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Decision levers
AI-measured from their own opinions — each lever cites its cases
Willing to revisit precedentStrong stare decisis
In [3], Colloton dissents from en banc denial, invoking prior panel rule and criticizing panel for disregarding settled circuit precedent on crimes of violence. United States v. Williams ↗
Deference to government powerSkepticism of government power
Dissents in [5] and [8] support city code enforcement and state custody of insanity acquittee, indicating deference to government power. Gallagher v. Magner ↗ Revels v. Sanders ↗
Judicial activismJudicial restraint
Repeated emphasis in [3] and [4] on respecting procedural limits, agency discretion, and circuit rules reflects judicial restraint over activism. United States v. Williams ↗ Ochoa v. Holder ↗
PurposivismTextualism
In [1], straightforward application of criminal statutes and sentencing guidelines without purposive expansion signals textualist lean. United States v. Dixon ↗
In this bankruptcy case, debtor Lawrence Danduran sold his North Dakota home along with listed personal property for a combined price, paid off the mortgage, and deposited the remaining proceeds—including an estimated $7,700 attributable to the personal items—into a single savings account, which he then claimed as exempt under North Dakota’s $100,000 homestead exemption. The Chapter 7 trustee objected to the exemption for the personal-property portion, and the bankruptcy court sustained the objection, ruling that amount was not homestead proceeds. The Bankruptcy Appellate Panel reversed, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed that reversal. The court held that the trustee failed to carry his burden of proving the claimed exemption was improper, because the sale proceeds were commingled and the record contained no evidence that the personal-property funds (rather than homestead funds) ended up in the savings account instead of being applied to the mortgage.
Levi Alan Smith, who had a 1998 Iowa conviction for assault with intent to commit sexual abuse of a minor and a later failure-to-register conviction, moved to Nebraska and was indicted for violating the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) by knowingly failing to register there; he entered a conditional guilty plea, preserving his right to challenge the indictment. The district court imposed 15 months’ imprisonment and five years of supervised release with 14 special conditions, after granting a downward departure on criminal history. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the conviction, holding that Smith’s constitutional challenges to SORNA (including under the Commerce Clause, Ex Post Facto Clause, and Tenth Amendment) were either foreclosed by circuit precedent or failed on the merits because SORNA does not commandeer state officials but instead conditions federal funding on compliance. The court upheld most special conditions of supervised release as reasonably related to Smith’s history and the goals of supervised release, but vacated and remanded Condition 6—which barred him from coming within 500 feet of schools, parks, and similar places—because the district court had not made adequate individualized findings supporting its breadth.
In Lopez-Gabriel v. Holder, a Guatemalan native petitioned the Eighth Circuit for review of a Board of Immigration Appeals decision that upheld an immigration judge’s order removing him from the United States under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(6)(A)(i) as an alien present without admission or parole. He argued that evidence of his alienage, obtained after a 2008 traffic stop and subsequent ICE questioning, should be suppressed because the stop, arrest, and interrogations violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, or at minimum that he was entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his suppression motion. The court denied the petition, holding that Lopez-Gabriel had not made a prima facie showing of a constitutional violation. The police report established that the stop was based on a cracked windshield rather than any racial motive, and the circumstances of his questioning—custody, uniformed officers, and lack of Miranda warnings—did not establish involuntariness or coercion sufficient to require suppression or a hearing in immigration proceedings.
Chane Christenson was charged with two counts of threatening the life of the President after sending emails to the White House in December 2009 and January 2010 that expressed hatred for President Obama, wished for his death and that of his family, and called for violence. He pleaded guilty to one count under 18 U.S.C. § 871(a) in exchange for a sentencing recommendation, but later moved to withdraw the plea, arguing there was no sufficient factual basis because the statements were conditional political hyperbole rather than true threats and because he suffered from a delusional disorder. The district court accepted the plea and sentenced him to three years’ probation; the Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court held that the emails’ language, when viewed in context, supplied an adequate factual basis for finding a knowing and willful true threat, as they lacked the mitigating features of protected speech in Watts v. United States and were not so deficient that the plea was plainly invalid.
This case concerns the bankruptcy estate of Qualia Clinical Service, Inc. The Chapter 7 Trustee sought to avoid, as a preferential transfer under 11 U.S.C. § 547, a security interest in Qualia’s accounts receivable that Inova Capital Funding recorded via a UCC-1 financing statement on February 19, 2009, roughly one month before Qualia’s bankruptcy filing. The bankruptcy court and the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel held the lien avoidable, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court reasoned that the parties’ Invoice Purchase Agreement was a disguised loan (not a true sale) because it gave Inova full recourse against Qualia, that perfection of the security interest occurred within the 90-day preference period for an antecedent debt, and that Inova could not rely on the § 547(c)(5)(B) exception because it had first given “new value” under the agreement well before the preference period began.
In United States v. Jefferson, John E. Jefferson was convicted by a jury in the District of Minnesota of wire fraud, money laundering, and failing to file tax returns after he devised a scheme in which he obtained over $8.8 million from investors by falsely claiming the funds would support a Liberia resource-contract renegotiation project involving high-level officials. The district court imposed a 90-month prison sentence and ordered full restitution. On appeal, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the convictions and sentence, holding that the evidence was sufficient because witness testimony from the intermediary who raised the funds, along with Jefferson’s own statements to IRS agents and other corroboration, allowed a reasonable jury to find the elements of wire fraud and related offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. The court further ruled that restitution properly encompassed all losses from the charged fraudulent scheme, including unindicted conduct, and that the within-Guidelines sentence was both procedurally sound and substantively reasonable.
criminal lawtaxesbusiness & regulatoryprocedure
Affiliations
Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit — appointed by George W. Bush
