Tenth Circuit

The Tenth Circuit vacated a defendant’s sentence of multiple 25-year mandatory minimum prison terms under 18 U.S.C. § 3559(f)(2) based on kidnapping a child. The panel held that federal kidnapping crimes are not categorically a “crime of violence” under 18 U.S.C. § 16(a).

In a Fourth Amendment case, the Tenth Circuit answered two questions: is an exterior motel walkway “curtilage,” and can an officer peek through a one-inch gap in window curtains without intruding on one’s reasonable expectation of privacy? In affirming the defendant’s conviction, the panel held that neither violated the Fourth Amendment, a holding that the dissent criticized as “expanding permissible surveillance and eroding privacy.”

The Tenth Circuit vacated and remanded a defendant’s sentence for child sexual exploitation and child pornography after finding the district court improperly imposed a lifetime internet-access prohibition as a condition of supervised release without providing an analysis or explanation as required by 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d).

In a tax fraud conspiracy appeal, the Tenth Circuit vacated the defendant’s § 371 conviction where the district court plainly erred in instructing the jury on the elements of the “offense” clause under § 371 instead of the “defraud” clause. The trial court also plainly erred when it limited the advice of counsel instruction to the substantive count and instructed the jury that advice of counsel was not a defense to the conspiracy count.

Officers who found meth in a storage unit after “peeking” inside the unit violated the Fourth Amendment. The Tenth Circuit reversed the district court’s denial of the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence seized from a subsequent search of the unit and the defendant’s home pursuant to search warrants that the officers obtained using information from their earlier, warrantless search of the unit.

In a sentencing appeal, the Tenth Circuit vacated a 60-month upward-variance sentence for attempted bulk-cash smuggling as substantively unreasonable, citing reliance on a material misstatement and inadequate treatment of sentencing-disparity evidence. The district court’s sentence was an outlier in light of national sentencing data and relied on a false belief that the defendant had been on bond during the offense.

In a drug-conspiracy appeal, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the conviction but vacated the sentence after finding the district court’s drug-quantity estimate relied on unreliable confidential-source hearsay. The court rejected a due-process challenge to an in-chambers evidentiary ruling and held any Rule 404(b) error harmless.

In a plea-agreement appeal, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the rejection of a Rule 11(c)(1)(C) agreement but held that the district court abused its discretion in subsequently rejecting a charge bargain plea agreement, citing deference to prosecutorial charging discretion.

The Tenth Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of an indictment charging a defendant with possession of a firearm as an unlawful drug user. Applying the Supreme Court’s refined standard for Second Amendment claims under Rahimi, the Court remanded for further fact-finding by the district court to determine whether non-intoxicated marijuana users, like the defendant, pose a sufficient risk of future danger so as to justify 18 USC 922(g)(3).

The Tenth Circuit reversed a district court’s denial of a defendant’s motion to suppress evidence obtained after his backpack was searched by agents following his arrest on a Greyhound bus. While the agents had probable cause to arrest him and seize the backpack, they did not have the authority to search the contents of his bag without a warrant, and the plain view doctrine did not apply where the agent was rummaging around the insides of the backpack “in an exploratory manner.”