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

Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his motion for termination of his supervised release, arguing that his five year term of supervised release had already expired as a matter of law, or alternatively, that equitable considerations favored termination. The court concluded that, under 18 U.S.C. 3624(e), defendant's supervised release began as a matter of law on the day that he was "freed from confinement." Defendant's term of supervised release thus began when he was released from federal custody on November 15, 2010, and did not expire in September 2012 as he contended. The court also concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting defendant's equitable arguments where neither 18 U.S.C. 3583(e) nor relevant case law required the district court to explain its denial of early termination of supervised release. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Mosby" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence stemming from his conviction for one count of manufacturing 50 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine. The court concluded that defendant's sentence was substantively reasonable where the district court imposed a bottom-of-the range sentence of 188 months noting that it had received defendant's arguments requesting a variance and the district court expressly discussed the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors. View "United States v. Hendrix" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed a special condition of his supervised release which stemmed from his conviction for receiving and distributing child pornography. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court, concluding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing special condition 18, which stated that defendant shall not possess, view, or otherwise use any material that was sexually stimulating or sexually oriented deemed to be inappropriate by his probation officer in consultation with his treatment provider. The special condition was neither overbroad nor vague considering the totality of the circumstances. View "United States v. Fonder" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing methamphetamine. The court affirmed, concluding that the district court did not abuse its discretion at trial by admitting expert testimony regarding the distribution of methamphetamine because the evidence was relevant and defendant had not demonstrated that the testimony caused unfair prejudice that substantially outweighed its probative value. Unlike impermissible courier profile evidence, the expert's testimony here was relevant to rebut defendant's defense that he was merely a drug user and not a trafficker; even if the testimony was cumulative, it likely would have been harmless; and any allusion to possible sexual conduct by defendant was elliptical and too attenuated to prejudice him unfairly. View "United States v. Schwarck" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the government by unlawfully evading tax obligations. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's restitution order. The court concluded that the district court did not err in adopting an IRS agent's restitution calculations; the district court's oral and written findings were sufficiently thorough to support its restitution order; the district court did not clearly err by relying on the agent's testimony that the boating-related expenses were personal expenses that were unlawfully deducted as business expenses; and the court rejected defendant's arguments regarding the restitution payment schedule and defendant's complexity exception argument under 18 U.S.C. 3663A(c)(3)(B). Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Wirth" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, acting as trustee for certain farm property pursuant to a deed of trust, brought this interpleader action seeking a determination of rights to the sales proceeds from an auction of the farm. The court held that the district court properly denied CNH's motion for summary judgment where CNH did not have a valid contract to purchase the farm; CNH could not set aside the sale to Gittaway Ranch; CNH failed to offer any evidence that its attorney's fees were reasonable and necessary or incidental to the protection or improvement of the farm; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding sanctions against defendants. View "Garden, Jr. v. Central Nebraska Housing Corp., et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, president and owner of WestCorp, sued the government for a refund of an IRS tax penalty that he paid. At issue was the treatment of admittedly incomplete payments WestCorp made from 2000-2001. To maximize its recovery, the IRS applied those payments first toward WestCorp's non-trust fund taxes rather than dividing the payments proportionally between WestCorp's trust fund and non-trust fund taxes. The court agreed with the district court that the undisputed facts show, as a matter of law, that plaintiff willfully failed to pay the trust fund taxes at issue; the court also agreed with the district court that the IRS properly allocated the undesignated payments at issue; and the court rejected plaintiff's contention that the IRS should nonetheless have applied at least part of the undesignated payments toward WestCorp's trust fund obligations. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Westerman v. United States" on Justia Law

Defendant was sentenced to 48 months' imprisonment for unlawful possession of a firearm as a previously convicted felon. After defendant admitted a violation of the terms of his supervised release, the district court revoked his release and sentenced him to 12 months' imprisonment, but subsequently amended its judgment twice. As authority for amending the judgment, the district court cited Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35(a). The court held that there was no reversible error in the district court's original sentence; the record of the second hearing suggested that the district court expected the Bureau of Prisons to take some action, but was frustrated that it would not "accept the Court's positions" about "when the sentence was supposed to run;" and, therefore, the original sentence was not the product of a mistake in the district court's application of the sentencing guidelines or a failure to consider the relevant statutory factors. Therefore, the court concluded that, under the circumstances of this case, the district court lacked authority to modify a sentence imposed for defendant's violation of supervised release. Accordingly, the court vacated the second amended judgment and directed that the original be reinstated. View "United States v. Cannon" on Justia Law

InCompass filed suit against XO asserting a single claim of promissory estoppel based on a former XO employee's alleged oral promise to enter into a multi-year lease with InCompass. InCompass appealed the district court's grant of XO's motion to strike InCompass's jury trial demand. In light of InCompass's inconsistency as to the precise measure of damages that it sought, and in light of the undeniably equitable nature of the promissory estoppel claim as a whole, the court held that InCompass's claim was properly regarded as equitable rather than legal and, consequently, InCompass was not entitled to a jury trial on its claim of promissory estoppel. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "InCompass IT, Inc., et al. v. XO Communications Servs., et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed three separate class action suits alleging that defendants violated Missouri law and conspired with unknown third parties to deceive customers into throwing away medications after their expiration dates, knowing that the medications were safe and effective beyond the expiration date. Defendants appealed the district court's remand order holding that defendants failed to establish the amount in controversy requirement under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), 28 U.S.C. 1332(d)(2). The court concluded that each defendant's affidavit detailing the total sales of their respective medications in Missouri met the amount in controversy requirement; even if it was highly improbable that plaintiffs would recover the amounts defendants have put into controversy, this did not meet the legally impossible standard; defendants were not required to provide a formula or methodology for calculating the potential damages more accurately, as the district court held; and defendants' affidavits were not inadmissible hearsay. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's finding that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction and remanded for further proceedings. View "Raskas, et al. v. Johnson & Johnson, et al." on Justia Law