Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs were families with children enrolled in the Douglas County School District RE-1 (“DCSD”) and the American Humanist Association (“AHA”). Plaintiffs filed suit challenging various DCSD practices as violations of the Establishment Clause and the Equal Access Act (“EAA”), contending DCSD engaged in a pattern and practice of promoting Christian fundraising efforts and permitting faculty participation in Christian student groups. The Tenth Circuit found most of the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that they or their children experienced “personal and unwelcome contact with government-sponsored religious” activities. Furthermore, they failed to demonstrate their case for municipal taxpayer standing because they could not show expenditure of municipal funds on the challenged activities. The sole exception is plaintiff Jane Zoe: she argued DCSD violated the Establishment Clause when school officials announced they were “partnering” with a Christian student group and solicited her and her son for donations to a “mission trip.” The district court held that because Zoe’s contacts with the challenged actions were not conspicuous or constant, she did not suffer an injury for standing purposes. The Tenth Circuit found "no support in our jurisprudence" for the contention that an injury must meet some threshold of pervasiveness to satisfy Article III. The Court therefore concluded Zoe had standing to seek retrospective relief. View "American Humanist Assoc. v. Douglas County School District" on Justia Law

Defendant Jason Gutierrez was serving a 192-month term in federal prison. After the United States Sentencing Commission amended several of the guidelines under which he was sentenced, defendant filed a motion under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2), asking the district court to reduce his sentence to 168 months. Instead, the district court reduced his sentence to 188 months, concluding it lacked authority to go any lower. Finding no abuse of discretion or reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "United States v. Gutierrez" on Justia Law

The government appealed the sentence imposed in this kidnapping case. Defendant Joseph DeRusse, while suffering from then-undiagnosed mental health issues, kidnapped his ex-girlfriend with a BB gun, and drove her several hundred miles away from her parents’ home in Austin, Texas, intending to keep her at a bed-and-breakfast in Kansas for three weeks while he attempted to convince her to marry him. About eight hours into the kidnapping, Defendant was apprehended by a police officer on the interstate freeway in Kansas. Defendant served approximately seventy days in jail before he was released on bond. He entered a plea of guilty to the single count of kidnapping. The court announced its intention to sentence Defendant to a term of time served, to be followed by five years of supervised release. Ultimately, the government simply disagreed with the way in which the district court weighed the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) sentencing factors and decided to impose a sentence of time-served followed by a five-year period of supervised release. The Tenth Circuit acknowledged that a valid argument could be made for a longer sentence than was imposed here. However, after a thorough review of the record on appeal, the Court could not say that the court’s thoughtful sentencing determination fell outside the range of rationally permissible choices available at sentencing. View "United States v. Derusse" on Justia Law

James Pavatt was convicted by an Oklahoma jury of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, for which he received the death penalty, plus ten years' imprisonment for the conspiracy conviction. After exhausting his state-court remedies, he filed an application for relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The district court denied the application, and also denied a certificate of appealability (COA). Pavatt sought a COA from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, raising several issues. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of relief with respect to his conviction, but reversed denial of relief with respect to his sentence, and remanded to the district court for further proceedings. View "Pavatt v. Royal" on Justia Law

Three appeals arose from two cases that concerned the passage, implementation, and alleged effects of Amendment 64 to the Colorado Constitution, Colo. Const. art. XVIII, section 16. Amendment 64 repealed many of the State’s criminal and civil proscriptions on “recreational marijuana,” and created a regulatory regime designed to ensure that marijuana was unadulterated and taxed, and that those operating marijuana-related enterprises were, from the State’s perspective, licensed and qualified to do so. The three appeals at issue and two related motions to intervene raised four principal disputes stemming from the alleged conflict between the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), under which manufacturing, distributing, selling, and possessing with intent to distribute marijuana remained illegal in Colorado. Essentially, the parties disputed whether Amendment 64 was preempted by the CSA. The Tenth Circuit's conclusions regarding the preemption claims did not require it to reach that question. The Court therefore did not decide whether the CSA preempted any aspect of Amendment 64, or Colorado and Pueblo County’s laws or regulations. The Court affirmed in part and reversed in part on the three appeals, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Safe Streets v. Alternative Holistic" on Justia Law

Brett Williamson was charged with and convicted of various child pornography offenses. Prior to trial, it came to light that his defense counsel and the prosecutor trying the case had a history together: they were divorced and shared custody of their child. For that and numerous other reasons, Williamson asked for new counsel, but the district court denied his request. Williamson proceeded without an attorney and was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. On appeal of his conviction, Williamson argued the district court should have inquired into his defense counsel’s potential personal conflict of interest to determine if the relationship might have affected his right to a fair trial, and that failure to do so requires automatic reversal. The Tenth Circuit concluded Williamson failed to make a showing that his counsel was laboring under an actual conflict of interest, so it rejected his conflict of interest argument based on his defense counsel’s personal relationship with the prosecutor. The Court also rejected Williamson’s alternative arguments for new counsel: that his filing of a criminal complaint against his counsel constituted an actual conflict of interest, and that Williamson demonstrated a complete breakdown of communications between his attorney and himself. View "United States v. Williamson" on Justia Law