Opinions are for Tuesday, March 28, 2023 

DISCLAIMER:  The following unofficial case summaries are prepared by the clerk's office
                           as a courtesy to the reader.  They are not part of the opinion of the court.

221647P.pdf     03/28/2023  United States  v.  Jonathan Rooney
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  22-1647
   U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska - Omaha   
   [PUBLISHED] [Erickson, Author, with Benton and Kelly, Circuit Judges] 
   Criminal case - Criminal law and Sentencing. The two interrogations of 
   defendant were not close enough in time to constitute a single, indistinct 
   interrogation formally punctuated by Miranda warnings in the middle; thus 
   the admissibility of defendant's post-Miranda statement is governed by 
   Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298 (1985) rather than Missouri v. Siebert, 542 
   U.S. 600 (2004); considering the totality of the circumstances, the 
   district court did not err in determining that defendant's Miranda waiver 
   was knowingly and voluntarily made and that certain of his statements to 
   the police were admissible; the evidence was sufficient to support 
   defendant's convictions for manslaughter and obstruction of justice 
   through the destruction of evidence; the district court's statements at 
   sentencing concerning defendant's state of mind when he committed the 
   offenses were supported by the record and did not, in any event, serve as 
   a principal basis for defendant's sentence; defendant's sentence was not 
   substantively unreasonable. Judge Kelly, dissenting. 
  
221696P.pdf     03/28/2023  United States  v.  Jonathan Wells
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  22-1696
   U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis   
   [PUBLISHED] [Smith, Author, with Wollman and Loken, Circuit Judges] 
   Criminal case - Sentencing. Assuming without deciding that the 
   government's comments at sentencing breached the plea agreement by 
   mentioning that no evidence existed either way as to distribution of the 
   child pornography images and by mentioning the existence of bit-torrent 
   software on defendant's computer, the government emphasized that the 
   evidence was neutral and that it made this argument in response to 
   defendant's argument for a downward variance; further, the two-level 
   reduction sought by the plea agreement was granted, and defendant was 
   sentenced, as expected, within the resulting advisory guidelines range; as 
   a result, if the district court erred in not finding an actual breach of 
   the plea agreement, the error was not plain and did not, in any event, 
   affect defendant's substantial rights. 
  
222201P.pdf     03/28/2023  United States  v.  Roger Cooley
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  22-2201
   U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota - Eastern   
   [PUBLISHED] [Benton, Author, with Colloton and Kelly, Circuit Judges] 
   Criminal case - Criminal law. The district court did not abuse its 
   discretion by denying defendant's request for an evidentiary hearing on 
   his motion to dismiss for a violation of his Sixth Amendment right to a 
   speedy trial; while the 28-month delay between the indictment and the 
   motion to dismiss is presumptively prejudicial, a consideration of the 
   factors set out in Barker v. Wingo, 470 U.S. 514 (1972) leads to the 
   conclusion that the district court did not err in denying the motion to 
   dismiss as the delay was not of such length as to eliminate the need to 
   show particularized prejudice; as there was no evidence that the delay 
   impeded defendant's defense or threatened to deprive him of a fair trial, 
   there was no Sixth Amendment violation.