DIFTCL: Federal Narrative Summaries

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 The Fourth Circuit dismissed David Smith’s appeal regarding his conviction and sentence while affirming the district court’s judgment on those issues, but denied the government’s motion to dismiss the portion of the appeal challenging the effectiveness of appellate counsel. The court held that Smith&#8...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 The fourth-circuit affirmed the defendant’s conviction and sentence of 88 months’ imprisonment for possession of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B), (b)(2). The court applied an abuse-of-discretion standard to review the reasonableness of the sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), firs...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 The Fourth Circuit dismissed in part and affirmed in part Carl Edward Monroe, Jr.’s appeal of his conviction and sentence for possession of ammunition by a felon. The court granted the Government’s motion to dismiss the appeal regarding sentencing challenges because Monroe had entered a valid and enforceable...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 Docket: 1:25-cv-00967-ELR The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Earl James Gobin’s amended complaint without prejudice, holding that Gobin failed to state a claim for relief under any of the federal or state laws asserted. The court applied de novo review to the Rule 12(b)(6) dism...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 The Fourth Circuit affirmed the criminal judgment against William Charles Brown, Jr., rejecting his challenge to the district court’s denial of a motion in limine that sought to allow a justification defense at trial. Brown had entered a conditional guilty plea under Rule 11(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Pro...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 Docket: 9:24-cr-80140-RS-1 The Eleventh Circuit affirmed Mario Rivera’s 210-month sentence for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute fentanyl. The court rejected Rivera’s argument that the district court constructively amended his indictment by sentencing him based on a drug quanti...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 Docket: 4:23-CR-00331-JDR-3) The Tenth Circuit granted the government’s motion to enforce an appeal waiver and dismissed Tyler Dewayne Rogers’s direct appeal. The court held that the waiver was valid because it fell within the scope of the plea agreement, was entered into knowingly and voluntarily, and its en...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 Docket: 1:24-cr-00137-TFM-MU-5 The eleventh-circuit granted the Government’s motion to dismiss the appeal. The court held that the defendant’s appeal waiver in his plea agreement is enforceable because it was made knowingly and voluntarily. In reaching this conclusion, the court applied the standard that a...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 Docket: 5:24-CV-00659-JD) The tenth-circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Steven Montrail Triplet’s pro se civil rights lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, holding that Triplet waived his right to appellate review by failing to file timely written objections to the magistrate judge’s report and...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 Docket: 5:25-CV-00002-R) The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Roman Serpik’s civil rights lawsuit and its award of attorney’s fees to the defendants, while dismissing his appeal regarding a denied temporary restraining order as moot. The court held that Serpik’s claims were...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 Docket: 5:25-CR-00107-SLP-1) The tenth-circuit granted appointed defense counsel’s motion to withdraw and dismissed the appeal after an independent review of the record confirmed that no nonfrivolous issues existed. The court applied the standard established in *Anders v. California*, requiring a full examination o...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 Docket: 5:23-CR-00227-R-1) The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Defendant Erick Gachuhi Wanjiku’s pro se motion for a new trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33. The court applied the five-part standard for newly discovered evidence, requiring the defendant to show that the evi...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 Docket: 1:25-CV-03138-LTB-RTG) The tenth-circuit denied Kenneth Montgomery’s request for a certificate of appealability (COA) and dismissed his appeal challenging the district court’s denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. The court held that reasonable jurists could not de...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Filed: 2026-10-01 Docket: 5:20-CR-00059-PRW-1) The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s imposition of a 24-month prison sentence for violations of supervised release, which was ordered to run consecutively to Ransburg’s existing 324-month sentence. The court applied plain error review to Ransburg’s procedural chal...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Filed: 2026-09-30 The Sixth Circuit stayed the execution of Christa Pike pending further order of the court to allow for a proper analysis of whether her Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6) motion to reopen judgment should be treated as a second or successive habeas petition subject to 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) authorization requirements,...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Filed: 2026-09-30 The Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the police officers in this civil rights action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging a Fourth Amendment violation for an illegal entry and search of the plaintiffs’ home. The court held that the officers were entitled to...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Filed: 2026-09-30 Docket: 3:21-cv-00150- The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of a suit against federal defendants for lack of subject matter jurisdiction based on sovereign immunity. The panel held that the McCarran Amendment (43 U.S.C. § 666(a)) waived the United States’ sovereign immunity in this case b...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Filed: 2026-09-30 The Third Circuit affirmed the District Court’s grant of partial summary judgment in favor of Thomson Reuters, holding that the company’s Westlaw headnotes are original works of authorship eligible for copyright protection and that ROSS Intelligence Inc.’s use of those headnotes to train its artificial...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Filed: 2026-09-30 The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Union Pacific Railroad Company’s motion for summary judgment regarding liability under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The court held that the statutory exemption in 740 ILCS 14/25(e), which applies to contractors “when...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Filed: 2026-09-30 The first-circuit vacated the defendant’s 33-month sentence and remanded the case for resentencing. The court held that while the district court correctly applied a three-level upward adjustment under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(b) for acting as a manager or supervisor based on Pastrana’s recruitment of his brother and...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Filed: 2026-09-30 The Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s twelve-month imprisonment sentence imposed on Kane Malone for violating his supervised release conditions. The court applied an abuse of discretion standard to review the procedural reasonableness of the sentence, specifically addressing Malone’s claim that the...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Filed: 2026-09-30 The Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Dorcas Abayomi’s § 1983 claim alleging an unconstitutional taking under the Fifth Amendment after Oakland County retained surplus proceeds from a tax foreclosure sale. The court held that its prior published panel decision in *Howard v. Macomb Count...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Filed: 2026-09-30 The fourth-circuit affirmed the judgments of the district court in part and vacated them in part, remanding for further proceedings. Regarding Defendant Trevion Swansea Wigfall, the court held that the district court plainly erred by accepting his guilty plea without advising him of the fifteen-year mandatory minimum pe...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Filed: 2026-09-30 The fifth-circuit dismissed Ronnie Jackson’s appeal of the district court’s order denying his motion for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) as untimely. The court held that because the compassionate release motion was a step in the criminal case, the notice of appeal was subject to the mand...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Filed: 2026-09-30 The fifth-circuit granted the Federal Public Defender’s motion to withdraw and dismissed the appeal after reviewing the Anders brief filed by counsel. The court applied the standard established in *Anders v. California* and *United States v. Flores*, concurring with counsel’s assessment that the record contai...