DIFTCL: Federal Narrative Summaries

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Melvin Mauricio Valencia Gil’s motion to dismiss his federal indictment for illegal reentry under 8 U.S.C. § 1326. The court held that Valencia failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as required by 8 U.S.C. § 1326(d) before collaterally attack...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 Docket: 1:25-cr-00032-TFM-N-1 The eleventh-circuit affirmed the 96-month sentence and three-year term of supervised release imposed on Jabari Stots for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The court held that Stots’s arguments regarding procedural error in applying an inapplicable Sentencing Guidelines...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of a petition filed under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction seeking the return of the appellant’s son, M.A.S., from the United States to Mexico. The court held that the respondent mother met her burden of proving b...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 Docket: 2:22-cr-00053-SPC-NPM-1 The eleventh-circuit affirmed the defendant’s convictions for possession and distribution of child pornography, ruling that Google’s use of an automated “hash-value matching” protocol to identify illicit files constituted a valid private search under the Fourth A...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 The fifth-circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment excluding two of the plaintiff’s experts and granting summary judgment to the defendant. The court held that there was no error in the district court’s well-reasoned decisions regarding the admissibility of the expert testimony and the propriety o...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Matthew Darnell Pittman’s motion for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). The court applied an abuse of discretion standard of review, requiring that a district court must determine whether extraordinary and compelling reasons warra...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 The fourth-circuit affirmed the district court’s order denying defendant Brandon Lashon Ingram’s second motion for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that, even assuming Ingram established extraordinary and...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 The Fourth Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction because the district court’s order denying a motion for a writ of mandamus and partially granting a motion to dismiss was neither a final order nor an appealable interlocutory or collateral order under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 1292, as well as Federal R...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment for prison officials in a civil rights action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by the estate of an inmate murdered by another prisoner. The court held that the officers did not violate the Eighth Amendment because the plaintiff failed to esta...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 Docket: 5:23-CV-04044-JWB) The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the State of Kansas in a Title VII employment discrimination case brought by Terri Thurman, a former court clerk. The court held that Ms. Thurman failed to establish a genuine dispute of material fact regarding h...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 The Eleventh Circuit denied the petition for review filed by Fanis Arelly Yanes Canales and her son, upholding the Board of Immigration Appeals’ final order affirming the denial of asylum and withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The court applied the substantial evidence standard to...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 Docket: 2:23-CV-02009-DDC-ADM) The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of several postjudgment motions filed by Christopher VanHorn, including a motion for relief from judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) and various related procedural motions. The court reviewed the denial of the Rul...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 Docket: 3:24-cr-08016-SMB-1 The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s sentence of twenty-five years in federal prison followed by a lifetime term of supervised release imposed on Moroni Johnson for conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for criminal sexual activity. The court addressed two primary arg...

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Filed: 2026-07-09 The Fifth Circuit denied the petition for rehearing en banc regarding an interlocutory appeal in a civil rights action alleging First Amendment violations. The court treated the petition as a panel rehearing request and denied it because, upon polling the judges, a majority did not vote in favor of rehearing. Consequentl...