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

Defendant was convicted of conspiracy to commit bank robberies and three counts of aiding and abetting the robbery of those banks. The court concluded that the district court properly denied defendant's motion to suppress where the officers' employment of a roadblock was reasonable because the officers had reliable information that the bank robber was among the two cars that were stopped and the roadblock significantly advanced the public interest. The court rejected defendant's Batson v. Kentucky challenges and concluded that defendant failed to show pretext for race discrimination. Finally, the court concluded that defendant's sentence of 210 months in prison was substantively reasonable where there are legitimate distinctions to support defendant's sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Arnold" on Justia Law

A common-benefit trust fund was established to compensate attorneys leading the MDL concerning Bayer’s LibertyLink LL601 genetically modified rice. On appeal, Bayer and Riceland challenge the district court's order requiring Bayer to cause the deposit of a portion of a settlement between Bayer and Riceland into the fund. Bayer and Riceland argue that because their settlement was the product of negotiations following a state-court judgment, the district court lacked jurisdiction to order Bayer to cause a percentage of the settlement to be deposited into the fund. The court concluded that the district court properly ordered Bayer to hold back a portion of the Bayer-Riceland settlement. In this case, application of the Common Benefit Order was a comparable collateral matter that the district court had jurisdiction to resolve in light of the settlement; the district court properly applied the Common Benefit Order to the settlement and required a percentage of the entire settlement to be redirected to the common-benefit fund; and the district court did not plainly err in assigning to Bayer the duty of causing a deposit of the funds due under the Common Benefit Order. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Riceland Foods v. Bayer Cropscience US" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Mexico, seeks review of the BIA's affirmance of the IJ's denial of petitioner's request for adjustment of status and dismissal of petitioner's appeal. Petitioner was charged with being subject to removal as an alien present in the United States without inspection and without admission or parole. The court concluded that, by virtue of the evidence showing that petitioner was in Rochester, any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to find that he rebutted any presumption of reliability accorded the information set forth in the TECS-II document that he departed the United States by plane from Houston at 2:24 p.m. on January 21, 2005. The court concluded that the administrative finding that petitioner was departed on that date is unsupported by substantial evidence. The court noted that it would be fundamentally unfair to rely on I-213 documents as the only evidence that petitioner entered without inspection in the absence of an opportunity for petitioner to present evidence concerning the manner in which they were prepared. Accordingly, the court granted the petition for review and remanded the case for the limited purpose of allowing petitioner to present evidence regarding the draft and final I-213s. View "Rodriguez-Quiroz v. Lynch" on Justia Law

Defendants Green and Hayes were convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine, as well as possessing, brandishing, and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. Hayes was also convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm. The court concluded that the evidence was sufficient to support defendants' conviction for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine; defendants failed to establish that they had withdrawn from the conspiracy; the evidence was sufficient to convict Hayes for being a felon in possession of a firearm; even assuming that defendants are correct that the delay in securing a search warrant was a Fourth Amendment violation, admission of evidence from the cellular phones was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt; as to the third conviction, possessing, brandishing, and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, the court found that the government introduced sufficient evidence independent of that introduced pursuant to the May 14, 2014 search such that any error in the admission of that evidence was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt; the district court did not abuse its discretion in fashioning its sanctions and allowing in some evidence of what was recovered in the May 14, 2014 search; and the district court did not err in refusing a jury instruction or argument on justification under these facts. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Green" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the denial of his motion for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2). The district court ruled that defendant was ineligible for a reduction because his sentence was based on a Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement, not on a retroactively amended sentencing guidelines range. The court concluded that defendant's contention is factually flawed where his (C) agreement neither recited an applicable guidelines range of 188-235 months, nor recited facts sufficient to determine that this was the applicable range. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Bogdan" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for distributing methamphetamine and heroin, arguing that the district court violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel because he did not unequivocally state his intent to proceed pro se. In this case, defendant refused to state whether he wished to be represented at trial by counsel, either appointed or retained, or to represent himself. The court concluded that, given the district court’s thorough and repeated explanation of the dangers of self-representation, the court's decision in United States v. Sanchez-Garcia applies. In Sanchez-Garcia, the court held that by repeatedly rejecting all options except self-representation, after having been warned of the consequences, the defendant necessarily chose self-representation. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Conklin" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for being a felon in possession of ammunition and the district court's denial of his renewed motion for acquittal. The court concluded that the government did not constructively amend the indictment where the evidence presented at trial did not create a “substantial likelihood” that defendant was convicted of an uncharged offense because the individual components of ammunition were necessarily included in the indictment language; the evidence was sufficient for the government to establish that the ammunition seized from defendant was in or affecting interstate commerce; ammunition assembled from components which had traveled in interstate commerce was in commerce for purposes of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) even though the ammunition itself had been assembled intrastate; and, in this case, the propellent powder component manufactured in interstate commerce is sufficient to satisfy the Commerce Clause. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Hill" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a citizen of Ghana and a lawful permanent resident of the United States, was convicted of three counts of medical assistance fraud in violation of Minn. Stat. 609.466. DHS commenced removal proceedings based on the ground that petitioner was removable because he had been convicted of an aggravated felony pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). The BIA agreed and ordered petitioner removed to Ghana. Petitioner seeks review of the BIA's decision. In this case, there is one conviction, and the total loss is directly tied to three specific fraud counts “covered by the conviction.” The court need not decide whether totally unrelated fraud counts in a single conviction may be aggregated. As the BIA recognized, petitioner's three fraud counts of conviction were part of a sufficiently interrelated fraud to warrant aggregation, whether or not the criminal complaint included an express allegation of conspiracy or scheme to defraud. Likewise, the order to pay an aggregated restitution amount demonstrated that petitioner did not commit multiple, unrelated frauds. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Sokpa-Anku v. Lynch" on Justia Law

After a federal employee injured plaintiff in a car accident, plaintiff filed suit against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 1346(b)(1). The district court found the government 100% at fault, but 20% liable for plaintiff's injury. Under Carlson v. K-Mart Corp., the Missouri standard of an award for “directly caused or directly contributed to cause” means that the jury can determine that damages suffered solely due to a pre-existing condition were “neither caused nor contributed to by” a collision. Based on the evidence here, the district court found the collision contributed to only 20% of plaintiff's need for shoulder surgery. Plaintiff's own orthopedic surgeon opined that imaging indicated advanced degeneration that developed over time and did not result from the traumatic injury - even if the collision triggered symptoms in the left shoulder. Therefore, the court concluded that the district court did not err in concluding that, under Missouri law, it could find 80% of the damages attributable to an unrelated pre-existing condition and 20% of the damages attributable to the aggravation caused by the collision. Finally, the court rejected plaintiff's arguments that the district court erred in reducing by 80% both the medical expense and pain and suffering awards. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Lockhart v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's dismissal of their claims for damages in their action against Ferrellgas and AmeriGas under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 1. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants acted in concert to reduce the amount of propane contained within pre-filled propane tanks while maintaining the same price per tank, and thus artificially increasing the price of the tanks. Here, plaintiffs allege that reduction in fill levels, and thus the effective price increase, occurred in 2008, almost immediately after defendants reached the unlawful agreement. Plaintiffs have not alleged any overt acts within the four year limitations period that were new and independent acts, uncontrolled by the initial agreement. Therefore, the court concluded that plaintiffs' claims are time-barred and the court's conclusion reflects the objectives of Congress in encouraging timely lawsuits for the public good. The court affirmed the judgment. View "Larson v. Ferrellgas Partners" on Justia Law