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

Defendant was convicted of a firearms offense after police seized evidence during a traffic stop. The district court sentenced Defendant to a term of forty-eight months’ imprisonment. Defendant appealed the conviction and sentence on several grounds. The Eighth Circuit affirmed discerning no reversible error.   The court explained that an officer’s observance of a traffic violation, no matter how minor, gives the officer probable cause to initiate a stop. Here, the officer reasonably concluded that the driver’s following distance was not reasonable and prudent. He thus had probable cause for a traffic stop, and the district court properly denied the motion to suppress. Further, the court wrote that the district court abuse its discretion in concluding that a jury reasonably could infer that Defendant sought to flee the patrol car because he recognized that officers were on the brink of discovering his unlawful possession of firearms in the trunk of the rental car. Defendant’s efforts to escape coincided with the officer’s search of the Altima’s trunk and with Defendant’s anxious statements about that search. Thus, the evidence was properly admitted.   Further, Defendant objects that much of the evidence is “merely circumstantial,” but circumstantial evidence can support a conviction, and the combination of direct and circumstantial evidence here was sufficient to support a finding that Defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Finally, the district court’s finding that he constructively possessed the guns is not clearly erroneous in light of the record as a whole. View "United States v. Drake Banks, Sr." on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to unlawfully possessing a firearm as a felon. He appealed the district court’s conclusion that his prior Arkansas burglary convictions were separate offenses, rendering him an armed career criminal subject to an enhanced sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”).The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the ACCA mandates a 15-year minimum sentence for a defendant who has been convicted of unlawfully possessing a firearm as a felon following “three previous convictions by any court . . . for a violent felony . . . committed on occasions different from one another[.]” 18 U.S.C. Section 924(e)(1) In determining whether prior convictions are separate and distinct, at least three factors are relevant: “(1) the time lapse between offenses, (2) the physical distance between their occurrence, and (3) their lack of overall substantive continuity, a factor that is often demonstrated in the violent-felony context by different victims or different aggressions.” United States v. Pledge, 821 F.3d 1035.   Here, Defendant committed three residential burglaries—each on different days, in different locations, and against different victims—over an approximate three-week span. The court held that these offenses qualify as separate and distinct criminal episodes committed on occasions different from one another. View "United States v. Jeremy Robinson" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged in a one-count indictment with possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine (actual). 21 U.S.C. Sections 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(A). He pleaded guilty without a plea agreement. The district court sentenced him to 96 months in prison. Defendant appealed arguing the court procedurally erred by denying a mitigating role adjustment, see USSG Section 3B1.2, and abused its discretion in imposing a substantively unreasonable sentence.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the sentencing record established that Defendant was “deeply involved” in the possess-with-intent-to-distribute offense to which he pleaded guilty. He helped arrange for cross-country travel from his home in California to Nebraska with instructions to pick up and hold a large quantity of methamphetamine. As in United States v. Garcia, he offered no evidence establishing the relative culpability of participants other than his cousin. Thus, the district court did not clearly err in finding that Defendant was not “substantially less culpable than the average participant” and therefore did not warrant a mitigating role adjustment. Further, Defendant’s “dissatisfaction with a district court’s balancing of the Section 3553(a) factors does not indicate that the district court abused its discretion.” View "United States v. John Beridon, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to one count of malicious mischief, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sections 1363, 1153, for driving a stolen vehicle into a lake on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota. The district court sentenced Defendant to 21 months imprisonment and 3 years supervised release, and it ordered him to pay restitution totaling $30,845.50. On appeal, Defendant challenged the restitution amount as violative of the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA) and asserts that the government breached his plea agreement. The government moved to dismiss his appeal, citing the waiver of appellate rights in the plea agreement.The Eighth Circuit denied the government’s motion and vacated the order of restitution. The court explained that the district court erred by failing to properly follow the procedure set forth in the MVRA, albeit under the leading of the government. The MVRA denies courts discretion as to “the point in time when property should be valued,” requiring that a district court review the value of the property either on the date of damage or the date of sentencing. Because the relevant conduct serving as the basis for Defendant’s offense was him receiving the stolen vehicle and driving it into the lake, the district court should have considered the value of the vehicle when he received the stolen vehicle and before he drove it into the lake, not when the vehicle was originally stolen from the dealership lot by someone else. The record, however, provides no indication that the district court used these relevant dates when determining the vehicle’s value. View "United States v. Timothy Beston, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant believes that the statute criminalizing reentry into this country after removal violates his equal-protection rights. See 8 U.S.C. Section 1326(a), (b). He did not raise this issue before the district court. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling and denied the pending motion for judicial notice.   The court explained that even constitutional arguments can be forfeited. Forfeiture occurs when a party has an argument available but fails to assert it in time. The court wrote that failure to raise an equal-protection challenge before the district court is a classic example of forfeiture. During the six months before he pleaded guilty, Defendant filed more than a dozen motions raising all sorts of issues, but not one of them questioned the constitutionality of the illegal-reentry statute or mentioned equal protection. Had he done so, the district court would have had an opportunity to potentially correct or avoid the alleged] mistake in the first place.   The court explained that under these circumstances, Defendant’s constitutional argument receives, at most, plain-error review. Here, to succeed, Defendant’ had to show, among other things, that there was a clear or obvious error under current law. In this case, there is one district court case on his side, see Carillo-Lopez, 555 F. Supp. 3d at 1001, but at most it shows that the issue is subject to reasonable dispute. The court explained that picking one side of a reasonable dispute cannot be clearly or obviously wrong. View "United States v. Salvador Nunez-Hernandez" on Justia Law

Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The district court sentenced him to 70 months imprisonment followed by 3 years supervised release. Defendant appealed asserting that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence seized by law enforcement officers during the search of a vehicle in which Defendant was a passenger, as well as evidence obtained under subsequently secured search warrants.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that as a general matter, mere passengers, such as Defendant, who have no ownership rights in a vehicle lack standing to challenge a search of the vehicle. However, Defendant contends that he has standing to challenge the search because it was the direct result of his illegal seizure by officers. In this case, however, the officer had probable cause to detain the vehicle and Defendant, a passenger, based upon traffic violations alone, because any traffic violation, however minor, provides probable cause for a traffic stop.Defendant also contended that the affidavits in support of the search warrants for his DNA and the two cell phones did not allege facts sufficient to establish probable cause for the issuance of the warrants. The district court found the affidavits constitutionally adequate but alternatively concluded that suppression was inappropriate in any event because the officers acted in good faith in executing the search warrants. Thus, the court affirmed the district court based on this alternate reasoning. View "United States v. Mar'yo Lindsey" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed after a jury convicted him of abusive sexual contact of a minor. Defendant contends the evidence was insufficient to establish the offense occurred in Indian Country, that the district court erred by admitting uncharged conduct as propensity evidence, and that the use of acquitted conduct to increase his sentence violated his constitutional rights.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained Major Crimes Act gives the federal government exclusive jurisdiction over certain crimes committed by an Indian within Indian Country, including abusive sexual contact. Here, the deputy superintendent of the trust for the BIA’s Yankton Agency with nearly 32 years of experience, testified that the tract was part of the Yankton Sioux Reservation in 2006. Accordingly, the court held that it would not disturb the conviction because the deputy’s testimony provided a reasonable basis for the jury to find the offense occurred in Indian Country. Further, the court wrote that in affording great weight to the district court’s balancing, it found no abuse of discretion in admitting the evidence under Rules 413 and 414. View "United States v. Frank Sanchez" on Justia Law

Defendant conditionally pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine and was sentenced to 360 months in prison. He appealed, arguing that the district court erred by denying his motion to suppress evidence, as well as his request for leave to file a second suppression motion out of time. He also argued that his sentence is procedurally and substantively unreasonable.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding that the relevant search was legal, and the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Defendant’s leave to file a second, untimely suppression motion. The court explained that the officer had a reasonable suspicion that Defendant was armed and dangerous, and he never exceeded the lawful scope of his Terry frisk of Defendant’s truck. Accordingly, the district court was correct to deny Defendant’s first suppression motion.   Further, even if the district court had erred, any error would have been harmless. The evidence from Defendant’s second traffic stop related to Counts 3–5 of the second superseding indictment—counts that were dropped as part of Defendant’s plea deal. So the evidence didn’t affect Defendant’s conviction. And since the exclusionary rule doesn’t apply at sentencing, United States v. Tauil-Hernandez, 88 F.3d 576, 581 (8th Cir. 1996), the district court was free to consider this evidence when imposing Defendant’s 360-month sentence. View "United States v. Randy Dabney" on Justia Law

The district court had strong views about what charges fit Defendant’s crimes. It rejected both her plea agreement and a motion by the government to dismiss four of the five counts in the indictment. The Eighth Circuit held that the latter ruling went too far, and reversed and remanded with instructions to grant the government’s motion.   The court explained that here, the district court merely “disagreed with the prosecutor’s assessment of what penalty the defendant ought to face.” Rather than addressing whether the prosecutor acted in bad faith, the court just listed the reasons it thought Defendant was getting off too easy: she was “very dangerous” and “by far the most culpable”; the victim suffered life-threatening injuries; and a “conviction for robbery alone strip[ped] the [c]ourt of any ability to sentence [her] to a just punishment.” These may be important factors to consider at sentencing, but they are not reasons to interfere with the government’s charging decisions, no matter how much the court may disagree with them. View "United States v. Tiffany Bernard" on Justia Law

After a jury trial before the district court, Defendant was convicted of one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sections 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2). Defendant appealed his conviction, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding that he knowingly possessed a firearm.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court held that the government presented sufficient evidence to prove that Defendant knowingly possessed the firearm in question. The court explained the government presented security camera footage showing a man retrieving a firearm from Apartment H6, running down the exterior staircase of the H building with the firearm and taking a firing stance, returning to Apartment H6 and depositing the firearm, and running to Apartment P4. Security camera footage showed that Defendant was the only person, besides the resident of the apartment, who entered Apartment P4 between the time of the shooting and the time officers were posted outside of the apartment, and it is inconsequential whether Defendant left Apartment P4 before the shooting. Thus, based on this evidence, a reasonable jury could have found that Defendant knowingly possessed the firearm found in Apartment H6 on August 30th. View "United States v. Earl McKee" on Justia Law