Summaries of Selected Opinions
| Jurisdiction | United States,Federal |
| Citation | Vol. 52 No. 2 Pg. 68 |
| Pages | 68 |
| Publication year | 2023 |
US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Summaries of Selected Opinions
No. 22-3068. United States v. Kearn. 12/2/2022. D.Kan. Judge Phillips. Collateral Proceedings— Ineffective Assistance of Counsel—Change of Plea—Resentencing—Appellate Jurisdiction.
Kearn was convicted of three charges stemming from his photographing and distributing pornographic images of his 4-year-old daughter. He was sentenced to 292 months' imprisonment. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the conviction and sentence. Kearn then brought ineffective assistance of counsel claims to collaterally attack his sentence, asserting that his trial counsel inadequately explained the government's plea offer to him and thus was ineffective. The court granted the motion after an evidentiary hearing and, as a remedy, directed the government to reoffer the plea deal pursuant to Lafler v. Cooper, 566 U.S. 156 (2012). After the government's reoffer, Kearn told the court he intended to accept the plea, and the court scheduled a change-of-plea hearing and resentencing for the same day. Soon after reoffering the plea,
the government moved the district court to reconsider its grant of Kearn's motion. The district court denied the government's motion. The government appealed before the district court held its change-of-plea and resentencing hearings.
On appeal, Kearn moved to dismiss for lack of appellate jurisdiction. District courts have authority to vacate a prisoner's sentence for a constitutional violation and to order a resentencing hearing under 28 USC § 2255, for, among other things, ineffective assistance of counsel in plea discussions, as discussed in Lafler. When district courts resentence defendants based on reoffered pleas under Lafler, appellate jurisdiction does not arise until the defendants are resentenced. Here, the orders granting Kearn's § 2255 motion and setting a future resentencing are not final. Accordingly, the Tenth Circuit lacked appellate jurisdiction.
The appeal was dismissed.
No. 21-4102. Mahdi v. Salt Lake Police Department. 12/5/2022. D.Utah. Judge Hartz. High-Speed Chase—Fourteenth Amendment Substantive Due Process—Excessive Force—Failure to Train or Supervise Employees—Qualified Immunity.
Robinson engaged in a shooting spree that included at least two armed robberies. Responding officers pursued him in a high-speed chase for about 20 minutes, during which Robinson fired multiple rounds from a rifle. The chase ended when Robinson crashed into Mahdi's tailoring shop. Within seconds, officers fired scores of bullets at Robinson, and many hit and destroyed inventory and machines in Mahdi's shop. Mahdi—who came to the United States from Iraq, where he faced physical threats from insurgents after working as a tailor for the US military—was psychologically traumatized by the shooting. Mahdi filed suit under 42 USC § 1983 against the Salt Lake City Police Department; the Unified Police Department; and four officers of the Utah Highway Patrol, Superintendent Rapich, Sergeant Shelby, and Troopers Miller and Thompson. Mahdi alleged that (1) the responding officers used excessive force in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process right, and (2) the officers' unconstitutional use of force resulted from Superintendent Rapich's and the defendant law-enforcement agencies' failure to properly train or supervise their employees. The officers raised a qualified immunity defense, and defendants moved to dismiss Mahdi's first amended complaint for failure to state any claims. Mahdi moved for leave to file a second amended complaint. The district court held that Mahdi did not adequately allege that any officers violated his constitutional right to substantive due process and that in the absence of any such violation, the police agencies also could not be liable under § 1983. It denied Mahdi's motion and granted defendants' motion.
On appeal, Mahdi argued that the district court's dismissal of his first amended complaint and denial of his proposed second amended complaint as futile were erroneous. A § 1983 substantive due process claim for excessive use of force based on the Fourteenth Amendment must show that the complained-of action "shocks the conscience." In allegations of excessive force by a state actor, the standard for the shocks-the-conscience test turns on whether the state actor had time to deliberate—which means having more than a few seconds to think—before engaging in the complained-of conduct. Where there is no opportunity to deliberate, conduct will shock the conscience only if done with the intent to harm the injured party. Here, Robinson was not incapacitated by the crash, and the officers had only one or two seconds after arriving on scene to act. Therefore, the officers did not have the opportunity to deliberate before firing their weapons. Further, Mahdi did not allege that any officer intended to harm him. Accordingly, Mahdi's constitutional right to substantive due process was not violated, and the district court did not err in dismissing the claims.
Further, given that none of the on-scene officers violated Mahdi's substantive due process rights, the claim against Superintendent Rapich fails because Mahdi did not allege that the superintendent was involved in Robinson's pursuit, and a supervisor cannot be held liable for training and oversight deficiencies if the subordinates did not violate the plaintiff's constitutional rights. And the claim against the local law-enforcement agencies fails because Mahdi failed to allege a constitutional violation by any police official.
The orders dismissing Mahdi's Fourteenth Amendment claims and denying his motion for leave to file a second amended complaint were affirmed.
Nos. 21-4111 & 21-4115. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Stewart Title Guaranty Co. 12/12/2022. D.Utah. Judge Bacharach. Title Insurance—Title Defect—Valuation of Loan Collateral—Prejudgment Interest.
Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (Wells Fargo) entered into a loan agreement with Talisker Finance, Inc. (Talisker). Under the loan agreement, Talisker gave Wells Fargo a security interest in Parcels A, B, and C, which were owned by Talisker's affiliates. Wells Fargo insured the title to the parcels with Stewart Title Guaranty Company (Stewart) (policy). The policy provided that Wells Fargo would obtain from Stewart the amount that the collateral had diminished in value if a title defect existed. Talisker defaulted on the loan, and it couldn't deliver good title on roughly 127 acres within Parcel B, so Wells Fargo made a policy claim. The parties couldn't agree on the amount that Stewart owed Wells Fargo, and Wells Fargo sued Stewart. The district court awarded Wells Fargo $3,210,200 as the value of the segment of Parcel B that Talisker's affiliates didn't own (the lost parcel), which included the value of the land and the improvements thereon.
On appeal, Stewart argued that the loss of the collateral didn't diminish the value of the collateral as a whole. It maintained that the district court acknowledged that the title defect hadn't diminished the value of the collateral. Here, the district court found a diminution in value under the policy based solely on the value of the lost parcel. Stewart's contrary interpretation disregards the context of the district court's discussion, which included a finding that the lost parcel didn't affect the remaining collateral's value, so its argument fails.
Stewart also argued that the improvements to the lost parcel should be disregarded because Wells Fargo hadn't intended to include them in the collateral, since Wells Fargo had appraised the parcels earlier without the improvements.
Here, the policy unambiguously included the improvements in Parcel B: high-speed chairlifts, a telecommunication facility, and a ski patrol building. Accordingly, the district court reasonably relied on the unambiguous language in the loan agreement to infer that Wells Fargo had intended to obtain a security interest in all of Parcel B. Therefore, the district court didn't clearly err by including the value of the improvements when valuing the lost parcel.
Stewart further contended that the district court erred in awarding Wells Fargo $3,210,200, noting that no witness had used this figure as the total value. Here, the court used Stewart's expert's valuation of the land at $330,200 and Wells Fargo's expert's valuation of the telecommunications facility and the two high-speed chairlifts at $2,860,000. The...
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