Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant pleaded guilty, pursuant to a plea agreement, to conspiracy to manufacture over 500 grams of methamphetamine mixture and fifty grams of methamphetamine. The district court initially sentenced Defendant to 240 months' imprisonment. Thereafter, the government filed a Fed. R. Crim. P. 35(b) motion, recommending a ten-percent reduction in Defendant's sentence. The district court held a telephonic hearing on the motion in which the government and Defendant's counsel participated, but Defendant did not participate. The court granted the ten-percent reduction in Defendant's sentence. Defendant appealed, arguing that he was denied the right to participate in the hearing in violation of his plea agreement. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the district court's failure to permit Defendant's participation in the Rule 35(b) hearing was plain error, but (2) the error did not affect Defendant's substantial rights.

Defendant pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. The court sentenced him to the statutory minimum of 180 months' imprisonment. Defendant subsequently moved to set aside his conviction and sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255, contending that his counsel was ineffective for (1) failing to file a motion to suppress evidence, (2) failing to file an appeal that Defendant alleged he requested, and (3) failing to obtain a mental evaluation. The district court denied the motion. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) any motion to suppress evidence would not have succeeded, and thus counsel was not ineffective for failing to file a motion to suppress; (2) the district court did not err in finding no credible evidence that Defendant requested an appeal; and (3) the district court correctly ruled that Defendant's attorney had not been ineffective because a motion to obtain a mental evaluation would not have affected the outcome of the trial.

Appellant brought this action under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners and its members, the chief of police, and certain police officers, alleging constitutional violations under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. The district court dismissed the action for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, reasoning Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provided the exclusive remedy for Appellant's claims and Appellant could not circumvent the Act's procedural requirements by solely pleading constitutional violations under section 1983. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding that to the extent that Appellant's complaint asserted the violation of rights secured by the Constitution and committed by persons acting under color of state law, the district court erred in dismissing her section 1983 action for failure to comply with Title VII's procedural requirements.

After a jury trial, Defendant was convicted on two counts of distribution of cocaine base, one count of possession of cocaine base with intent to distribute, and one count of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. The district court sentenced Defendant to 300 months' imprisonment. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Defendant's convictions, holding (1) the district court did not err by instructing the jury with respect to inferring an intent to distribute; (2) the admission into evidence of a wage record from the Iowa Workforce Development Agency did not violate the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment; and (3) the evidence was sufficient to support the guilty verdicts.

While serving a sentence of 148 months for conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine, Defendant moved for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2) based on a retroactive amendment to the sentencing guidelines. Defendant sought a sentence twenty-nine percent below the bottom of his amended guideline range of 168 to 210 months. The district court granted a reduction approximately twenty percent below the amended guideline range to comply with U.S.S.G. 1B1.10, the Sentencing Commission's policy statement governing the sentence reduction process. Defendant appealed, arguing that section 1B1.10 was contrary to the Sentencing Reform Act and unconstitutional. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the Commission did not exceed its statutory authority by limiting sentence reductions below the bottom of the amended guideline range to defendants who had provided substantial assistance to authorities; and (2) the policy statement was not an unconstitutional violation of the nondelegation doctrine or separation of powers principles.

Defendant pleaded guilty to possessing five or more grams of crack cocaine. The offense occurred on October 6, 2009. On August 3, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), which eliminated the five-year minimum sentence for offenses involving more than five grams of cocaine, into law. On November 22, 2010, the district court sentenced Defendant to sixty months' imprisonment, the applicable mandatory minimum for the offense at the time Defendant committed the offense. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. On June 12, 2012, the Supreme Court held that the FSA applies retroactively to defendants who committed a crack cocaine crime before August 3, 2010 but were not sentenced until after that date. The Eighth Circuit subsequently granted Defendant's petition for rehearing, vacated Defendant's sentence, and remanded the case for resentencing consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling.

A grand jury indicted Defendant for conspiring to distribute methamphetamine and for an immigration violation. Defendant conditionally pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture containing methamphetamine. The district court sentenced him to 108 months imprisonment. Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of a warrantless traffic stop, arguing that deputies lacked reasonable suspicion for the traffic stop. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that Defendant's Fourth Amendment rights were not violated, and the district court's admission of the evidence resulting from the traffic stop was proper.

The Governor and Attorney General of South Dakota, along with two intervening crisis pregnancy centers and two of their personnel appealed the district court's permanent injunction barring enforcement of a South Dakota statute requiring the disclosure to patients seeking abortions of an "increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide" and the underlying grant of summary judgment in favor of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and its medical director Dr. Carol Ball. The district court found that this advisory would unduly burden abortion rights and would violate physicians' First Amendment right to be free from compelled speech. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding that on its face, the suicide advisory presented neither an undue burden on abortion rights nor a violation of physicians' free speech rights.

A warrant search of Defendant's vehicle and computer yielded a video of Defendant positioning W.D., a twelve-year-old girl, while he filmed her nude body, and CDs containing images of child pornography. After Defendant was convicted in state court of raping W.D.'s sister, federal prosecutors charged him with single counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, W.D., and possession of child pornography. A jury convicted him of both counts, but the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. On remand, a jury again convicted Defendant of both counts. Defendant appealed his conviction for sexual exploitation of a minor and his sentence. The Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the jury reasonably found the images Defendant produced satisfied the statutory standard - visual depictions of sexually explicit conduct; and (2) the district court did not err in imposing Defendant's sentence.

Defendant was convicted of conspiring to manufacture methamphetamine. The district court sentenced Defendant to 240 months' imprisonment, the applicable mandatory minimum because it found Defendant had a prior felony drug conviction. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) there was no Speedy Trial Act violation in this case; (2) the district court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting Defendant's proposed jury instruction, and the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to sustain Defendant's conviction; (3) Defendant's sentence did not violate the Sixth Amendment, because, contrary to Defendant's argument that the existence of a prior conviction was a factual determination that should have been presented to a jury, the Court has found expressly constitutional under the Sixth Amendment the imposition of increased mandatory minimum sentences on the basis of judge-found facts.