Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant-Appellant Tim DeChristopher entered a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil and gas lease auction in Salt Lake City, Utah, by representing he was a bidder. His purpose was to disrupt the auction and call attention to the potential environmental harms of drilling on the leases. He proceeded to drive up the auction prices and ultimately won almost $1.8 million in bids, for which he was unable to pay. A jury convicted Defendant of interfering with the provisions of Chapter 3A of the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act, and making a false statement or representation. He appealed, raising eight separate issues related to his conviction. Upon review of each, the Tenth Circuit determined they had no merit and affirmed Defendant's conviction and sentence.

Brothers James and Marlin Butler sold guided deer hunts to out-of-state hunters, providing lodging, meals, and guiding services. On several occasions, they encouraged their clients to violate state hunting laws. Both pled guilty to conspiring to sell and transport poached deer in violation of the Lacey Act. The district court concluded that the value of each deer was the total amount that a client paid to participate in the guided hunt. Based on this determination, the court sentenced the Butlers to several years’ imprisonment, required that they pay substantial fines and restitution to Kansas, and imposed special conditions of supervision prohibiting both men from hunting, fishing, or trapping wildlife. The Butlers appealed the district court's valuation method and their sentences based on that valuation. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that because the value assigned to loss of wildlife must reflect the actual value of the animals involved, the district court erred in conflating the value of the deer with the full price of a guided hunt. The Court also concluded that the district court improperly imposed James Butler’s special conditions of supervision without considering whether those conditions would interfere with his lawful employment. Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

The issue before the Tenth Circuit in this case was whether the Americans with Disabilities Act created two separate-but-overlapping causes of action for employment discrimination. Plaintiff-Appellant Judy Elwell worked for Defendant-Appellee University of Oklahoma for years in an administrative role. She began to suffer from a degenerative spinal disc condition which did not prevent her from performing the essential functions of her job. Nevertheless, she sought certain accommodations from her employer. She alleged that the University refused to grant those accommodations and ultimately fired her, allegedly because of her disability. The district court dismissed Plaintiff's complaint, holding that Title II did not provide a cause of action for discrimination, and that Oklahoma did not waive its immunity from suit under the Oklahoma Anti-Discrimination Act (OADA). The Tenth Circuit affirmed: "[i]n this case, those traditional tools of statutory construction - including a close examination of the text together with a careful review of the larger statutory structure . . . persuade us that Congress has spoken and spoken clearly to the question of employment discrimination claims and placed them exclusively in Title I. . . . Because Title II does not contain an independent cause of action for employment discrimination and because Ms. Elwell [could not] carry her burden of showing a waiver of sovereign immunity that might permit her to proceed with an OADA claim, the judgment of the district court [was] affirmed."

Pro se prisoner Applicant David Woodward sought a certificate of appealability (COA) to appeal the denial of his application for relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The district court dismissed the application as untimely. Applicant's principal argument was that the limitations period for filing the application had not yet expired because the state court had yet to rule on a postconviction discovery motion that he filed in 1994. Because the Tenth Circuit held that a postconviction discovery motion does not toll the limitations period for filing a 2254 application, the Court denied the application for a COA and dismissed the appeal.

Appellants in this case are companies that submitted high bids on certain oil and gas leases at a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auction (collectively, the Energy Companies). After the auction but before the leases were issued, newly appointed Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar decided not to lease the parcels at issue. Salazar announced his decision at a February 4, 2009, press conference and memorialized his determination in a February 6 memorandum to the BLM’s Utah State Director. On February 12, 2009, a subordinate BLM official mailed letters to the high bidders indicating that the leases would not be issued. Exactly ninety days later, the Energy Companies filed suit challenging the Secretary’s authority to withdraw the leases. The district court dismissed their suit as time-barred under the Mineral Leasing Act (MLA), which provides that “[n]o action contesting a decision of the Secretary involving any oil and gas lease shall be maintained unless such action is commenced or taken within ninety days after the final decision of the Secretary relating to such matter.” A majority of the Tenth Circuit agreed with the district court that the Secretary’s final decision in this matter occurred no later than February 6, and thus, the suit was time-barred. The panel majority also agreed with the district court that the Energy Companies were not entitled to equitable tolling in this matter: the BLM notified the high bidders just six days after the Secretary made his decision. And the government notified the Energy Companies of its position that February 6 was the operative date during agency proceedings. Although the Energy Companies had time to prepare their claims before the limitations period expired, they gambled that a court would accept their proffered limitations theory. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court.

After Sun Travis was abducted, raped, and shot dead, an Oklahoma jury found Anthony Banks, by that time already in prison for another killing, guilty of murdering Mrs. Travis and sentenced him to death. After an unsuccessful direct appeal and two rounds of collateral review in state court, Mr. Banks filed a federal habeas petition. The district court denied his petition but granted him a certificate of appealability to pursue several arguments before the Tenth Circuit. After careful review and "in accord with the decisions of all the courts that have preceded," the Tenth Circuit concluded none merited relief.

Congress authorized the State of Colorado to regulate hazardous wasted in the state. Invoking that regulatory authority, Plaintiff-Appellant Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division (“Colorado” or “CDPHE”), declared the chemical weapons stored at an Army weapons depot near Pueblo awaiting destruction to be hazardous waste. In this action, Colorado sought to enforce its regulation prohibiting storage of any hazardous waste against the Depot. The specific question presented by this appeal was whether Congress’s mandate that the Army destroy these chemical weapons at the Depot by 2017 preempted Colorado’s enforcement against the Depot of its regulation prohibiting storage of any hazardous waste. Ultimately, the Tenth Circuit was persuaded by the "detailed manner with which Congress has addressed and mandated the destruction of the chemical weapons stored at the Depot to conclude that that federal law preempts Colorado’s attempt to regulate that destruction process by enforcing its prohibition of the storage of hazardous waste against the Depot."

Defendant Jay Stuart De Vaughn mailed twelve hoax anthrax letters to the President of the United States, seven members of Congress, and two Argentine consulates in the United States. He pled guilty to multiple counts of mailing threatening communications. Defendant challenged the validity of the charges, arguing his statements did not constitute "threats" and that applying these statutes to him violated the First Amendment. "Addressing these arguments requires some straightforward statutory construction and the application of controlling Supreme Court precedent. Yet this case is not as simple as it seems." Defendant pled guilty unconditionally without reserving a right to appeal, but the Government has failed to raise the preclusive effect of Defendant's guilty plea. The issue before the Tenth Circuit included then a determination of whether Defendant's guilty plea deprives the Court of jurisdiction and prevented it from reaching the merits. The Government also sought to dismiss two of the cases on appeal for lack of territorial jurisdiction. Ultimately, the Tenth Circuit concluded that it had jurisdiction over the case and affirmed.

Petitioner Baltazar Sosa-Valenzuela illegally entered the United States from Mexico in 1981 at the age of three, and became a lawful permanent resident in 1992. In 1994, when he was sixteen, he shot and seriously injured a gang member. He pled guilty to attempted murder in the second degree and to unlawful possession of a firearm by a juvenile. After a successful post-conviction ineffectiveness of counsel petition, the state district court amended Petitioner's guilty plea to first degree assault and crime of violence with a deadly weapon. In 1996, while Petitioner was in juvenile detention, the Immigration and Naturalization Service issued a show cause order, charging Petitioner as deportable because of his criminal conviction. The immigration proceedings were then delayed for several years, while Petitioner was released and successfully completed his parole. Petitioner conceded deportability but requested a section 212 waiver which was then available as a form of discretionary relief under federal law and an adjustment of status. Both forms of relief were granted by the IJ and then denied by the BIA. Petitioner appealed the BIA's decision and order of deportation on three grounds: (1) the procedural regularity of the BIA decision as a collateral attack on the IJ's waiver decision; (2) the merits of the BIA's decision to reverse the IJ's waiver, arguing that it conflicted with the Supreme Court's decision in "Judulang v. Holder," (132 S. Ct. 476 (2011)); and (3) the BIA abused its discretion in denying him an adjustment of status based on his marriage to an American citizen. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit found the BIA was not precluded from reviewing the IJ's waiver decision, but we must remand to the BIA so that it may evaluate its decision in light of the Supreme Court's ruling in "Judulang." The Court affirmed the BIA's discretionary denial of adjustment of status.

A federal jury convicted Defendant-Appellant Gilbert Turrietta of assaulting a law enforcement officer. The jury reached its verdict despite having never been sworn. The problem would have gone unnoticed were it not for a belated objection from Defendant's attorney who knew from the outset of the trial that the jury had not been sworn. The attorney strategically reserved any objection until a guilty verdict was returned and the jury had dispersed. "A verdict delivered by an unsworn jury may present an issue of constitutional dimension . . . [but] by lying behind the log," defense counsel failed to preserve the issue he wanted the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to decide. "Quietly harboring an objection until it cannot be addressed effectively is the functional equivalent of making no objection - at the very least, a forfeiture." Under the plain error doctrine, the Court concluded that it could not correct a forfeited error unless failing to do so would "cement" a clearly unjust result. Accordingly, the Court decided not to disturb the district court’s refusal to declare the jury’s verdict a nullity.