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

Defendant was indicted for committing mail and wire fraud against his spouse and National Life Insurance. He moved to dismiss the indictment for failure to state an offense, which the district court1 denied. Welker appealed.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the indictment included allegations about Defendant’s intentional concealment of material information from and misrepresentations to R.W., supporting that he had the “intent to defraud” her. And it alleged that he used the mail and wire in furtherance of his scheme. These allegations were sufficient to apprise Defendant of the nature of the accusations against him and to enable the district court to determine that the facts stated were adequate in law to support a conviction. Further, the court wrote that Defendant provided no support for the proposition that an indictment must sufficiently allege a violation of state law to sufficiently state a federal mail or wire fraud offense. Ultimately, the court held that the indictment charging Defendant is not “so defective” that it fails to charge him for mail and wire fraud under federal law. View "United States v. Michael Welker" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm as a previously convicted felon. At sentencing, the district court determined a base offense level of 24 after concluding that Defendant had sustained two prior felony convictions for a crime of violence. The court sentenced Defendant to 96 months imprisonment. On appeal, Defendant argued that the district court committed procedural error when it calculated his base offense level and failed to follow the procedures of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(i)(3).
The Eighth Circuit affirmed the sentence but remanded for correction of the court’s statement of reasons. The court explained that the district court was not required to resolve every disputed issue and to amend the presentence report accordingly. But Rule 32 does impose a duty either to resolve disputes or to determine that a ruling is unnecessary and then to append a copy of the court’s determinations to the report. Defendant requested, and the government does not resist, a remand for the district court to amend its statement of reasons to reflect that it did not resolve Defendant’s objection to the presentence report regarding gang affiliation. Accordingly, the court agreed that the remedy is warranted. View "United States v. Christopher Conrad" on Justia Law

Defendant was a passenger in a vehicle that was stopped by law enforcement while speeding in a construction zone. The driver admitted there was marijuana in the car. During the search, the driver tossed a bag to Defendant. The bag contained methamphetamine. Ultimately, the trooper seized both cell phones from the driver and Defendant.Although the phone found in the center console was a “burner” phone without any identifying subscriber information on it, it contained evidence tying Defendant to the phone, including: (1) messages identifying the sender as Defendant; (2) a photograph of Defendant's bank card; and (3) text messages between a sender using the phone and Defendant's sister. At trial, prosecutors planned to call the trooper to authenticate the phone. The district court allowed the trooper's testimony over objection.The Eighth Circuit affirmed, finding that direct evidence that the phone belonged to Defendant is not required and circumstantial evidence may be relied on to support authenticity. View "United States v. Jerry Wise" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs sued police officers under Sec. 1983 after the officers made warrantless entry into their apartment. The district court granted summary judgment to Plaintiffs and Defendants appealed.On appeal, the Eighth Circuit reversed. While warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable, there is an exception when officers act with probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed and an objectively reasonable basis to believe that exigent circumstances exist.Here, the officers were dispatched to the scene in response to a report of domestic violence. The report received by the officers explained that the 911 call came from a neighbor who thought “abuse” was occurring and heard a “verbal argument,” “someone being thrown around,” and “yelling and screaming” in the upstairs apartment. The neighbor stated that a woman, her boyfriend, and a child lived in the apartment. This created anm exigency, justifying warrantless entry. View "Benedda Cotten v. Ryan Miller" on Justia Law

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

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