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

The City filed suit against Union Pacific in state court, seeking an order requiring Union Pacific to restore a public at-grade rail crossing or, alternatively, allowing the City to condemn Union Pacific’s land across that public crossing. The district court granted the City summary judgment and a permanent injunction, rejecting Union Pacific’s contention that the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act (ICCTA), 49 U.S.C. 10501(b), grants the Surface Transportation Board (STB) exclusive jurisdiction over the City’s claims. The court concluded that ICCTA’s express preemption provision applies to this dispute; Union Pacific has made a strong showing that the remedy the City seeks would “impede rail operations or pose undue safety risks,” the STB’s governing preemption standard; and therefore the court remanded with instructions for the district court to rule on Union Pacific’s motion to dismiss the City’s amended complaint for lack of jurisdiction unless the City obtains a ruling from the STB that it lacks or declines exclusive jurisdiction over this dispute. View "City of Ozark, AR v. Union Pacific Railroad Co." on Justia Law

In 2009, Hobbs and her husband pled guilty to aggravated identity theft and conspiring to commit bank fraud. Hobbs was sentenced to 56 months’ imprisonment and five years’ supervised release. Her husband was sentenced to 80 months’ imprisonment and five years’ supervised release. They were ordered jointly to pay approximately $18,000 in restitution. In 2016, probation moved to revoke her supervised release, alleging four violations of her release conditions: Hobbs moved from her registered address without telling her probation officer; she failed to submit to a required urinalysis; she left her job without telling her probation officer; she stopped making restitution payments the month her husband was released. Hobbs admitted the violations. The government asked that her release be modified rather than revoked, with a condition of “no contact with her husband.” The court expressed concern that Hobbs’s violations were connected to her husband’s release and imposed a sentence of 30 days’ imprisonment and the condition: The defendant shall have no direct, indirect, or electronic contact with codefendant and husband, Jack Hobbs, during her term of supervised release. The Eighth Circuit vacated the condition as a “sweeping restriction on her important constitutional right of marriage.” View "United States v. Hobbs" on Justia Law

Muratella was charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1). The prosecution proposed a plea agreement without mentioning a 21 U.S.C. 851 information. The following morning, the prosecution stated that due to a policy change it likely would have to file a section 851 information alleging that Muratella had a prior felony drug conviction. If Muratella was found to have such a prior conviction, the statutory mandatory minimum sentence would increase from 10 to 20 years. The parties had numerous discussions, but could not reach an agreement. Two weeks before trial, the prosecution inquired whether Muratella changed his position and stated that, if not, it would file the section 851 information. The next day, Muratella moved for a change of plea hearing, which was set for September 18. On September 17, the government filed the information. At the hearing, the court informed Muratella that he faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years. Muratella said that he understood and entered an unconditional guilty plea. Before sentencing, Muratella objected to the filing of the section 851 information on grounds that his prior conviction was too old to qualify and that the filing violated Department of Justice policy. After reviewing the evidence, the court found that the government had made its intentions to file the 851 information known months earlier and that no vindictive prosecution occurred. The Eighth Circuit affirmed, finding that claim foreclosed by Muratella’s unconditional plea. View "United States v. Muratella" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the City, alleging that the City violated their rights under the Columbia City Charter, the Missouri Constitution, and the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution by interfering with their participation in a municipal referendum process to repeal two ordinances passed by the City Council in connection with a student housing development project proposed by Opus. The district court granted summary judgment to the City. The court concluded that the City did not violate plaintiffs' rights by enacting Ordinance B while Referendum A was pending; the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to the City on plaintiffs' claims involving the issuance of the Opus project permits; plaintiffs have not established a violation of their First Amendment rights where neither the referendum process itself nor the City’s conduct in responding to the referendum process interfered in any way with the message plaintiffs sought to communicate, restricted their ability to circulate either referendum petition, regulated the content of their speech, or infringed on their ability to communicate with other voters or the manner by which they could so communicate; the court also rejected plaintiffs' claim that the City violated their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment by depriving them of protected liberty and property interests without due process of law; and there is no constitutional right at stake in the referendum process, and thus conditioning the repeal of Ordinance A on abstaining from the referendum process cannot be unconstitutional. In this case, the City complied with all relevant provisions set forth in the City Charter. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "MacMann v. Matthes" on Justia Law

After Carleton J. Wallace was fatally shot by a police officer, Wallace's estate filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against defendants, alleging excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The district court denied the officer summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity, but granted summary judgment to the chief of police and the city. The officer appeals. The court concluded that, under the totality of the circumstances, the record does not establish that the officer's use of deadly force was reasonable as a matter of law. In this case, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the estate, Wallace did not pose an immediate and significant threat of serious injury to the officer or bystanders because he may not have committed any violent felony, the physical struggle was minimal, and he was not "holding a firearm" when he attempted to flee. Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the estate, a reasonable fact finder could thus conclude that the seizure violated a clearly established constitutional right. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Wallace v. Cummings" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance; possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime; being a felon in possession of a firearm; being a fugitive in possession of a firearm; possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance; and distribution of a controlled substance. The court rejected defendant's argument that the district court erred in denying him access to discovery and the government improperly selectively preserved evidence by saving only inculpatory material; the district court carefully protected defendant's right to access adequate resources to prepare his own defense; the court rejected defendant's argument under Arizona v. Youngblood because he raised it for the first time on appeal and he failed to present any evidence of bad faith; there was no abuse of discretion in the district court not ordering another competency evaluation or holding another competency hearing when defendant sought to represent himself at trial; the district court did not violate defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel by permitting him to proceed pro se at trial; under the plain language of the relevant statute the information was timely filed; without any evidence to support the allegation, the court is unwilling to attribute bad faith to the government in its decision regarding when to file the notice; and, to the extent defendant argues that he was incompetent prior to January 4, 2012, he presented no evidence to support such a finding. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Olivares" on Justia Law

At issue in this case is a lease for a Gap store in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Gap argues that the lease does not require it to pay for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) expenses and a share of mall operation costs. GK, the mall's management company and owner, disagreed. The district court issued a declaratory judgment in favor of Gap. The court concluded that GK waived the argument that Gap owes it for HVAC expenses under Article 10(B) of the lease. The court also concluded that, reading the ambiguous lease language in conjunction with the extrinsic evidence, a rational factfinder can reach only one conclusion in this case: The parties intended that Gap not be obligated to pay for Center Expenses for the duration of the lease. Because GK points to no evidence that its past HVAC charges were established under Article 11(C), this modification does not affect the district court’s determination that GK breached the lease or its damages award. Accordingly, the court affirmed, modified in part, and remanded the district court's judgment. View "The Gap, Inc. v. GK Development, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, who is of Turkish and Kurdish descent, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that Officers Mathews and Collins arrested him on account of his ethnicity, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Officers Matthews and Collins came upon plaintiff while investigating a report of a suspicious person casing the neighborhood. Plaintiff matched the description. The district court granted summary judgment on the claims of selective enforcement and failure to intervene against Officers Matthews and Collins. The court affirmed the judgment and concluded that plaintiff failed to establish that the enforcement had a discriminatory effect and that the enforcement had a discriminatory purpose. View "Gilani v. Matthews" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 30 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. The district court subsequently revoked his supervised release, imposing a 24 month sentence followed by a year of supervised release. The court concluded that the evidence was sufficient to find defendant had violated his supervised release by possessing a weapon, alcohol, and cocaine. The court also concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying a continuance where defendant failed to show he was unable to participate in his own defense due to surgery and thus did not present a compelling reason for a continuance. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Long" on Justia Law

Defendant was sentenced to a year and a half in prison for escaping from a halfway house where he was serving federal time. On appeal, defendant argues for the first time that the district court did not have authority to make his sentence consecutive to another federal sentence that had not yet been imposed. The court concluded that Setser v. United States left open the question of whether the district court could make defendant's prison term for the escape consecutive to any sentence arising from the other federal charges pending against him. Because that means any error in this case is not plain, the court affirmed the judgment. The court left resolution of the issue for a case in which it is properly raised and preserved. View "United States v. Watson" on Justia Law