to the impoundment and search of the vehicle he was driving in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. To the Tenth Circuit, defendant argued the district court erred in concluding the impoundment of the vehicle was constitutional. “Ascertaining whether an impoundment is justified by a reasonable and legitimate, non-pretextual community-caretaking rationale is not an easy task.” Reviewing the specific facts of this case de novo, the Tenth Circuit concluded the impoundment was inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s description of the community-caretaking doctrine, and the Tenth Circuit’s own enumerated factors in United States v. Sanders, 796 F.3d 1241 (10th Cir. 2015). Judgment was reversed and the matter remanded for the district court to vacate defendant’s conviction and sentence. View "United States v. Venezia" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Amy Davis appealed her drug-conspiracy conviction, arguing: (1) the government failed to present sufficient evidence of the charged conspiracy; (2) the proof introduced at trial varied from the allegations in the indictment; and (3) that the district court plainly erred in failing to give appropriate jury instructions. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed defendant’s conviction. View "United States v. Davis" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs Erik Underwood and My24HourNews.Com, Inc. owned two putative service marks: “E.R.I.C.A.” and “my24erica.com.” Underwood claimed to have used these marks in his business, which offered internet-based search engine and personal assistant services. Bank of America Corporation (“BofA”) owned a registered federal trademark for a mobile banking application known as “ERICA.” Underwood sued BofA for infringing his marks. BofA counterclaimed to cancel Underwood’s Georgia registration of his E.R.I.C.A. mark. The district court granted BofA’s motions for summary judgment on its cancellation counterclaim and on Underwood’s infringement claims. After review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. On BofA’s cancellation counterclaim, the Court affirmed summary judgment against Underwood. On Underwood’s infringement claims, the Court: (1) vacated summary judgment for BofA on the E.R.I.C.A. mark and remanded for the district court to apply the correct actual use standard; and (2) affirmed summary judgment for BofA on the my24erica.com mark. View "Underwood v. Bank of America Corporation" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Jerry Ray Craine pleaded guilty to one count of possessing a firearm after having been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. The charge arose out of Craine’s possession and use of a firearm to shoot and kill his father, Thomas Craine. The district court applied a cross-reference to first-degree murder when calculating Craine’s advisory Guidelines range under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Applying this cross-reference resulted in a “flat” Guidelines range of 120 months’ imprisonment, the statutory maximum as provided in 18 U.S.C. 924(a)(2). The court imposed 120 months’ imprisonment. Craine challenged his conviction arguing his conviction should have been vacated because the district court erred in denying his motion to withdraw his guilty plea after the Supreme Court decided Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019). Craine argued that, under Rehaif, the government was required to prove he knew he was prohibited from possessing a firearm as a result of his domestic violence conviction, and he argued the government could not do so because he lacked such knowledge. The district court disagreed that Rehaif imposed such a requirement and accordingly denied Mr. Craine’s withdrawal motion. With regard to his sentence, Craine raised both procedural and substantive challenges: (1) the district court should not have applied any cross-reference because he acted in self-defense; and (2) his 120-month sentence is substantively unreasonable. The Tenth Circuit rejected all these arguments and affirmed Craine's conviction and sentence. View "United States v. Craine" on Justia Law

Petitioner-Appellant Rio Hondo petitioned the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal to review a decision of the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board (“EAB”). Rio Hondo sought to vacate relaxed pollutant limitations in a 2017 permit issued by the EPA to an upstream waste water treatment plant. The waste water treatment plant served the Village of Ruidoso and City of Ruidoso Downs, and was an identified point source of pollutants into the Rio Ruidoso river. The Rio Ruidoso was classified under the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) as marginally impaired for nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus. The Rio Hondo river was downstream from the Rio Ruidoso river, and the Rio Hondo river flowed adjacent to the Rio Hondo ranch. Rio Hondo contended that reduced river water quality, including algae blooms, harmed its ability to make critical use of the river water. Rio Hondo contended two aspects of the EPA’s 2017 permit constitute impermissible backsliding under the CWA: (1) the permit does not include concentration-based limitations that prior permits included; and (2) the permit increased the mass-based limitation on nitrogen discharges. The 2017 permit relied on a 2016 Total Maximum Daily Load (“TMDL”) report prepared by the New Mexico Environment Department and adopted by the EPA. Rio Hondo previously challenged the 2016 TMDL in New Mexico state court and lost. The Tenth Circuit denied Rio Hondo's petition: Rio Hondo presented no new information which would cast doubt on the 2016 TMDL, and its challenge to the 2017 permit "boils down to a challenge of that underlying 2016 TMDL. The record demonstrates that the EPA reasonably relied on the 2016 TMDL in issuing the 2017 permit, did not abuse its discretion in creating the permit limits, and appropriately applied a statutory exception to the anti-backsliding provisions of the CWA." View "Rio Hondo Land v. EPA" on Justia Law

After a young woman found a pressure cooker bomb hidden under her bed, law enforcement agents went to the home of the only person she said might want to harm her: defendant-appellant Ethan Guillen. The agents entered Ethan’s home, questioned him, and obtained consent from his father to search the residence. During the search, the agents found evidence in Ethan’s bedroom indicating his involvement with the pressure cooker bomb. When one of the agents confronted Ethan with the information and evidence they had collected, he confessed to making the bomb. The agent immediately provided Ethan Miranda warnings, but he proceeded to make more incriminating statements. Ethan ultimately entered a conditional plea of guilty to possession of an unregistered destructive device and an attempt to damage or destroy a building by means of fire or an explosive. His plea agreement reserved the right to appeal the district court’s order denying his motion to suppress the physical evidence and incriminating statements resulting from the search of his home. Exercising that right, Ethan argued to the Tenth Circuit that the district court should have suppressed the physical evidence found in his home because the agents’ warrantless entry and search of his bedroom violated his Fourth Amendment rights. He also contended the district court should have suppressed the incriminating statements he made after receiving Miranda warnings because the agents elicited them through coercion and used an impermissible two-step interrogation technique to end run around Miranda. Finding no violation of his rights or any other reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment. View "United States v. Guillen" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Omil Cotto was charged with three drug and gun-related offenses stemming from a road rage incident. Prior to trial, Cotto filed a motion to suppress evidence officers had obtained from a residence in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He argued: (1) the affidavit supporting the warrant did not provide probable cause for the search of the house; and (2) provisions in the warrant authorizing seizure of “all firearm evidence” and “any cellphones” were overbroad. The district court denied the motion to suppress. Cotto then pleaded guilty to lesser charges but expressly preserved his right to appeal the court’s order on the suppression motion. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress, finding: (1) the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applied to the search and seizure here; (2) the officers acted in objectively reasonable reliance on the warrant while conducting the search of the residence; and (3) even if the warrant’s cell phone provision was overbroad, that provision could and should have been severed from the remaining valid portions of the warrant. View "United States v. Cotto" on Justia Law

In 2014, after a jury found Michael Destry Williams guilty of ten counts of tax-evasion and fraud offenses, the district judge sentenced him to seventy-one months’ imprisonment and five years’ supervised release. Williams began the five-years’ supervision on August 22, 2018, and was set to end it on August 21, 2023. On August 27, 2019, a probation officer filed a Petition for Summons on Person Under Supervision, alleging three violations of Williams’s supervision. All three violations allegedly stemmed from Williams’s asserted belief that he was an American National and was not subject to the same legal system as United States citizens. The court ordered a sentence of 24 months’ imprisonment, with credit for time served. On appeal, Williams challenged this sentence as substantively unreasonable. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed Williams' sentence. View "United States v. Williams" on Justia Law