In United States v. Barkley, the defendant pleaded guilty to charges including interference with commerce by robbery, attempted carjacking, and multiple counts of using a firearm during crimes of violence, stemming from a series of convenience store robberies and a carjacking attempt in Oklahoma. Following the Supreme Court's decisions in Blakely v. Washington and United States v. Booker, which held that mandatory application of sentencing guidelines based on judicial factfinding violates the Sixth Amendment, the court addressed how to apply the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. The court decided to treat the Guidelines as advisory but to apply them strictly in this case by requiring that any facts increasing the sentence be proven to a jury or admitted by the defendant, thereby satisfying Blakely's constitutional requirements. The core reasoning was that Booker rendered the Guidelines discretionary, allowing courts to impose sentences consistent with the Sixth Amendment by incorporating jury protections for sentencing enhancements rather than shifting to a fully discretionary system without such safeguards.
The case involves a contract dispute where Oklahoma Natural Gas Company (ONG) sued Apache Corporation and others for breach of a take-or-pay gas purchase contract and prevailed, leading to a motion for attorney fees under 12 O.S. § 936. The court, after de novo review of objections to the magistrate judge's report, decided to grant ONG attorney fees in the amount of $339,547.60, including certain Westlaw charges but applying reductions for block billing and limiting hourly rates. The reasoning centered on finding the magistrate's recommendations appropriate regarding hourly rates for lead counsel, reductions for excessive or block-billed time, paralegal fees, and allowable expenses, based on the record and applicable law.
This case concerned the constitutionality of Section 3 of the Act of May 10, 1928, which made minerals including oil and gas from restricted allotted lands of the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma subject to all state and federal taxes. Plaintiffs, heirs to Creek Indian allotments who received income from oil and gas production on the land, argued that the statute effected an uncompensated taking in violation of due process. The court ruled the statute constitutional, finding that Congress possesses broad power to classify and tax in this area, that such legislation receives rational basis review, and that federal Indian classifications are not subject to strict scrutiny as impermissible racial distinctions.
This case involves the sentencing of Danny Eugene O'Daniel after his guilty plea to charges of knowingly transporting visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct over the internet in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a). The defendant argued that applying the Federal Sentencing Guidelines would violate the Sixth Amendment under Blakely v. Washington because enhancements would rely on judicial factfinding rather than jury determinations. The court ruled that Blakely applies to the Guidelines but that they remain constitutional when limited to facts admitted by the defendant in the plea agreement or found by a jury, and that the defendant's stipulations in this case allowed constitutional application of the Guidelines without additional factfinding. The court therefore imposed a sentence based solely on the admitted facts from the plea.
This case involved a dispute between Mark Woodrich and his auto insurer, Farmers, over the amount of medical payments (med pay) benefits owed under a policy with a $100,000 limit following a 2002 car accident. Woodrich submitted medical bills with a face value exceeding $15,000, but many were discounted or written off after submission to his health insurer, resulting in providers accepting lower amounts as full payment. Farmers moved for partial summary judgment, arguing it had already paid more than required and owed nothing further, including no attorney fees on the bad faith claim. The court granted the motion in full, holding that the policy obligated Farmers only to pay reasonable expenses limited to amounts actually accepted by providers, that Farmers had overpaid relative to those amounts, and that attorney fees were not recoverable as damages in the bad faith claim under Oklahoma law.
This case involved plaintiffs' request for documents from the IRS under the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act, after which they sued for declaratory and injunctive relief alleging an inadequate search and production. The court denied plaintiffs' motion for leave to amend the complaint due to untimeliness after the discovery deadline. Following multiple hearings, additional searches ordered by the court, and review of IRS affidavits, the court granted summary judgment to the IRS, finding that the agency had conducted an adequate and reasonable search and produced all responsive documents in its possession. The court denied plaintiffs' summary judgment motion accordingly.