Justia U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant was arrested for narcotics and firearms charges. Once in custody, he made several inculpatory statements. However, prior to trial, he fled to Mexico for eight years before being apprehended. The district court denied Defendant's motion to suppress evidence based on a lack of probable cause and, at sentencing, the district court applied an obstruction-of-justice enhancement and rejected his request for an acceptance-of-responsibility reduction.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The information contained in the affidavit was provided by an informant who had a history of providing reliable information. And, although Defendant pleaded guilty, the court did not err in denying his request for an acceptance-of-responsibility reduction based on Defendant's flight to Mexico. View "United States v. Jose Sandoval" on Justia Law

Law enforcement organized controlled buys using a confidential informant. Initially, Defendant was not the target of the investigation; however, events that transpired during the controlled buys led the MINE Task Force to suspect Defendant and his wife were involved in illegal drug activity, and they became the primary targets of the investigation.Based on information from the controlled buy, law enforcement obtained a warrant to search Defendant's home, ultimately seizing $154,000, firearms, ammunition, marijuana, and handwritten notes apparently detailing narcotics sales.Defendant sought suppression of the physical evidence, arguing that the warrant failed to establish probable caused and that it was based on false information. Defendant's motion cited inconsistencies with the affidavit. The district court rejected Defendnat's arguments, finding that, even if the statement were inaccurate, there was still enough to establish probable cause.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. Although the court agreed that the inaccuracies were concerning, when removed from the analysis, there was still probable cause for the warrant to issue. View "United States v. Nicholas Jones" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to a firearms offense. The district court sentenced Defendant to sixty months’ imprisonment. Defendant argued that the district court committed procedural error by miscalculating his base offense level under the sentencing guidelines.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed, concluding that the court did not err. The court concluded that we conclude that Mo. Rev. Stat. Section 575.150.1(1) is divisible into multiple offenses. Therefore, the court applied the modified categorical approach to determine the alternative under which Defendant was convicted. According to the charging document and judgment in Defendant’s Missouri criminal case, he pleaded guilty to resisting arrest “by using or threatening the use of violence or physical force.” Therefore, Defendant’s prior conviction was for a crime of violence under the sentencing guidelines. View "United States v. Johnathan Brown" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling denying the Deputy’s motion for qualified immunity in Plaintiff’s lawsuit, alleging that the Deputy’s conduct amounted to deliberate indifference to her seizure condition after she was arrested for driving while intoxicated. The Deputy asserted qualified immunity in his motion for summary judgment, which the district court denied.   The Eighth Circuit reversed. The court explained that the Deputy promptly attended to Plaintiff and asked her whether she was hurt or suffered from medical problems. She said no and did not advise him of her seizure disorder. Emergency medical personnel also observed Plaintiff and were content not to take her to the hospital, advising the Deputy that she had refused further treatment. He then took Plaintiff and her medications to jail. Barton I did not provide the Deputy with fair notice that his failure to seek further medical treatment for Plaintiff or to speak with the jailors about what Plaintiff’s boyfriend told him constituted deliberate indifference. Thus, Plaintiff failed to show that clearly established law prohibited the Deputy’s conduct, and the Deputy is entitled to qualified immunity. View "Kelly Martin v. Jordan Turner" on Justia Law

A federal jury convicted Defendant of attempted sex trafficking of a minor after he responded to an advertisement, negotiated a price for sexual relations with a 15-year-old, and traveled almost an hour through a snowstorm to a designated meeting point with items requested by the purported minor. At the end of Defendant’s trial, he moved for a judgment of acquittal, which the district court denied. On appeal, Defendant raised a limited sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that here, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury verdict, there is ample support for Defendant’s conviction. The evidence showed that Defendant responded to the undercover officer’s ad and, over five days, repeatedly expressed his desire to have various forms of sexual relations with the person advertised, even after learning and being reminded several times that she was only 15 years old. Defendant then extensively discussed his aversion to using condoms with the 15-year-old and negotiated a price and time to have sex with her. Defendant then drove almost an hour through a snowstorm to meet her at a prearranged meeting location and brought along both $100 in cash and the specific alcohol she requested that he bring to calm her nerves. View "United States v. Eswin Lopez" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The district court imposed a 96-month sentence followed by three years of supervised release. Defendant served that sentence and began supervised release in October 2018. In February 2020, the district court revoked supervised release based on a domestic violence incident. After serving an additional year in custody, Defendant began a new one-year term of supervised release in January 2021. On April 1, 2021, while serving this second term, Defendant was arrested by Kansas City police officers for possessing a firearm used in a shooting earlier that day. Defendant pleaded guilty to a new felon-in-possession charge. At a combined supervised release revocation and sentencing hearing in August 2022, the district court revoked Defendant’s supervised release and imposed a 24-month sentence for the violations and a consecutive 96-month sentence for his new felon-in-possession conviction. Defendant appealed, arguing “the district court abused its discretion by imposing a substantively unreasonable total sentence of 120 months’ imprisonment.”   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the district court’s focus on Defendant’s criminal history -- including his “aged-out” convictions -- was appropriate considering Defendant’s lengthy violent criminal record, combative behavior when arrested, and the fact that he committed the instant offense while on a second term of supervised release for a prior felon-in-possession conviction. And the court sympathetically acknowledged Defendant’s drug addiction problem, recommending that he participate in the Bureau of Prisons’ Residential Drug Abuse Program so he could better combat his addiction. View "United States v. Bernard Manuel" on Justia Law

Following a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigation, Defendant pled guilty to three counts involving methamphetamine: possession, distribution, and conspiracy. The district court1 sentenced Defendant to 210 months’ imprisonment on each count, all terms to run concurrently. On appeal, Defendant raised three claims of procedural error and argues that his sentence is substantively unreasonable.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. Here, the cout explained that the district court specifically stated that, “even if I had sustained some or all of [Defendant’s objections], I would have still imposed the same sentence . . . based on all the factors that I am required to consider under the law.” It then undertook the requisite Section 3553(a) analysis in which it highlighted the nature and circumstances of the offense and Defendant’s criminal history in explaining its ultimate sentence of 210 months’ imprisonment. Thus, the court held that any alleged procedural error was harmless. Further, the court held that Defendant did not demonstrate an abuse of discretion that justifies interfering with the district court’s wide latitude to assign weight to given factors. The district court thus did not impose a substantively unreasonable sentence. View "United States v. Jesse Neri" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with possession with intent to distribute five grams or more of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. Section 841(a)(1) and (b)(1), after law enforcement discovered 28 grams of methamphetamine following an inventory search of a vehicle Defendant had been driving. Defendant moved to suppress the methamphetamine. After the district court denied Defendant’s motion, Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his suppression motion.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that when officers conduct an inventory search according to standardized police procedures, the reasonableness requirement is generally met. This is true even when officers are afforded discretion to release a vehicle to a registered, insured driver instead of towing it, provided this discretion “is exercised according to standard criteria and on the basis of something other than suspicion of evidence of criminal activity.” The court wrote that even if it assumes that the officer had an investigatory motive, it still holds that the inventory search was reasonable. Finally, the court explained that SCSD’s inventory-search policy requires officers to open all containers within the vehicle, whether open or closed, to inventory them for valuable items. The officer followed this policy in opening the binoculars case to determine whether there were any items of value inside. Such a policy is “unquestionably permissible.” View "United States v. Scott Nielsen" on Justia Law

Defendant conditionally pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. His conditional plea preserved his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress the ammunition recovered from his person and the firearms recovered from his vehicle. Defendant appealed the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress these preserved issues. On appeal, Defendant argued (1) the high-risk felony stop protocol transformed an investigative stop pursuant to reasonable suspicion, or Terry stop, into a de facto arrest without probable cause; (2) the search of his person “exceeded the permissible scope and intensity” of a valid Terry stop; and (3) the search of the vehicle exceeded the scope of the protective sweep doctrine.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. In evaluating the relevant factors, the court explained that it was reasonable to believe that the persons they identified and approached might be armed and had recently unlawfully discharged a firearm. Thus, both factors justified a greater show of force in performing the Terry stop. Here, the officers had at least a reasonable suspicion that at least one of the suspects was armed or that a firearm was in the vehicle. The officers’ actions warranted placing Defendant in a separate secure location. Therefore, applying the court’s precedent to the instant facts, the court concluded that the officers’ methods were permissible and did not transform the Terry stop into an arrest. View "United States v. Victor Childers" on Justia Law

Defendant shot and killed her husband when she found him cheating. She pled guilty to second-degree murder in Indian country. A year later, Defendant moved to vacate her Section 924(c) conviction, believing that intervening Supreme Court cases rendered it unlawful. Specifically, she argued that federal second-degree murder could not be considered a “crime of violence” under Section 924(c)(3)(A). The district court dismissed her motion. She appealed.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that murder is the ultimate violent crime—irreversible and incomparable “in terms of moral depravity.” Malice aforethought, murder’s defining characteristic, encapsulates the crime’s violent nature. The court wrote that here, Defendant unlawfully killed her husband with malice aforethought. That was murder—a crime of violence. Accordingly, the court held that Defendant’s Section 924(c) conviction need not be vacated. View "Tiffany Janis v. United States of America" on Justia Law