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

Show Me State Premium Homes wants its purchase of a foreclosed property to be free and clear of all other interests, including those belonging to the United States. Getting what it wants would require a “judicial sale.” After removing the case the United States filed a motion to dismiss. Its position was that there could be no foreclosure without a judicial sale. The district court agreed, declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over what remained, and remanded to state court.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court but modified the dismissal of the ejectment and damages claims to be without prejudice. The court explained that a buyer’s interest is only “inchoate” before it gets a valid deed, not after. And here, title vested once the bond company “exercised its right to have the legal title transferred.” No “judicial sale” ever took place, and it is too late to hold one now, meaning that the interests held by the United States have never been foreclosed. View "Show Me State Premium Homes, LLC v. George McDonnell" 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

Several cities in Minnesota alleged that a chemical in refined coal tar that was used in pavement sealants contaminated their stormwater ponds. They filed an action seeking damages from refiners and manufacturers of the tar. The “refiner” defendants take raw coal tar and refine it into a product used by the “manufacturer” defendants to create pavement sealants. The district court dismissed all of the claims against the refiners and dismissed all but three of the claims against the manufacturers. The Cities moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) for entry of final judgment against the refiners. The district court, however, denied the motion because the Cities had not “demonstrated a danger of hardship or injustice through delay which would be alleviated by immediate appeal.” The Cities then entered into an agreement with the manufacturers, which provided that the Cities would conditionally dismiss their claims against the manufacturers. The Cities then appealed the district court’s decision dismissing claims against the refiners, and some of the refiners cross-appealed.   The Eighth Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The court concluded that this conditional dismissal of the Cities’ claims against the manufacturers does not create a final decision under 28 U.S.C. Section 1291. The whole purpose of pairing the voluntary dismissal with the tolling agreement was to provide for reinstatement of the claims in the event of reversal—that is, to make the dismissal conditional. The court wrote that its only power to prevent the manipulation of appellate jurisdiction is a rigorous application of the final judgment requirement. View "City of Burnsville v. Koppers, Inc." on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with possession with intent to distribute five grams or more of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. Section 841(a)(1) and (b)(1), after law enforcement discovered 28 grams of methamphetamine following an inventory search of a vehicle Defendant had been driving. Defendant moved to suppress the methamphetamine. After the district court denied Defendant’s motion, Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his suppression motion.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that when officers conduct an inventory search according to standardized police procedures, the reasonableness requirement is generally met. This is true even when officers are afforded discretion to release a vehicle to a registered, insured driver instead of towing it, provided this discretion “is exercised according to standard criteria and on the basis of something other than suspicion of evidence of criminal activity.” The court wrote that even if it assumes that the officer had an investigatory motive, it still holds that the inventory search was reasonable. Finally, the court explained that SCSD’s inventory-search policy requires officers to open all containers within the vehicle, whether open or closed, to inventory them for valuable items. The officer followed this policy in opening the binoculars case to determine whether there were any items of value inside. Such a policy is “unquestionably permissible.” View "United States v. Scott Nielsen" on Justia Law

Defendant conditionally pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. His conditional plea preserved his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress the ammunition recovered from his person and the firearms recovered from his vehicle. Defendant appealed the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress these preserved issues. On appeal, Defendant argued (1) the high-risk felony stop protocol transformed an investigative stop pursuant to reasonable suspicion, or Terry stop, into a de facto arrest without probable cause; (2) the search of his person “exceeded the permissible scope and intensity” of a valid Terry stop; and (3) the search of the vehicle exceeded the scope of the protective sweep doctrine.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. In evaluating the relevant factors, the court explained that it was reasonable to believe that the persons they identified and approached might be armed and had recently unlawfully discharged a firearm. Thus, both factors justified a greater show of force in performing the Terry stop. Here, the officers had at least a reasonable suspicion that at least one of the suspects was armed or that a firearm was in the vehicle. The officers’ actions warranted placing Defendant in a separate secure location. Therefore, applying the court’s precedent to the instant facts, the court concluded that the officers’ methods were permissible and did not transform the Terry stop into an arrest. View "United States v. Victor Childers" on Justia Law

Respondent suffers from multiple mental disorders, including schizophrenia. In 2018, he was sentenced to 80 months imprisonment for being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. He was due to be released on January 8, 2021. Prior to his release, the government filed a petition pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 4246, requesting that Respondent be committed to the custody of the Attorney General because, the government asserted, Respondent suffers from mental disorders that pose a significant danger to the public if he were released. The district court granted the government’s Section 4246 petition, of which Respondent appealed.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that Respondent’s main assertion, that “the evidence presented at the Section 4246 hearing failed to demonstrate . . . that he is ‘presently’ suffering from a mental disease which now poses a substantial risk of bodily injury to others,” is belied by his own testimony. For example, at the Section 4246 hearing, he testified that he started the CIA and that he has “to get violent with some of these people, dangerous people in the community,” in order to protect the community. This, in combination with the evidence that he actually acted upon his delusions when he attacked other inmates and a prison official, shows that he is suffering from a mental disease that now poses a substantial risk of bodily injury to others. The district court’s findings, to that effect, were not clearly erroneous. View "United States v. Erik Becerra" on Justia Law

In June 1949, Axel Anderson conveyed to L.S. Youngblood a ½ mineral interest in several tracts of land in Mountrail County, North Dakota (“the Disputed Lands”)In 2011, with the Andersons and Henry Johnson now deceased, grantee Johnson’s successors filed a quiet title action in state court against Nancy Finkle and grantor Andersons’ other successors to resolve the over conveyance, seeking title to a ½ mineral interest in the Disputed Lands (“the Finkle Litigation”).inkle appealed the quiet title order and judgment, arguing that an exception to the Duhig rule that is not at issue in this appeal applied and therefore the trial court should have awarded each side a 1/4 mineral interest in the Disputed Lands. In January 2008, Finkle, a successor to grantor Andersons’ mineral interests, conveyed by oil and gas lease her mineral interest leasehold and operating rights in the Disputed Lands to Montana Oil Properties, Inc. Northern Oil did not participate while Finkle defended the Johnson successors’ quiet title claim and asserted her own deed reformation counterclaim in state court.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court correctly granted summary judgment to the defendant on the ground that due to an over-conveyance of rights, Plaintiff had not obtained any mineral rights in the subject property when it acquired its interest in a leasehold. Further, the court held that the district court granted summary judgment dismissing Northern Oil’s reformation claim as time-barred by the ten-year statute of limitations in N.D.C.C. Section 28-01-15(2), applying a Supreme Court of North Dakota decision issued after the Finkle Litigation, Western Energy Corp. v. Stauffer, 921 N.W.2d 431, 434-35 (N.D. 2019). View "Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. v. EOG Resources, Inc." on Justia Law

Defendant shot and killed her husband when she found him cheating. She pled guilty to second-degree murder in Indian country. A year later, Defendant moved to vacate her Section 924(c) conviction, believing that intervening Supreme Court cases rendered it unlawful. Specifically, she argued that federal second-degree murder could not be considered a “crime of violence” under Section 924(c)(3)(A). The district court dismissed her motion. She appealed.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that murder is the ultimate violent crime—irreversible and incomparable “in terms of moral depravity.” Malice aforethought, murder’s defining characteristic, encapsulates the crime’s violent nature. The court wrote that here, Defendant unlawfully killed her husband with malice aforethought. That was murder—a crime of violence. Accordingly, the court held that Defendant’s Section 924(c) conviction need not be vacated. View "Tiffany Janis v. United States of America" on Justia Law

Defendant was found with 890 fentanyl pills after Arkansas state troopers pulled him over. He admitted that the pills were his, that he had traveled to Arkansas from Texas to sell them, and that he had successfully done so before. He later pleaded guilty to possessing a controlled substance with the intent to distribute. On appeal, Defendant contends that his sentence is substantively unreasonable because the court impermissibly varied upward based on a policy disagreement with the guidelines’ treatment of fentanyl.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that a district court may vary from the guidelines based on its own policy disagreements with those guidelines. A variance need not be based on the court’s “individualized determination that [the guidelines] yield an excessive sentence in a particular case.” Moreover, the court tied its general policy disagreement to the specific aggravating circumstances of Defendant’s case: the quantity of fentanyl involved, the concealment of the pills as oxycodone, and the past drug sales for which Cortez was not charged. The court carefully weighed these against the mitigating factors and ultimately concluded that they warranted an above-guidelines sentence. The court found no abuse of discretion in that determination. View "United States v. Cesar Cortez" on Justia Law

A jury in a Missouri state court found Petitioner guilty of statutory sodomy in the first degree, which a person commits if he "has deviate sexual intercourse with another person who is less than fourteen years old." Petitioner was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, rejecting the argument that the State had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim was less than fourteen years old. When Petitioner turned to the federal courts for relief, a magistrate judge1 denied his petition for a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that the Missouri Court of Appeals' decision was not objectively unreasonable, though it did grant Petitioner a certificate of appealability. He now challenges the magistrate judge's determination.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that it agreed with the magistrate judge that the Missouri Court of Appeals' decision was not objectively unreasonable. Though a reasonable juror might harbor some possible doubt that the victim was fourteen or older, the court wrote it is dubious that every rational juror would be compelled to harbor a reasonable doubt or would necessarily not "reach a subjective state of near certitude" that Petitioner was guilty. But a more critical point is that, under AEDPA, the court does not think that the state court's decision was objectively unreasonable or "so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fair-minded disagreement." View "Dale Bookwalter v. David Vandergriff" on Justia Law