Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant-Appellant Jose Salas-Garcia filed a direct appeal to the Tenth Circuit following his conditional plea of guilty to one count of conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute more than 500 grams of cocaine and one count of possessing more than 500 grams of cocaine with the intent to distribute. Prior to his plea, he moved to suppress drugs found in the vehicle he was driving as well as statements he made to police, arguing that he was illegally arrested and the evidence subsequently obtained was the fruit of a constitutional violation. The district court denied his motion to suppress. Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea on both counts. He then sought to withdraw his guilty plea because he did not fully understand the immigration consequences of his plea. He argued he had an absolute right to withdraw his plea because the district court had not yet accepted it. The district court denied his motion to withdraw his guilty plea and sentenced Defendant to concurrent terms of sixty months' imprisonment and a four-year term of supervised release. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of Defendant's motion to suppress and dismissed his appeal of the district court's denial of his motion to withdraw his guilty plea. View "United States v. Salas-Garcia" on Justia Law

In December 2008, Defendant Joe Maldonado pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The presentence report (PSR) concluded that the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) applied to him as a result of three prior burglary convictions, subjecting him to a mandatory sentencing enhancement. Defendant objected, arguing that one of his prior convictions, a first-degree burglary conviction in California, was not a violent felony under the ACCA. The district court overruled the objection and sentenced Defendant to the ACCA-mandated minimum sentence of 15 years. The sole issue on appeal to the Tenth Circuit was whether California's first-degree burglary statute was a violent felony under the ACCA. Upon review, the Court held that it was by virtue of the ACCA's residual clause. View "United States v. Maldonado" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Jarrod Duran challenged the procedural reasonableness of his forty-one month sentence, claiming that his prior conviction for aggravated assault under Texas law was not a crime of violence under the United States Sentencing Guidelines (USSG). Because the Tenth Circuit agreed that under Texas law aggravated assault could be committed with only a mens rea of recklessness, it is not categorically a crime of violence. The Court therefore remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Duran" on Justia Law

In this litigation, Appellants (plaintiffs below) brought an action under 42 U.S.C. 1983, challenging the statutory scheme by which the state of Kansas funds its public schools. The district court dismissed their suit for lack of standing. Upon review of the matter and the applicable statutory authority, the Tenth Circuit concluded that the Appellants had standing because their alleged injury, unequal treatment by the state, would be redressed by a favorable decision. Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Petrella, et al v. DeBacker, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Jeffrey Shaun Bagby was indicted on one count of possessing, with intent to distribute, fifty grams or more of cocaine base (crack), and one count of being a felon in possession of ammunition. On the morning his jury trial commenced, Defendant, against the advice of the district court, waived his right to counsel and proceeded to represent himself. The jury convicted him on the drug count but acquitted him on the ammunition count. Because of his prior felony drug convictions, Defendant received a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison. He appealed his conviction and sentence, alleging errors at trial and in the imposition of sentence. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that any error committed by the district court was harmless. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court's imposition of a mandatory life sentence. View "United States v. Bagby" on Justia Law

In cross-appeals, the parties raised challenges to various rulings made by the district court in a section 1983 action arising out of an allegedly unlawful seizure. Defendants Gary Carson and Don Mangin, employees of the New Mexico Department of Corrections, observed Plaintiffs Phillip Martinez and Ricardo Sarmiento sitting or standing with a third man in a low-lit area outside an apartment building in a high-crime neighborhood at night. Defendants pulled up to the apartment building in an unmarked police car and turned on the emergency lights. Defendants forced Plaintiffs to the ground, handcuffed them, drew weapons, and conducted a pat-down search. When additional Rio Rancho officers arrived on the scene a few minutes later, Defendants transferred Plaintiffs, still in handcuffs, into the custody of these officers. The Rio Rancho police officers eventually arrested and booked Plaintiffs, holding Mr. Martinez for twelve hours and Mr. Sarmiento for five hours before their release. In their 1983 action, Plaintiffs raised claims of unlawful seizure against several Rio Rancho police officers as well as the named Defendants in this appeal. Defendants moved for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The Rio Rancho defendants subsequently settled the claims against them and were dismissed from the action. Defendants filed a third motion for summary judgment and Plaintiffs filed a crossmotion for partial summary judgment. The district court denied both motions, citing multiple factual disputes. The court held that the pertinent question for the jury to decide was whether Defendants had reasonable suspicion of criminal activity when they detained Plaintiffs, and if so, the brief seizure was warranted as an investigative detention responsive to officer safety concerns; if not, it was an illegal seizure. The court further held that Defendants could only be held liable for their own allegedly unlawful conduct, not for the actions of the Rio Rancho officers. The case then proceeded to trial, where the jury found for Plaintiffs on their unlawful seizure claim, finding Defendants lacked reasonable suspicion to justify the initial seizure, and awarded Plaintiffs compensatory and punitive damages totaling $5,000 each. Plaintiffs appealed the district court's orders limiting Defendants' liability to the first few minutes of the seizure, as well as a discovery sanction. On cross-appeal, Defendants raised issues regarding (1) the district court's denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity, (2) the district court's denial of their Rule 50(b) motion for judgment as a matter of law, (3) various evidentiary rulings the district court made at trial, and (4) the inclusion of a punitive damages jury instruction. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's sanctions order, reversed the district court's summary judgment order limiting Defendants' liability, and remanded the case back to the district court for a new trial limited to the issue of whether (and to what extent) Defendants reasonably should have known their unlawful seizure of Plaintiffs would have resulted in a prolonged detention and, if so, whether any additional damages were appropriate. Defendants' cross-appeal was dismissed. View "Martinez v. Carson" on Justia Law

Two direct criminal appeals arose from the same incident and had one sentencing issue in common. The crime in which the two Defendants-Appellants, Johnson Joe and Cynthia Jones participated included a brutal beating and sexual assault that came at the end of a bout of heavy drinking. Joe and Jones each eventually entered a guilty plea to a single charge of aggravated sexual abuse. After the guilty pleas, the district court directed the preparation of a presentence report (PSR) for each of them. In both cases, the PSR recommended that the offense level be increased by four under U.S.S.G. 2A3.1(b)(1) because the offense involved the use of force against the victim. In the case of Ms. Jones, the PSR also recommended that her offense level be further increased by two under U.S.S.G. 3A1.3 because the victim had been restrained during the offense. In the case of Mr. Joe, the government objected to the PSR because it did not include an enhancement for the restraint of the victim. Neither Defendant contested the facts underlying the recommendations. Both Defendants, however, objected to the recommendation (that of the PSR in the case of Ms. Jones and of the government in the case of Mr. Joe) to apply both the use-of-force and the restraint-of-the-victim enhancements. The district judge overruled these objections in both cases. In Ms. Jones’s case, the PSR found that the applicable sentencing range under the advisory Guidelines was 168 to 210 months of imprisonment. The district judge decided to vary downward from that range and sentenced her to 140 months’ imprisonment. In Mr. Joe’s case, the PSR found that the applicable Guidelines range was 125 to 168 months, but with the restraint-of-the-victim enhancement added by the court, the resulting advisory Guideline range was the same as for Ms. Jones – 168 to 210 months. The district judge again decided to vary downward from that range and sentenced Mr. Joe to 110 months’ imprisonment. Both Defendants were also sentenced to a life term of supervised release to commence upon their release from incarceration. Neither Defendant objected to this provision of extended supervised release. On appeal, both Mr. Joe and Ms. Jones contended that the district court erred by applying both the enhancement for the use of force and the enhancement for the restraint of the victim. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit held that the district court erred when it enhanced Defendants’ offense levels for physical restraint of the victim as well as enhancing for the use of force against her. The government, which has the burden of proof of showing harmlessness, did not show that this error was harmless. Case law lead the Court to conclude that the error was not. The Court did not find, however, that there was plain error in the imposition of the lifetime term of supervised release. Therefore, the Court remanded the cases back to the district court to vacate Defendants' sentences and for resentencing. View "United States v. Joe" on Justia Law

Defendant Joseph Mendiola appeals from the district court's imposition of a two-year term of imprisonment following revocation of his supervised release. Defendant argued that in light of the Supreme Court's recent decision in "Tapia v. United States," (131 S. Ct. 2382 (2011)), the district court committed plain error in basing the length of the revocation sentence on Defendant's need to participate in a prison-based drug rehabilitation program. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit agreed and reversed the district court's judgment and remanded the case with directions to vacate Defendant's revocation sentence and for resentencing. View "United States v. Mendiola" on Justia Law

In 1994, two surface-to-air missiles brought down an aircraft carrying then Rwandan and Burundi Presidents Juvenal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, both of Hutu ethnicity. The killings fueled the Rwandan genocide, which spread violence across East Central Africa and killed millions of innocent victims. Some believe the then Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front headed by current Rwandan President Paul Kagame was behind the killings. The widows of the two former heads-of-state, Madame Habyarimana and Madame Ntaryamira, blamed President Kagame for their husbands' deaths. They filed suit in Oklahoma federal court seeking to hold him liable under the Alien Tort Claims Act, the Torture Act, the Racketeeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, and multiple state and international laws. During the pendency of this case in the district court, the United States, at the request of the Rwandan Government, submitted a "Suggestion of Immunity" on behalf of President Kagame. The Tenth Circuit upheld the district court in dismissing this case due to President Kagame's immunity: "[quoting case law precedent] 'the precedents are overwhelming. For more than 160 years American courts have consistently applied the doctrine of sovereign immunity when requested to do so by the executive branch. Moreover, they have done so with no further review of the executive's determination.' Simply stated, '[i]t is . . . not for the courts to deny an immunity which our government has seen fit to allow.'" View "Habyarimana v. Kagame" on Justia Law

The issue before the Tenth Circuit was whether a prior conviction constituted a violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). Defendant Gerald Sandoval pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. At sentencing, he admitted to several previous felony convictions, two of which, he also admitted, were violent felonies as defined by the ACCA. But he claimed neither of the two remaining previous felonies considered by the court, first-degree criminal trespass and second-degree assault, were violent. Because either conviction could serve as the third "violent felony" triggering a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence under the ACCA, the Tenth Circuit addressed only one and concluded his conviction of second degree assault, even though mitigated by heat of passion, is a violent crime for the purposes of the ACCA. View "United States v. Sandoval" on Justia Law