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

After a bench trial, the district court convicted Defendant on one count each of receipt and possession of child pornography under 18 U.S.C. Section 2252A(a)(2)(A) and (5)(B) and sentenced him to 97 months imprisonment. Defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his convictions and the district court’s application of the sentencing guidelines.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. According to Defendant, a rational jury could not have found that the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he knowingly received or possessed the child pornography found on his devices. The court explained that first, the thumbnails in Exhibits 1 to 4 support the district court’s finding that Defendant knowingly received and possessed those images or their originals. The examiner testified that a thumbnail indicates that the original of that image was in the phone’s gallery application at some point. Second, circumstantial evidence surrounding Exhibits 5, 6, and 8 to 13 supports the district court’s finding that Defendant knowingly possessed and received at least one of the images in these exhibits. Third, other evidence supports these inferences. Defendant’s devices contained thirteen child-pornography files, several suspected child-pornography files, and hundreds of other images of children—many erotic and some watermarked with child-pornography-related terms. Further, because the district court would have imposed the same sentence under Section 3553(a) factors as it did under the guidelines, any error in its application of the guidelines was harmless. View "United States v. Christopher Golden" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and other death-row prisoners in Arkansas sued the governor and a corrections official, arguing that Arkansas’s three-drug execution protocol violates the Eighth Amendment. After a bench trial, the district court found that the prisoners failed to establish a violation, and denied a motion for new trial.   The prisoners argue that the district court clearly erred in finding that they failed to demonstrate that the Arkansas execution protocol creates a substantial risk of severe pain. The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The prisoners cite expert testimony from Dr. Craig Stevens and Dr. Gail Van Norman that midazolam has a ceiling effect that occurs at a dose between 0.2 to 0.4 mg/kg. These experts relied on two medical studies, which are known by the names of their principal authors as the Inagaki study and the Miyake study. The court wrote that with no scientific consensus and a paucity of reliable scientific evidence concerning the effect of large doses of midazolam on humans, the district court did not clearly err in finding that the prisoners failed to demonstrate that the Arkansas execution protocol is sure or very likely to cause severe pain. Accordingly, the district court properly dismissed the claim under the Eighth Amendment.   Further, the prisoners failed to establish that the State’s existing method was sure or very likely to cause needless suffering, so the State was not required to consider alternative methods. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion. View "Stacey Johnson v. Asa Hutchinson" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of kidnapping resulting in death and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. On appeal, Defendant challenges several rulings of the district court* and the sufficiency of the evidence in support of the convictions.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. Defendant’s first argument on appeal is that the district court erred by denying his motion to suppress statements from the interviews on November 8 and 21, 2018. He contends that investigators subjected him to custodial interrogations without advising him of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona. The court concluded that there was no custodial interrogation of Defendant on November 8. Defendant responded to the FBI agent’s request for a conversation and agreed to let the agent come to his house for the meeting. The agent did not display a weapon or restrain Defendant in any way. The agent was dressed in plain clothes and allowed Defendant’s wife to sit nearby for the interview. Further, the court held that there is no indication that Defendant is particularly susceptible to undue influence: he is an adult of average intelligence who has earned an associate’s degree and is familiar with the protections afforded by the legal system due to an extensive criminal history.Moreover, the court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that the probative value of the evidence was not substantially outweighed by a danger of unfair prejudice. Further, the court concluded that there was no error in declining to instruct the jury that the government must prove that Defendant knew in advance that death would result from the kidnapping. View "United States v. Ramon Simpson" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to transportation of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sections 2252A(a)(1) and (b)(1). At sentencing, the district court determined an advisory guidelines sentencing range of 108 to 135 months in prison, considered the 18 U.S.C. Section 3553(a) sentencing factors, and imposed a sentence of 96 months imprisonment and 20 years of supervised release. The court imposed seven special conditions of supervised release.Defendant appealed his sentence, presenting as the issue for review whether the district court abused its discretion in requiring Defendant to submit to periodic polygraph testing at the discretion of the U.S. Probation Office.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that here, the district court did not procedurally err. It conducted a thorough individualized analysis of the sentence it was imposing. The seven special conditions of supervised release require that Defendant (5) “participate in a sex offense-specific treatment program,” and (6) “submit to periodic polygraph testing . . . to ensure that he is in compliance with the requirements of his supervision or treatment program.” In response to Defendant’s timely objection, the court carefully explained why the sentence would include this polygraph testing special condition. Moreover, the court held that Defendant has not met his burden to establish that a special condition is unreasonable. View "United States v. Reynaldo Sanchez" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Defendant of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Defendant appealed, arguing that evidence from his iPhone should have been suppressed because the government delayed unreasonably before seeking a search warrant, and that prior firearm convictions were improperly admitted under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). He also appealed his sentence, arguing that neither his Iowa willful injury conviction nor his two Illinois armed robbery convictions qualifies as “violent felonies” under Section 924(e). He further argued the Illinois robbery convictions were not “committed on occasions different from one another,” Section 924(e)(1), and thus constitute only one prior violent felony conviction.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that although significantly longer delays have been upheld as not unreasonable, without question the twenty-four-day delay at issue is of concern. The court reasoned that because smartphones “retain data for long periods of time,” delay between the time a cell phone is seized and when it is searched is not likely to cause stored personal data to be lost, or data of potential evidentiary relevance to become stale. More important to the private interests at stake, Defendant was in police custody for the entire twenty-four-day period, and there is no evidence that either Defendant or anyone acting on his behalf made a request or demand for its return, or even inquired about it. Thus, the district court did not err in denying Defendant’s motion to suppress. Further, the court held that the district court properly determined that Defendant’s Section 708.4(1) willful injury conviction is an ACCA predicate violent felony. View "United States v. Darvill Bragg" on Justia Law

Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea to a charge of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. She reserved her right to appeal an order of the district court denying her motion to suppress evidence that police seized after conducting a protective sweep of a hotel room in which she was staying. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2).The Eighth Circuit affirmed, concluding that the officers permissibly entered and searched the hotel room. On appeal, Defendant argues that the district court erred in denying the motion to suppress because the police lacked specific and articulable facts suggesting that a person posing a danger to the officers was located inside the hotel room. She maintains that the officers violated her rights under the Fourth Amendment by entering the hotel room without a warrant and that all evidence seized as a result of the entry should be suppressed.The court explained that a protective sweep of the hotel room was justified here as an inspection of spaces immediately adjoining the place of arrest from which an attack could be immediately launched. It is undisputed that officers were positioned in the doorway to effect the arrest, and that police crossed the threshold into the room under the authority of the warrant. Accordingly, the court held that the officers observed evidence of unlawful drug activity in plain view while conducting the protective sweep did not violate Defendant’s rights under the Fourth Amendment. View "United States v. Angela Garges" on Justia Law

Facing five child-pornography counts and one for enticing a minor, Defendant decided to enter into a plea agreement with the government. Of the six counts, he pleaded guilty to three of them: two for receiving child pornography, each from a separate victim. When the presentence investigation report said he was responsible for receiving pornographic images from two others, Minor Victim 3 and H.P., he filed a written objection. At sentencing, the fact dispute never came up. Defendant did not renew his objection, the government did not present evidence that he had received sexually explicit material from Minor Victim 3 or H.P., and the district court never made any findings. Without ever resolving the factual dispute that the presentence investigation report had flagged, the court sentenced him to 210 months in prison.The Eighth Circuit vacated Defendant’s sentence and remanded for resentencing. The court explained that agrees that Defendant specifically objected to receiving sexually explicit images from Minor Victim 3 and H.P., meaning that the district court could not rely on those facts unless the government proved them by a preponderance of the evidence. The government never did so, yet the district court sentenced Defendant as if it had. The government does not dispute that the error here was “clear or obvious.” Instead, the focus is on the next step in the plain-error analysis: whether the procedural error affected Defendant’s substantial rights. The court vacated the sentence explaining that a failure to correct the error will also seriously affect the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of judicial proceedings. View "United States v. Lamark Combs, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to bank robbery. The presentence investigation report (PSR) recommended applying a five-level sentencing enhancement for possessing or brandishing a firearm during the robbery. Overruling Defendant’s objection, the district court found the Government proved there was a firearm involved by a preponderance of the evidence. The five-level firearm enhancement resulted in an advisory guidelines sentencing range of 100 to 125 months’ imprisonment. The court after considering the 18 U.S.C. Section 3553(a) sentencing factors imposed a 100-month sentence. Defendant appealed, arguing the district court committed clear error when it imposed the five-level firearm enhancement because the government, by relying on “uncorroborated, unreliable hearsay statements,” failed to prove that Defendant possessed a firearm during the bank robbery.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in considering the tellers’ interview testimony after concluding that the “statements, though hearsay, were made under circumstances indicating sufficient. Nor did the court clearly err in finding by a preponderance of the evidence that Defendant brandished or possessed a firearm during the robbery. The tellers’ testimony was strong but not necessarily conclusive evidence on this issue, and the security video did not eliminate uncertainty as to the presence of a firearm. View "United States v. Zachary Anderson Wailes" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon. 18 U.S.C. Section 922(g)(1). The district court imposed a fifteen-year mandatory-minimum sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act after concluding that Defendant had three prior violent felonies: two for third-degree assault; and another for first-degree burglary with assault. Defendant argued that none of these convictions were violent felonies, however, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment.The court explained that there are two ways for a prior conviction to count. One is through the “enumerated-offenses clause,” which lists offenses that qualify. The other is if the offense “has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another,” otherwise known as the “force clause.” Defendant’s final conviction was for first-degree burglary, which is a “divisible” crime. The particular version he committed was first-degree burglary with assault, which as the name suggests, required him to commit an assault during the course of a burglary. This crime uses the same definition of “assault” as the others, which means it is a “violent felony” too. Defendant argues that Borden v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1817 (2021) suggests that an assault can never qualify as a violent felony. However, n Minnesota, assault requires intentional conduct, and Borden only “excludes crimes that can be committed recklessly.” View "United States v. Seth Huntington" on Justia Law

Defendant sold capsules of heroin that contained fentanyl to a confidential source in the St. Louis metro area. A superseding indictment charged Defendant with conspiracy to distribute heroin and fentanyl between June 2017 and May 2019, possession with intent to distribute heroin, and distribution of fentanyl in August 2019 resulting in death. Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute fentanyl.At sentencing, adopting the presentence investigation report (PSR) without objection, the district court1 determined an advisory guidelines sentencing range of 15-21 months’ imprisonment, granted the government’s motion for an upward departure, and sentenced Defendant to 70 months imprisonment. Defendant appeals, arguing the court erred in granting an upward departure based primarily on Defendant’s role in the August 2019 fentanyl overdose death.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the agent’s testimony, to the extent it included hearsay, bore sufficient indicia of reliability to support its use in sentencing Defendant. Accordingly, the court did not clearly err in finding that the government proved by a preponderance of the evidence that a death resulted from Defendant’s conduct and then granting the government’s motion for an upward departure. Departing upward, the court imposed a sentence of 70 months imprisonment. This sentence is consistent with upward departures the court has approved under Section 5K2.1 for drug distribution conduct that resulted in an overdose death. View "United States v. Jeff Harris" on Justia Law