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

Defendant was convicted of possessing a gun as a felon and subsequently appealed the denial of his motion to suppress evidence from his apartment. Police officers accidentally knocked open defendant's apartment door while looking for a potentially dangerous homicide suspect. Rather than stand in the open doorway as easy targets, the officers entered the apartment. They found a loaded handgun, some marijuana, and defendant, who said something suggesting the gun was his. The court affirmed the conviction based on the exigent circumstance exception to the warrantless search of the apartment. In this case, when the apartment door unexpectedly opened, the officers reasonably felt in danger and faced a split-second choice between entry and retreat. View "United States v. Roberts" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his motion to reduce his sentence under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2). The court concluded that, although the district court acknowledged defendant's good conduct while in prison, the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to reduce defendant's sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Hernandez-Marfil" on Justia Law

After a truck driven by a Werner employee struck a train operated by Canadian Pacific, causing a tanker car to spill the chemical it was carrying, Canadian Pacific filed suit against Werner for the clean-up costs under theories of trespass, nuisance, and negligence. The court concluded that the district court properly granted summary judgment to Werner on the trespass claim where Canadian Pacific did not argue that the employee entered the intersection intentionally, and its theory that the employee intentionally hid a fatigue diagnosis, even if true, was insufficient to make out a trespass claim. Because negligence was the only potential basis of wrongful conduct that was presented to the jury, its finding that the employee was not negligent is fatal to Canadian Pacific’s nuisance claim. The court further concluded that federal regulations do not foreclose state law defenses to negligence claims. In this case, when viewed in the light most favorable to Werner, the evidence was sufficient to enable a reasonable jury to find that the employee was incapacitated due to an acute cardiac event, and therefore not negligent in operating his truck. Finally, the court concluded that the district court’s instructions adequately submitted the issues to the jury and that it did not abuse its discretion in denying the requested instruction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Soo Line RR. Co. v. Werner Enter." on Justia Law

Defendant was found guilty of violating the Hobbs Act and brandishing a weapon during a crime of violence, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The court concluded that the district court did not clearly err by overruling defendant's Batson challenge where the district court was permitted to credit the government's observations; defendant's constitutional challenge to the Hobbs Act fails because Congress has the constitutional authority to pass such legislation; defendant's robbery of a jewelry store met the Hobbs Act jurisdictional requirement because the stolen jewelry had been made outside of Missouri and shipped to a store in Missouri where it was offered for sale; the district court did not err by ruling that defendant's robbery conviction was a "serious violent felony" under 18 U.S.C. 3559(c)(2)(F)(ii); defendant's 2006 Illinois conviction for aggravated robbery qualifies as a prior serious violent felony; because defendant's argument is an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, his 2001 Tennessee conviction cannot be collaterally attacked here; the district court properly sentenced defendant to life imprisonment under section 3559(c); and the court rejected defendant's evidentiary challenges. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. House" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of second-degree drug trafficking, challenged the denial of his petition for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. Petitioner argued that his trial counsel had been constitutionally ineffective because the lawyer failed to interview or present the testimony of petitioner's codefendant. The codefendant had been willing to testify that the drugs belonged to him and that petitioner had no knowledge of their presence in the rental car. On appeal, petitioner contends that the state court contravened federal law when it stated that even if petitioner’s counsel had called codefendant, “the outcome of the proceeding would not have changed.” According to petitioner, the omission from this statement of Strickland v. Washington’s “reasonable probability” language shows that the court applied a more rigorous “sufficiency of the evidence test” when making its prejudice determination. The court agreed with the district court that this alleged imprecision of the state court's opinion fails to demonstrate that its decision was contrary to Strickland’s prejudice standard. The court rejected petitioner's claim that the state court contravened Strickland by basing its prejudice determination on “the subjective views of the trial judge in this court-tried case.” Finally, the state court's application of Strickland's prejudice test was not unreasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Woods v. Norman" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court's imposition of an above-Guidelines sentence and the district court's refusal to order that the federal sentence run concurrently to state sentences. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing an above-Guidelines sentence of 90 months’ imprisonment where the district court cited defendant's extensive criminal history and the circumstances of the offense as reasons for the above-Guidelines sentence. Given the district court's consideration of the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors and the court's explanation that it declined to exercise its discretion for the specific reasons explained at sentencing, the district court did not abuse its discretion in deferring to the state court and declining to order that the sentences be served concurrently. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Hall" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under Sarbanes-Oxley, 18 U.S.C. 1514A(a)(1)(C), and Dodd-Frank, 15 U.S.C. 78u-6(h)(1)(A)(iii), after Oracle terminated his employment in retaliation for reporting that Oracle was falsely projecting sales revenues. The district court granted summary judgment to Oracle. The court joined the Second, Third, and Sixth Circuits and adopted the "reasonable belief" standard in Sylvester v. Parexel Int’l LLC standard, rejecting Platone v. FLYI, Inc.'s "definite and specific" standard, in determining that the employee must simply prove that a reasonable person in the same factual circumstances with the same training and experience would believe that the employer violated securities laws. Under the Sylvester standard, the court concluded that plaintiff's belief that Oracle was defrauding its investors was objectively unreasonable where missed projections by no more than $10 million are minor discrepancies to a company that annually generates billions of dollars. The court also concluded that plaintiff's claim under Dodd-Frank fails because he did not make a disclosure protected under Sarbanes-Oxley. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Beacom v. Oracle America, Inc." on Justia Law

LaOstriches, Laura Avila-Barraza, and Avila-Barraza’s three children filed claims to property the United States was seeking civil forfeiture to based on the ground that the funds were money-laundered drug trafficking proceeds. The district court dismissed LaOstriches’s claim due to repeated failures to comply with orders that its corporate treasurer and secretary appear for discovery depositions. The district court granted summary judgment, dismissing Avila-Barraza’s claim because she failed to establish a sufficient interest in the seized property. In this case, that Avila-Barraza, the remaining claimant, was ultimately unsuccessful in defeating the government’s forfeiture claim did not convert the order dismissing LaOstriches’s claim into punishment that was subject to the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause; the district court erred in dismissing Avila-Barraza’s claim on the ground that she lacks Article III standing; in the alternative, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment rejecting Avila-Barraza’s claim that she is an innocent owner of the funds sought to be forfeited; and Avila-Barraza did have standing, and in particular, standing to contest the government’s claim that the funds are drug trafficking proceeds subject to civil forfeiture. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Barraza" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitioned for review of the BIA's order of removal based on his conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT) pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1229(b)(1). Petitioner's conviction under Arkansas Code Annotated 5-13-205, assault in the first degree, as in effect in 2004, is not a CIMT. After the BIA reopened and remanded, the IJ reconsidered the status of the Arkansas conviction and determined that it constitutes a CIMT. The court held that the IJ was not collaterally estopped from reconsidering the CIMT issue because the CIMT issue was not previously determined by a valid and final judgment in a prior action between petitioner and DHS; rather, the CIMT issue was determined at an earlier stage of the same action and was reconsidered pursuant to the reopening of the action; in regard to the law of the case doctrine, it was not an abuse of discretion for the IJ to deem the CIMT issue appropriate for reconsideration; even applying Skidmore deference, the court affirmed the BIA's decision and agreed with the BIA that petitioner's conviction, in its 2004 form, categorically is a CIMT; and the court declined to address petitioner's due process argument. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Estrada-Rodriguez v. Lynch" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence after pleading guilty to criminal contempt of court after refusing to testify before a grand jury. The court concluded that the district court did not plainly err in calculating a base offense level of 20 for the underlying offense under section 2K2.1(a)(4)(A); the district court did not err in applying the section 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) specific offense characteristic for possession of a firearm in connection with "another felony offense" to the underlying offense; but the district court plainly erred in applying the section 2K2.1(b)(4)(A) specific offense characteristic for the stolen handgun to the underlying offense where the government did not prove that defendant knew or should have known that the handgun was stolen. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Davis" on Justia Law