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.