Justia Native American Law Opinion Summaries

Defendants-Appellants Patrick Talk and Kenneth Martinez, both enrolled members of the Navajo Tribe, challenged the procedural reasonableness of their sixty-month sentences of imprisonment. The district court imposed the sentences after Defendants pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter in Indian Country in the death of Shawn Begay, also an enrolled member of the Navajo Tribe. Mr. Talk argued that the district court procedurally erred in finding that he did not fully accept responsibility for Mr. Begay's death, and by failing to adequately explain his sentence, because it explained neither why he received the same sentence as Mr. Martinez nor why his sentence was longer than the Sentencing Guidelines' range for aggravated assault. Mr. Martinez argued that the district court procedurally erred by enhancing his sentence pursuant to U.S.S.G. 3A1.1 because Mr. Begay was not a "vulnerable victim" and, even if he was, Mr. Martinez neither knew nor should have known that he was. Finding that Mr. Talk's challenge was "misguided" and that the district court "did not commit procedural error in explaining its upward variance," the Tenth Circuit affirmed his sentence. Because Mr. Begay was heavily intoxicated at the time of his death, the Tenth Circuit found that he was unable to protect himself, and was therefore "unusually vulnerable." The Court found that the district court did not err in finding Mr. Begay was a vulnerable victim, and that Mr. Martinez's challenge to the district court's ruling that he knew or should have known of Mr. Begay's vulnerability "[could not] succeed under plain-error review, regardless of whether his argument [was] framed as a factual or legal one." The Court affirmed Mr. Martinez's sentence. View "United States v. Talk" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of second degree murder and the district court sentenced him to 576 months' imprisonment. On appeal, defendant challenged the substantive reasonableness of his sentence. The court held that the government failed to prove that defendant's appeal was barred by the waiver in his plea agreement. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion and imposed an unreasonable sentence by selecting a high but within-Guidelines sentence for a homicide offense. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed. View "United States v. Boneshirt" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of robbery and aiding and abetting robbery in Indian country in violation of U.S.C. 1153(a) and 2111. On appeal, defendant contended that the government did not present sufficient evidence to establish that he was an "Indian" for purposes of prosecution under section 1153. The court disagreed and held that, in light of all the evidence presented at trial, a reasonable trier of fact could have found that defendant was an Indian. Therefore, the court affirmed defendant's conviction. View "United States v. Labuff" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of second degree murder for the stabbing of a fourteen-year-old and assault with a dangerous weapon for the stabbing of a seventeen-year old in Indian country. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court erred in imposing mandatory minimum sentences under 18 U.S.C. 3559(f) because age was an element of the offense that must be found by the jury, and in denying her motions to suppress evidence and to sever counts of the indictment trial. The court held that the district court did not commit plain error in imposing the minimum thirty-year sentence for second degree murder of a child under the age of eighteen mandated by section 3559(f)(1) because the age provisions in section 3559(f) were sentencing factors. The court also held that, given the violent events of the night in question, the officer had probable cause to enter the parked, but highly mobile, vehicle without a warrant and to seize the weapons he observed inside. The court further held that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied her motion to sever the murder and assault charges. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Brown" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of one count of arson for setting fire to his home on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Defendant appealed the restitution order contending that the district court erred in awarding restitution to the two organizations that had provided emergency funds to the victims without reducing the amount of restitution owed to the victims personally. Defendant also contended that the district court further erred in using the replacement cost to determine the value of the homeowner's loss. The court held that the district court erred in awarding full restitution to the family for their personal property losses while also awarding restitution to the Red Cross and the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the amount of funds each provided to the family. The court also held that the district court erred in calculating Sicangu Wicoti Awanyakapi Corporation's actual loss to be the replacement cost of the destroyed home and in failing to account for its retention of defendant's Monthly Equity Payment Account. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "United States v. Frazier" on Justia Law

In these consolidated appeals, respondents appealed the district court's order granting petitioner's, an enrolled member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, amended petition for writ of habeas corpus. At issue was whether the Indian Civil Rights Act, 25 U.S.C. 1302(7), prohibited the tribal court from imposing consecutive sentences cumulatively exceeding one year for multiple criminal violations arising from a single criminal transaction. The court held that section 1302(7) unambiguously permitted tribal courts to impose up to a one-year term of imprisonment for each discrete criminal violation. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the district court. View "Miranda v. Braatz, et al" on Justia Law

At a tribal housing complex in Peever, South Dakota, defendant stabbed two men, killing one. Defendant was subsequently convicted of first degree murder and aggravated assault and sentenced to life imprisonment. At issue was whether the district court properly denied defendant's petition for writ of habeas corpus where he challenged the state's jurisdiction to try him. The court held that the district court properly denied habeas corpus relief where the housing complex's land did not meet the Alaska v. Native Vill. of Venetie Tribal Gov't. test of being a "dependent Indian community." View "Owen v. Weber" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged for the offense of domestic assault by a habitual offender under 18 U.S.C. 117 and the district court dismissed the indictment because, although defendant had received prior misdemeanor abuse convictions in tribal court on three separate occasions, he had not received the benefit of appointed counsel in the proceedings that resulted in the convictions. At issue was whether the Fifth and Sixth Amendments precluded the use of these prior tribal court misdemeanor convictions as predicate convictions to establish the habitual offender elements of section 117. The court noted an apparent inconsistency in several cases dealing with the use of arguably infirm prior judgments to establish guilt, trigger a sentencing enhancement, or determine a sentence for a subsequent offense. The court held that the predicate convictions in this case, valid at their inception, and not alleged to be otherwise unreliable, could be used to prove the elements of section 117. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Cavanaugh, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with assault resulting in serious bodily injury, occurring within the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation in western Arizona. At issue was whether a district court could, over defense objection and after the administration of an unsuccessful Allen charge, inquire into the reasons for a trial jury's deadlock and then permit supplemental argument focused on those issues, where the issues in dispute were factual rather than legal. The court held that allowing such a procedure in a criminal trial was an abuse of the discretion accorded to the district courts in the management of jury deliberations. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "United States v. Evanston" on Justia Law

Defendant fired a rifle shot through the front grill of a government owned pickup truck in the custody of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) land assessor. After the court vacated his initial conviction of depredation of government property, a second jury found him guilty of the same charge, and the district court sentenced him to 36 months imprisonment, applying a two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice because he perjured himself during his trial testimony. Defendant raised several issues on appeal. The court held that a retrial was entirely consistent with its mandate of its opinion vacating his first conviction; the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for recusal; defendant suffered no prejudice from the challenged jury instruction and any error in the instruction was harmless; the district court's application of the enhancement was affirmed; and the term of imprisonment was affirmed. The court held, however, that special conditions 1, 2, and 5 were vacated where, because there was a complete lack of explanation for imposition of the condition, the error also substantially affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part. View "United States v. Wisecarver" on Justia Law