Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant Gary McKibbon pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. In calculating his sentence for that offense under the 2016 sentencing guidelines, the district court consulted U.S.S.G. 2K2.1, which provided for a base offense level of twenty if McKibbon had a prior “controlled substance offense” as defined by U.S.S.G. 4B1.2(b) and its application note 1. The court, without objection, deemed McKibbon’s 2014 Colorado conviction under Colo. Rev. Stat. 18-18-405(1)(a) for distribution of a Schedule I or II controlled substance to be such a “controlled substance offense.” Using a base offense level of twenty, then, the sentencing court calculated McKibbon’s total offense level to be twenty-one which, combined with his criminal history category IV, resulted in an advisory guideline range of fifty-seven to seventy-one months in prison. The district court imposed a within-range sentence of sixty-six months. On appeal, McKibbon argued for the first time that his prior 2014 Colorado conviction did not qualify as a “controlled substance offense.” After review, the Tenth Circuit concluded both that the district court plainly erred in treating defendant's prior Colorado drug distribution conviction as a “controlled substance offense” under U.S.S.G. 4B1.2(b), and that that error warranted resentencing. View "United States v. McKibbon" on Justia Law

Richard Arnold, Sr., his wife Robyn, and his sons Ricky and Robert, devised a scheme to defraud individuals out of rebates paid to them when they purchased new vehicles. The Arnolds persuaded the victims to turn their rebates over to a charitable trust by falsely representing they would manage the trust to pay off the victims’ car loans. Although the Arnolds made some loan payments from the trust, they eventually stopped and used the remaining rebate funds for their own personal expenses. The victims then either took over the loan payments or relinquished the vehicles to the lenders. The indictment notified Richard Arnold, Sr. of the Government’s intent to seek forfeiture of “a money judgment in an amount equal to the proceeds obtained as a result of the offenses.” Arnold, Sr. appealed the district court’s forfeiture order arguing the district court erred by: (1) imposing an order of forfeiture after sentencing; and (2) failing to require the Government to use forfeited proceeds to offset the restitution Arnold owed his victims, which would lower the total amount of restitution and forfeiture he is required to pay. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the forfeiture order. View "United States v. Arnold (Richard Sr.)" on Justia Law

Oriana Lee Farrell and her five children claimed that Defendant Elias Montoya, while on duty as a New Mexico state police officer, violated their Fourth Amendment rights when he fired three shots at their minivan as it drove away from officers trying to effect a traffic stop. Officer Tony DeTavis pulled Farrell over for speeding. A few minutes after initiating the stop, DeTavis approached the minivan parked on the right shoulder of the highway and explained to Farrell that he was going to give her a citation. He gave her two options: pay the penalty of $126 within 30 days or see a Taos magistrate within 30 days. After an argument with the officer, Farrell refused to make a decision because she did not know where she would be in 30 days. As the officer went back to his car to call for help, Farrell drove off. After the officer pulled Farrell over again, things got chaotic: Farrell got in a scuffle with the officer who tried to arrest her. When the officer tried to pull Farrell out of the car, Farrell’s 14-year old son tried to fight off the officer, who then pulled out his taser. The officer then bashed out the windows on Farrell’s van after her family ran back into the van and locked the doors. The van began to drive away again. As the incident unfolded, Officer Montoya showed up and fired three shots at the van as Farrell sped off. Farrell was later arrested and charged. Three officers returned to their vehicles and pursued the Farrells down Highway 518, reaching speeds of 100 mph during the chase. When Farrell approached a more congested area, she weaved through traffic, driving on the wrong side of the road on several occasions. According to affidavits by Farrell and one of her younger children, 911 was called during the chase, and the family looked for a police station at which to pull over because they were afraid that the three officers would harm or kill them. More than four minutes after the chase began, the Farrells drove into a hotel parking lot and surrendered. On appeal it was undisputed that no bullet hit the minivan or the Farrells inside; Montoya’s affidavit states that he was aiming at the left rear tire. The Tenth Circuit held the district court should have granted Defendant summary judgment because the shots did not halt the Farrells’ departure and, because they were fleeing, they were not seized at the time Montoya fired his weapon, even if they had a subjective intent to submit to authority. View "Farrell v. Montoya" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Karen Johnson of conspiring to distribute cocaine base. She appealed, arguing the district court violated the Sixth Amendment when it imposed on her the 120-month minimum sentence mandated in 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(A)(iii) without submitting the drug-quantity issue to the jury for determination under the beyond-a-reasonable doubt standard. If she prevailed on her Sixth Amendment claim, Johnson argued a separate drug-quantity finding made by the district court (made solely for purposes of calculating a sentencing range under the Sentencing Guidelines) was not supported by sufficient evidence. In the alternative, Johnson argued her conviction had to be set aside because the district court used an improper evidentiary standard in allowing the government to adduce at trial intercepted cell phone communications. After review, the Tenth Circuit rejected Johnson’s challenges to her conviction and to the drug-quantity determination made by the district court for purposes of the Sentencing Guidelines. The district court did, however, plainly err in applying the mandatory minimum set out in 841(b)(1)(A)(iii) without submitting the quantity issue to the jury for resolution under the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard. Accordingly, the district court was affirmed in part and reversed in part and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Johnson" on Justia Law

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), generally exempts from its requirements “church plans”: employee-benefit plans established and maintained by churches for their employees. ERISA also extends that church-plan exemption to "principal-purpose" organizations. Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI), a nonprofit organization created to carry out the Roman Catholic Church’s healing ministry, operates 92 hospitals and numerous other healthcare facilities in 18 states. CHI offers a retirement plan for its employees, with more than 90,000 participants and beneficiaries, and nearly $3 billion in plan assets. Janeen Medina, a CHI employee, filed a class action, alleging that CHI’s retirement plan failed to satisfy the statutory criteria for the church-plan exemption. She contended that, since the plan did not qualify for the exemption, CHI should have complied with the reporting and funding requirements of ERISA. Medina also argued the individual defendants who administered the plan breached their fiduciary duties by failing to comply with ERISA. And, Medina argued, even if the CHI plan did qualify as a church plan, the exemption violated the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. The district court held that CHI’s plan was a church plan that qualified for the ERISA exemption. On appeal, the Tenth Circuit agreed, concluding that CHI’s plan satisfied the statutory requirements for the church-plan exemption as a proper principal-purpose organization. The ERISA exemption, moreover, does not run afoul of the United States Constitution’s Establishment Clause. View "Medina v. Catholic Health Initiatives" on Justia Law

Petitioner Todd Newmiller and several of his friends went to a Colorado Springs strip club to celebrate Newmiller’s birthday. After leaving the club, they had a fight with another group of men, during which Newmiller fatally stabbed Anthony Madril in the heart. Newmiller was charged, convicted of second-degree murder, and sentenced to thirty-one years’ imprisonment. The Colorado Court of Appeals (CCA) affirmed his conviction and sentence. The Colorado Supreme Court denied certiorari review. Newmiller later challenged the constitutionality of his conviction under Colorado Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(c). After an evidentiary hearing, the state post-conviction court denied relief. The CCA affirmed the denial. And the Colorado Supreme Court again denied certiorari review. Newmiller next sought habeas relief at the federal district court, arguing his trial counsel were ineffective in violation of the Sixth Amendment because they failed to investigate, challenge, and rebut the prosecution’s expert medical testimony. The district court ruled trial counsel’s performance was deficient and the CCA’s conclusion to the contrary was an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). But the district court denied relief because Newmiller failed to show counsel’s performance was prejudicial. Newmiller appealed, but finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed habeas relief. View "Newmiller v. Raemisch" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Phillip Garcia pled guilty to one count of possessing a firearm after having been convicted of a felony. He moved to withdraw his guilty plea, but the judge denied the motion. His crime carried a prison term of up to 10 years, but because he had three or more prior “violent felony” convictions, the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984 (ACCA) increased his punishment range to a mandatory 15 years to life. In 2008, the judge sentenced him to a prison term of 188 months. He appealed; the Tenth Circuit affirmed. In 2015, the Supreme Court decided Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015) (Johnson II). Under the ACCA, to fall within the definition of a violent felony, a prior conviction must be “punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year,” and must satisfy one of three predicates, at issue in this case, the Residual Clause, must "otherwise involve[] conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another." The Supreme Court held because the Residual Clause was unconstitutionally vague, “imposing an increased sentence under the residual clause . . . violates the Constitution’s guarantee of due process.” Garcia filed a section 2255 motion contending his sentence was unconstitutional under Johnson II. He claimed one of his three predicate convictions, possession of a deadly weapon by a prisoner, only qualified as a violent felony under the then defunct Residual Clause. The government argued Garcia's robbery conviction qualified as a violent felony under the Elements Clause and was an apt substitution for the conviction for unlawful weapon possession. Before the judge decided Garcia’s 2255 motion, the government changed course, now contending the robbery conviction did not qualify as a violent felony under the ACCA’s Elements Clause after all. On the same day the district court entered its Memorandum Opinion and Order, the government filed a supplemental brief in which it again reversed course; the government’s second revised position was that “New Mexico robbery in the third degree is indeed a qualifying violent felony under the ‘force clause’ [or “Elements Clause”]." The judge denied the 2255 motion. Agreeing with the district court's d View "United States v. Garcia" on Justia Law

This appeal involved a protective sweep of a house incident to the arrest of one of its occupants, defendant-appellant Stephen Bagley. The protective sweep yielded items that allowed law enforcement officials to obtain a search warrant for the entire house. Executing this warrant, officials found incriminating evidence. Bagley was a convicted felon who was named in an arrest warrant for violating the terms of his supervised release. Bagley moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the protective sweep had gone too far. The district court denied the motion. The Tenth Circuit, after review of the district court record, concluded the protective sweep under the circumstances of this case was not permissible under the Fourth Amendment. View "United States v. Bagley" on Justia Law

Defendant Thomas Abeyta challenged the sentence he received for pleading to being a previously convicted felon in possession of a firearm. The district court enhanced Abeyta’s sentence pursuant to United States Sentencing Guidelines section 4A1.2(c), counting Abeyta’s prior conviction for “damaging, defacing or destruction of private property” under Denver Revised Municipal Code (“Den.”) section 38-71 as a local ordinance violation that also violates state criminal law. Because Den. 38-71 offense was a local ordinance violation, it qualified as an exception under 4A1.2(c)(2), meaning that it did not count toward Abeyta’s criminal history score. But, if a Den. 38-71 offense also violated state criminal law, then the exception to the exception applies, meaning that it did count under the guidelines. Abeyta argued (among other things) that his Den. 38-71 conviction was a local ordinance violation that did not necessarily violate state criminal law. He noted that Colorado has a similar offense, Colo. Rev. Stat. (“Colo.”) section 18-4-501 (making it “unlawful for any person knowingly to damage, deface, destroy or injure” another person’s property), but argued that the Colorado statute only criminalized conduct that actually damaged property, whereas Den. 38-71 criminalized broader conduct, including defacement that does not cause damage. Because a violation of Den. 38-71 does not necessarily violate Colo. 18-4-501, Abeyta argued, the “exception to the exception” did not apply. The Tenth Circuit determined the district court erred by applying a "common sense approach" in making the Den. 38-71 conviction count towards his criminal history score. The Court remanded this case with direction to vacate Abeyta's sentence and for resentencing. View "United States v. Abeyta" on Justia Law

Petitioner-Appellant Gabriel Acosta and his girlfriend, Chante Dillon, killed their roommate, Kimberly Dotson, after Dotson wrecked their car. Acosta and Dillon duct-taped, beat, and suffocated Dotson to death, then bagged her body in trash bags and threw her in a dumpster. Patricia Medina was the only eyewitness to the murder. Acosta and Dillin were both charged with first-degree murder. Before Acosta’s trial, Medina described the killing in a recorded statement to the police, in two criminal depositions at which she was cross-examined, and at Dillon’s trial, where she was again subjected to cross-examination. But Medina was deemed unavailable to testify at Acosta’s trial, so the transcripts of her testimony were read to the jury. Acosta was convicted and sentenced to life without parole. The Colorado Court of Appeals (CCA) affirmed his conviction. Acosta then sought habeas relief in federal court, claiming he was denied his right to confront witnesses against him and to the assistance of counsel, both in violation of the Sixth Amendment. The district court denied relief. Finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Acosta v. Raemisch" on Justia Law