Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

A jury convicted Robert Holloway of four counts of wire fraud and one count of tax fraud. The charges against Holloway were the result of a scheme he created through his company, US Ventures, that defrauded over 250 investors and caused losses in excess of $15 million. Holloway began soliciting investors in 2005 by guaranteeing incredible returns in futures markets due to a mathematical algorithm he had created. When Holloway failed to realize the gains he promised, he started defrauding his investors by stating that his trading was profitable even though he lost substantial amounts of money, using money from new investors to pay other investors, and fabricating reports to investors stating that his daily returns were between 0 to 1.15% and that his trading never resulted in a loss. He also diverted investor funds for his own personal use. The district court sentenced Holloway to 225 months of imprisonment on all five counts. On appeal, Holloway argued: (1) he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to counsel of his choice; (2) the district court allowed impermissible victim impact testimony; (3) denied him his constitutional right to confront witnesses; and (4) improperly enhanced his sentence. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "United States v. Holloway" on Justia Law

Pro se plaintiffs-appellees Kent and Tonya Mayfield brought this action against Deputy Jim Bethards under 42 U.S.C. 1983, claiming he violated their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by entering their property without a warrant with the intention of killing their two pet dogs. In the Complaint, the Mayfields alleged a witness observed that although neither dog acted aggressively, both officers began firing on the dogs once on the Mayfields’ property. Deputy Clark fired on Suka, the Mayfields’ brown dog, but missed as she fled to the back of the house. Deputy Bethards shot Majka, the Mayfields’ white Malamute Husky, three times, killing her on the front porch. The deputies then unsuccessfully searched for Suka behind the house, where she had disappeared into a wooded section of the Mayfields’ property. The Complaint further alleged that upon returning to the front yard, the deputies first moved Majka’s body in an apparent attempt to obscure that she had been shot on the Mayfields’ property and then tried to hide her body in a row of trees. Deputy Bethards raised a qualified-immunity defense and moved to dismiss the Complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. The district court denied his motion and Deputy Bethards appeals. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Mayfield v. Bethards" on Justia Law

Bigler Jobe Stouffer was convicted in Oklahoma state court of first-degree murder and shooting with intent to kill. The jury sentenced him to death for the murder charge. After his direct appeal and state post-conviction proceedings were unsuccessful, Stouffer filed for habeas relief in federal court, alleging a juror had improperly communicated with her husband about the case during the penalty phase of trial. In the preceding case, the Tenth Circuit held the district court erred by failing to conduct an evidentiary hearing on Stouffer’s claim of jury tampering. The case was therefore remanded to the district court to conduct a hearing and rule on Stouffer’s claim. Based on evidence presented at a day-long evidentiary hearing, the district court determined Stouffer’s right to an impartial jury had not been violated and denied his habeas application. Stouffer appealed, but finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Stouffer v. Duckworth" on Justia Law

Defendant Almundo Cruz Singer pleaded guilty to one count of involuntary manslaughter in Indian country, and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of seventy-five months, to be followed by a three-year term of supervised release. Singer’s offense of conviction stems from his involvement in a motor vehicle accident that occurred on December 9, 2014, in Church Rock. Marvin Ahasteen and his wife were walking from their Church Rock residence that day to eat lunch at the Fire Rock Casino, which is located on the north side of New Mexico State Highway 118. The couple jogged across the lanes of State Highway 118 and, as they did so, Mrs. Ahasteen "jogged in front of her husband" and "reached the [north] side of the highway." At that moment, Mrs. Ahasteen "heard her husband exclaim 'oh sh[it]' and turned to see him hit by a white car driving westbound” on State Highway 118. Mr. Ahasteen was decapitated as a result of the accident, his "left leg was dismembered at the proximal tibia and fibula," and his "body parts, blood and clothing were scattered over a distance of approximately 274 feet,” As a result of the force of impact, "all of [Mr. Ahasteen’s] clothes were removed, aside from his underwear that came down to his knees and his right sock." Singer appealed, challenging the procedural and substantive reasonableness of his sentence. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "United States v. Singer" on Justia Law

New Mexico Rule of Professional Conduct 16-308(E) prohibited a prosecutor from subpoenaing a lawyer to present evidence about a past or present client in a grand-jury or other criminal proceeding unless such evidence was “essential” and “there is no other feasible alternative to obtain the information.” In a lawsuit brought against the New Mexico Supreme Court and the state’s Disciplinary Board and Office of Disciplinary Counsel, the United States claimed that the enforcement of this rule against federal prosecutors licensed in New Mexico violated the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court concluded that Rule 16-308(E) was preempted with respect to federal prosecutors practicing before grand juries, but was not preempted outside of the grand-jury context. With this conclusion, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed and affirmed the district court's decision. View "United States v. NM Supreme Court" on Justia Law

Emiliano Martinez pleaded guilty to possessing an unregistered, short-barrel shotgun in violation of federal law. Under his plea agreement, Martinez reserved the right to appeal his sentence if the district court determined that his total offense level was greater than 23 under the 2014 United States Sentencing Guidelines. The district court calculated his total offense level as 27 after applying a four-level enhancement for using or possessing a firearm in connection with another felony. Central to this enhancement was the district court’s finding that Martinez had possessed a firearm in connection with another felony offense: a burglary of the home from which the shotgun Martinez later possessed was stolen. On appeal, Martinez argued that the district court clearly erred at sentencing when it considered the hearsay statements of Eduardo Hernandez, who, in a police interview, had admitted to committing the burglary with Martinez. Martinez argued that Hernandez’s hearsay statements lacked sufficient indicia of reliability to support their probable accuracy. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court. View "United States v. Martinez" on Justia Law

Michael Smith was charged with two counts of murder for the killings of Sarath Pulluru and Janet Moore. He was convicted and sentenced to death. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his convictions on direct appeal and denied his two applications for postconviction relief. Smith sought a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court, arguing, as relevant here, that: (1) he was ineligible for the death penalty because he was intellectually disabled; (2) that the state trial court had erred in admitting Smith’s videotaped confession to the murders at trial; (3) that his trial counsel had rendered ineffective assistance in the presentation of his mitigation case; and (4) that cumulative error rendered his trial unfair. The district court denied habeas relief, and Smith appealed. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals granted Smith’s request for a certificate of appealability on these four issues, and affirmed the district court’s judgment. The Court found that Smith failed to demonstrate that the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals’ rejection of his claims was contrary to or involved an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law, and affirmed the district court’s denial of habeas relief. View "Smith v. Duckworth" on Justia Law

Jason Holland and his brother were accused of robbing a driver of her purse on a rural Oklahoma highway, and then unlawfully entering a home after their getaway car had a flat tire. At a joint trial, the state court allowed, as relevant here, two pieces of evidence to be introduced: (1) one of the victims’ statements that she saw Holland had Nazi tattoos on his arm, and (2) the other victim’s statement that she heard Holland’s brother confess to the robbery. The second victim thought she saw a black man in the back seat of Holland's car when the brother allegedly piped up saying “I did it. I did it. We don’t associate with black guys.” This evidence was admitted without objection and both brothers were convicted of the crimes. After his convictions became final on state direct review, Holland brought in federal court a petition for habeas relief. The district court granted relief on two grounds: (1) the introduction of the above evidence at trial deprived Holland of a fundamentally fair trial, and (2) Holland’s trial counsel’s failure to object to the evidence deprived him of constitutionally effective assistance of counsel. Applying the deferential standard of review contained in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) to the holding of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA), the Tenth Circuit concluded that the OCCA did not unreasonably apply Supreme Court law in finding that the evidence at issue here did not substantially affect the outcome of the trial. View "Holland v. Allbaugh" on Justia Law

In consolidated cases, Defendants-Appellants Adan Molina, Fidencio Verdin-Garcia, and Miguel Romero appealed denials of their respective motions for sentence reduction. Defendants relied upon U.S.S.G. Amendments 782 & 788 which retroactively lowered the base offense levels for many drug quantities listed in the Sentencing Guidelines. On appeal, defendants sought reversal of these denials on the basis that the district courts erred by failing to address their material, nonfrivolous arguments. Finding no reversible error in either case, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "United States v. Verdin-Garcia" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellee Clifton Bennett pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges and the district court sentenced him to fifty-seven months of imprisonment to be followed by several conditions of supervised release. Bennett and the government each contended the district court erred at sentencing: the government argued the court should have found Bennett had a prior Colorado conviction relating to child pornography, which would trigger a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence; Bennett challenged the imposition of special condition of supervised release that required he undergo mandatory testing for sexual attraction to minors. The Tenth Circuit agreed that Bennett’s prior Colorado misdemeanor conviction for sexual exploitation of a child "relates to" child pornography, and he was therefore eligible for the mandatory minimum. With regard to Bennett's challenge, the Court was "faced with too many speculative factors, too far in the future, to make a decision sounding in constitutional principles, so we dismiss Bennett’s cross-appeal without prejudice on ripeness grounds." View "United States v. Bennett" on Justia Law