Eighth Circuit

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of a motion for sentence reduction under 18 USC 3582(c)(1)(A), holding that the district court did not err in finding that, assuming the defendant had established extraordinary and compelling reasons outside of USSG 1B1.13, his release was not warranted under the 18 USC 3553(a) factors.

The Eighth Circuit upheld a conviction for receipt of child pornography because Google was not acting as a government agent when it uncovered files of child pornography in the defendant’s email accounts.

The Court reversed the defendant’s conviction for obstruction of justice by attempting to kill a witness where the evidence showed that the defendant shot at an officer “out of frustration and retaliation” and not with the intent of “preventing a communication about the commission of a federal offense” to other other officers.

The Court held that a defendant is eligible to request a sentence reduction under the First Step Act as long as he was convicted of a “covered offense,” regardless of how his sentence was calculated under the Guidelines. What matters is the offense as defined by the statute-of-conviction.

The Court reversed the defendant’s conviction for “disturbing” federal wildlife property, holding that the statutory provision penalizing anyone who “otherwise violates” the federal wildlife regulations in question does not impose strict liability but rather has an implicit mens rea element requiring proof of criminal negligence.

The Court held that a knock-and-talk violation does not mandate suppression when a valid search warrant exists and the knock-and-announce violation has “nothing to do with the seizure of the evidence.” Here, the warrant was valid, and officers would have executed it and seized the evidence regardless of the alleged violation.

Regardless of any alleged failure to execute a search warrant within the time limit in violation of Rule 41, absent any other “constitutional infirmity,” suppression is unwarranted unless the defendant is prejudiced or if officers recklessly disregard the proper procedure. The defendant was not prejudiced here since probable cause continued to exist after the time limit.

In a marijuana farm case, the Court held that law enforcement did not exceed the scope of a permissible knock-and-talk when they returned to the defendant’s house with other narcotics officers after smelling marijuana at the property earlier in the day, as an officer’s subjective intent is irrelevant. The Court also affirmed the district court’s denial of the defendant’s motion to dismiss the marijuana charges based on the Obama-era “Cole memo” directing prosecutors not to prosecute marijuana cases in states where marijuana is legal.