Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

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

In the early 1990s, a television reporter in Albuquerque, New Mexico, began investigating reports that a well-known Catholic priest had sexually abused numerous boys during his decades-long tenure at several local parishes. Upon learning of the reporter's story, that priest, defendant-appellant Arthur Perrault, departed early for a previously planned sabbatical. After a two-week sojourn in Canada, Perrault made a new life in Morocco: a country without an extradition treaty with the United States. In 2017, a federal grand jury sitting in the District of New Mexico charged Perrault with seven counts of sexual abuse, all stemming from Perrault’s relationship with John Doe 1 in the early 1990s. Doe 1 was about age ten at the time of the charged abuse. The Moroccan government agreed to expel Perrault, the FBI brought him back from Morocco, and Perrault stood trial in the community he fled two decades earlier. During the trial, seven other victims testified that Perrault had sexually abused them when they were just boys. The jury convicted Perrault of all seven counts. Perrault appealed his conviction, arguing the district court erred in permitting so many former victims to testify. He also argued the district court plainly erred in seating the jurors that convicted him, who, according to Perrault, had predetermined his guilt before hearing any evidence. Perrault also disputed certain jury instructions, as well as his sentence. After review, the Tenth Circuit concluded Perrault received a fundamentally fair trial in compliance with his constitutional rights. Accordingly, judgment was affirmed. View "United States v. Perrault" on Justia Law

After one of Defendant Chad Kaspereit’s many domestic violence incidents, a state court in Oklahoma instituted a protective order against him. While that order remained in effect, Defendant obtained two firearms from a sporting goods store. A jury convicted Defendant of one count of lying in connection with the purchase of a firearm and one count of possessing a firearm as a prohibited person. The district court imposed concurrent 120-month sentences. Defendant argued on appeal of those sentences that the Supreme Court’s holding in Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), along with a lack of evidence against him, required a new trial on both counts. He also argued his sentence was unreasonable. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court. View "United States v. Kaspereit" on Justia Law

The government appealed a district-court order granting Defendant Gabriel Trujillo’s motion to suppress evidence recovered during an inventory search of his vehicle following his arrest for failing to pull over in response to a police command. When officers ultimately made contact with Defendant, they learned Defendant was wearing a bulletproof vest and had handguns in the car for protection because "friends of his ex-girlfriend had made threats against his life." Disbelieving Defendant’s explanation for why he had failed to pull over earlier, the arresting officer decided to arrest him. Consistent with the policy of the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO), the officer also determined that the car should have been impounded and towed. The officer testified he thought it would be dangerous to leave the vehicle where it was, both because its location presented a danger to other drivers, and because of the risk that someone would remove the firearms - particularly because there was a high incidence of auto burglaries and thefts in the area. When the vehicle was searched, along with the firearms, a small backpack locked with a luggage lock was in the passenger compartment, containing a white crystalline substance believed to be methamphetamine. Defendant was indicted on charges of: (1) possession with intent to distribute at least 50 grams of a substance containing methamphetamine; and (2) possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. Defendant argued that the BCSO's impoundment policy was itself unreasonable because there was no community-caretaker basis for impoundment, and the officer failed to consider alternatives to towing. After review of the district court record, the Tenth Circuit held that the search was justified as an exercise of law-enforcement community-caretaker functions, as described in South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364 (1976), and Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433 (1973). The district court was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Trujillo" on Justia Law

“Talk Big” was Defendant Jalil Robinson’s handle on a dating website, and his strategy for recruiting seventeen-year-old Nikki from Colorado to work for him as a prostitute on the same site. Promising a life of luxury, Defendant convinced Nikki, who originally represented herself as eighteen-year-old Brooke, to come join him as his “business partner” in California. Little did he know he was communicating with an undercover officer posing as Nikki. Defendant’s actions led to a jury convicting him of attempted sex trafficking of a minor. Defendant claimed on appeal that the government produced insufficient evidence to find him guilty of attempted sex trafficking of a minor. The Tenth Circuit determined the trial court record established the contrary, and affirmed Defendant’s conviction and sentence of 188 months’ imprisonment. View "United States v. Robinson" on Justia Law

In August 2008, 20-year-old defendant Kepa Maumau participated in armed robberies of a clothing store and two restaurants. Maumau was indicted for his role in those robberies and ultimately convicted by a jury of one count of conspiracy to commit a racketeering offense, two counts of committing violent crimes in aid of racketeering, one count of Hobbs Act robbery, and three counts of using a gun during a crime of violence. At the time of Maumau’s convictions, 18 U.S.C. 924(c) included a “stacking” provision that required a district court to impose consecutive sentences of twenty-five years’ imprisonment for second or subsequent convictions of the statute, even if those convictions occurred at the same time as a defendant’s first conviction under the statute. As a result of that “stacking” provision, Maumau was sentenced to a total term of imprisonment of 55 years. In December 2018, Congress enacted the First Step Act of 2018 (First Step Act), 132 Stat. 5194 (2018). Three provisions of the First Step Act were relevant to this appeal. In October 2019, Maumau moved to reduce his sentence, arguing that that extraordinary and compelling reasons, including the First Step Act’s elimination of section 924(c)’s stacking provision, justified a reduction. The district court granted Maumau’s motion and reduced Maumau’s sentence to time served, plus a three-year term of supervised release. The government appealed, arguing that the district court erred in granting Maumau’s motion. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court. View "United States v. Maumau" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs-Appellants Santa Fe Alliance for Public Health & Safety, Arthur Firstenberg, and Monika Steinhoff (collectively the “Alliance”) brought a number of claims under Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (“TCA”), New Mexico’s Wireless Consumer Advanced Infrastructure Investment Act (“WCAIIA”), the Amendments to Chapter 27 of the Santa Fe City City Code, and Santa Fe mayor proclamations. The Alliance alleged the statutes and proclamations violated due process, the Takings Clause, and the First Amendment. Through its amended complaint, the Alliance contended the installation of telecommunications facilities, primarily cellular towers and antennas, on public rights-of-way exposed its members to dangerous levels of radiation. The Alliance further contended these legislative and executive acts prevented it from effectively speaking out against the installation of new telecommunications facilities. The United States moved to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), and (b)(6), and the City of Santa Fe moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). The district court concluded that while the Alliance pled sufficient facts to establish standing to assert its constitutional claims, the Alliance failed to allege facts stating any constitutional claim upon which relief could be granted, thus dismissing claims against all defendants, including New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas. The Tenth Circuit affirmed dismissal of the Alliance's constitutional claims, finding apart from the district court, that the Alliance lacked standing to raise its takings and due process claims not premised on an alleged denial of notice. Furthermore, the Court held that while the Alliance satisfied the threshold for standing as to its First Amendment and procedural due process claims (premised on the WCAIIA and Chapter 27 Amendments), the district court properly dismissed these claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). View "Santa Fe Alliance v. City of Santa Fe" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellant Abiel Perez-Perez pled guilty to being an alien in possession of a firearm. On appeal, he challenged the district court’s failure to advise him of two elements of that offense: (1) the alien was illegally or unlawfully present in the United States; and (2) the alien knew that he was illegally or unlawfully present. The government conceded that the omission of these elements constituted error that was now plain on appeal. The only dispute was whether Perez satisfied the third and fourth prongs of plain-error review. The Tenth Circuit concluded Perez could not satisfy the third prong because he could not show that the error affected his substantial rights. "Although Perez has a credible claim that, at the time of the offense, he did not know he was unlawfully present in the United States, he has failed to show a reasonable probability that he would not have pled guilty but for the district court’s error. This is because the context of Perez’s guilty plea makes clear that he pled guilty to avoid mandatory minimum sentences attached to charges the government dismissed in exchange for the guilty plea. Perez fails to show how the district court’s error impacted that choice, and he thus fails to satisfy the third plain-error prong." View "United States v. Perez-Perez" on Justia Law