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

Defendant was convicted by a jury of his peers for possession of child pornography. Defendant challenged the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress and admission of certain evidence. Defendant challenged the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress, arguing the warrant was not sufficiently particular and lacked the requisite nexus.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed. The court explained In this case, multiple child pornography images were flagged by a search engine, those images were affiliated with four IP addresses, and those IP addresses were registered to the address that was searched. In addition, the state court was aware that Defendant had a previous conviction for possession of child pornography and lived at the address flagged for child pornography. Considering these circumstances, the court concluded there was a sufficient nexus between the evidence to be seized and the place to be searched. Further, the court agreed with the district court that Defendant’s prior conviction for possession of child pornography has probative value because of its similarity to the charged offense.   Finally, the court explained that the non-Rule 414 evidence connecting Defendant to the child pornography on his tablet was overwhelming. And the government’s case was only marginally strengthened by the excess propensity evidence. Accordingly, the court held any error in admitting evidence under Rule 414 was harmless. View "United States v. Gene Schave" on Justia Law

Defendant was indicted and convicted on two counts of production of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 2251(a). The indictment focuses on two secretly recorded videos of M.B., Defendant’s then approximately fifteen-year-old cousin, before and after she took a shower in Defendant’s master bathroom. The district court sentenced Defendant to 210 months of imprisonment.   The Eighth Circuit reversed, finding that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient. The court explained that the statute underlying the indictment prohibits a person from using a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct. Congress, in turn, defined sexually explicit conduct as the lascivious exhibition of genitals—not mere nudity. Applying this statute to the evidence presented at trial, the court concluded no reasonable jury could have found Defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. View "United States v. Matthew McCoy" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Defendant on three counts in connection with his involvement in a methamphetamine and heroin conspiracy. The district court sentenced Defendant to 149 months imprisonment, followed by a 5-year term of supervised release. Defendant appealed his conviction, arguing that the district court abused its discretion by denying his motion in limine and admitting certain testimony of a confidential informant (CI).   On appeal, Defendant raised the same arguments as he did before the district court: (1) that the CI’s testimony regarding the 2017 events is irrelevant, unfairly prejudicial, and constitutes a prior bad act, rendering the testimony inadmissible under Rules 402, 403, and 404(b), respectively, and (2) that the CI’s testimony identifying Defendant is inadmissible under Rule 403, given that he was unaware that the CI could identify him.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that here, as the district court noted, the Government did not introduce the evidence to establish that Defendant was acting in accordance with his character but rather offered it as direct evidence establishing Defendant’s participation in the instant conspiracy. Moreover, the evidence was offered to lay the foundation for how the CI knew Defendant and was able to identify him at the 2019 drug transaction. Accordingly, the court wrote that because substantial evidence other than the CI’s testimony supports the jury’s verdict, any error in admitting the CI’s testimony regarding the 2017 events was harmless and does not warrant reversal. View "United States v. Armondo Heredia, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm but preserved his right to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress. Defendant appealed and asked the court to reverse the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that in addition to crediting law enforcement’s testimony, the magistrate judge discredited witness testimony to the extent it varied from the officers’ description of events. The magistrate judge noted that the witness originally told the Sheriff there were only two people in the house when there were actually three. The magistrate judge also noted that the witness appeared to admit he lied when he “dropped his head” after the Sergeant confronted him about the discrepancy. Defendant insists the magistrate judge “infers too much.” But, again, the magistrate judge’s credibility determination after personally hearing and observing the witness’s testimony is virtually unassailable on appeal. And the Sergeants’ testimony was not inconsistent or implausible. View "United States v. Michael Mitchell" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a felon. The district court1 determined that Defendant qualified for the enhanced statutory minimum sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”). Defendant appealed the district court’s application of the ACCA enhancement.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that under the ACCA, a felon who possesses a firearm is subject to a minimum sentence of fifteen years if he has three prior convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses “committed on occasions different from one another.” Here, The PSR notes that Defendant “admitted to selling drugs to an undercover officer on three separate occasions.” Although Defendant objected to his sentence enhancement, Defendant never objected to this separate-occasions statement in the PSR, so the district court properly accepted it as true. The court also disagreed with Defendant that the rule of lenity requires the court to construe the ACCA’s occasions clause in his favor. The rule of lenity states that ambiguities in criminal statutes should be resolved in favor of the defendant. However, the court considers the rule of lenity only when, after employing all other tools of construction, “a grievous ambiguity or uncertainty in the statute” remains. Here, Defendant committed at least three (if not four) qualifying offenses occurring on separate occasions, so there is no ambiguity in the statute as applied to Defendant. View "United States v. Damon Buford" on Justia Law

After the district court denied his motion to suppress, Defendant’s conditionally pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. The court sentenced Defendant to 126 months imprisonment, varying upward six months from the mandatory minimum of 120 months, his advisory guidelines range. Defendant appealed the denial of his motion to suppress, raising three Fourth Amendment issues emanating from a postal inspector’s warrantless seizure of an undeliverable Express Mail package sent to “Defendant Rm 512” at a hotel in Des Moines, Iowa. He also appealed his sentence, arguing it is substantively unreasonable because the district court failed to adequately justify the upward variance.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. Here, the district court carefully explained why it imposed a six-month upward variance, stating that a mandatory minimum sentence would “ignore” Defendant’s “ridiculously problematic” and “offensive” behavior during his pre-sentence detention for this offense. The court did not abuse its discretion by varying upward to account for dozens of serious security and disciplinary violations. View "United States v. Manuel Flores" on Justia Law

Defendant entered a conditional plea of guilty to one count of being a felon in possession of ammunition. Defendant reserved his right to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress and subsequently appealed. Defendant argued the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress because he was unlawfully arrested in his home, and the attenuation doctrine does not apply to render the evidence that was seized during a subsequent search admissible against him.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court concluded that under the circumstances, it cannot say the district court committed a clear error in finding that Defendant’s consent to search was voluntary. The court expressly considered the relevant factors for assessing voluntariness before reaching its conclusion, including those weighing against a finding of voluntary consent. Further, the court wrote that weighing the appropriate factors, it concluded that Defendant’s voluntary consent to the search of his residence was sufficient to purge the taint of the officers’ initial unlawful conduct. The district court did not err in denying Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence obtained from the December 14, 2019, search. View "United States v. Gary Harris" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Defendants of conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine. After the trial, the district court denied their motions for acquittal. Defendants appealed, arguing the evidence is insufficient to support their convictions.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court held that viewing the evidence most favorably to the verdict; there was sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find Defendant satisfied each element of the conspiracy charge beyond a reasonable doubt. First, an agreement was proven from the distribution of meth supplied by shipments from Defendants. Second, the evidence supports a reasonable inference that Defendant knew of the conspiracy by shipping a package to a conspirator; tracking packages sent to Rapid City—at least one with meth; and receiving payments from the conspirator. Third, Defendant intended to join the conspiracy by these facts and circumstances.   Further, the court held that sufficient evidence supported co-Defendant’s conviction of conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of meth. First, as evidence of an agreement, the informant testified that the conspirator received his meth from co-Defendant and in return, co-Defendant received several wire payments. Second, co-Defendant knew of the conspiracy by providing his cell phone number for the informant’s payments. Third, based on all the facts and circumstances, co-Defendant knowingly and intentionally joined the conspiracy. Since the informant alone purchased over 500 grams of meth from the conspirator, the jury reasonably found a conspiracy to distribute over 500 grams of a controlled substance. View "United States v. Kirbesha Bailey" on Justia Law

Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea to narcotics and ammunition charges after the trail court denied his motion to suppress GPS locational data and subsequent post0-Miranda statements made to detectivews. Law enforcement, working with a confidential informant (CI), installed a GPS tracker on the CI's vehicle. Subsequently, Defendant borrowed CI's vehicle, which led to his arrest.The Eighth Circuit held that the district court did not err in denying Defendant's motion to suppress. Defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his location and movements in a borrowed vehicle. View "United States v. Joshua Dewilfond" on Justia Law

Defendant served a 48-month sentence for use of interstate facilities to promote prostitution and began a three-year term of supervised release in October 2020. The district court first revoked supervised release on August 31, 2021, when Defendant admitted drug use and failure to participate in required drug counseling; Defendant began a 24-month term of supervised release that day.   His probation officer petitioned the court to issue a warrant, alleging numerous violations of supervised release. At the conclusion of a revocation hearing, the court found that Defendant committed the violations, revoked supervised release, and sentenced Defendant to 10 months’ imprisonment followed by 24 months of supervised release. Defendant appealed the revocation sentence, arguing the court violated his due process right to confront witnesses at the revocation hearing and imposed additional special conditions of supervised release that are substantively unreasonable.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the facts recited in the warrant petition with the author present to testify, and Defendant’s testimony corroborating some of the alleged Grade C violations, including admissions he had not complied with sex offender registration requirements and had tested positive for cocaine use, were ample evidence supporting the district court’s decision to revoke supervised release. Further, the court found that the district court did not abuse its substantial discretion when it imposed additional conditions addressing what the court described as Defendant’s “high-risk behavior” and “continued disregard for the conditions imposed.” View "United States v. La'Ron Clower" on Justia Law