Connecting You to the Latest in Colorado Law : : Colorado Bar Association Continuing Legal Education
As of December 1, the Colorado Supreme Court began accepting 2012 attorney registrations online. Last year the Court launched a new system, making the registration process faster and easier. But, in case you run into trouble, a handy Electronic Registration FAQ page should provide more guidance.
Click here to register for 2012.
If you have any comments or suggestions for the electronic system, you may submit them to attorney_registration@coloradosupremecourt.us.
The attorney admission fee for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals will increase to $225 on January 1, 2012. All applications received after that date will need to include the new fee amount.
The Colorado Supreme Court issued no opinions for the week of December 4, 2011.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in United States v. Randall, Jr. on Friday, December 2, 2011.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision. A federal jury convicted Petitioner of conspiracy to participate in a racketeer influenced and corrupt organization, and the court sentenced him to 46 months imprisonment, within the guidelines after considering his additional criminal history. The Court affirmed his direct appeal. Meanwhile, Amendment 742 to the sentencing guidelines took effect in November 2010, which eliminated recency points under § 4A1.1. Petitioner filed a pro se “Motion to Modify Sentence Pending Appeal,” arguing that Amendment 742 should be applied retroactively to reduce his sentence to 37 months. “The district court concluded, however, that it had no jurisdiction to consider [Petitioner]’s motion because his notice of appeal from his conviction divested the court of jurisdiction over the case.”
The Court concluded that Petitioner “filed his notice of appeal on August 29, 2011, twenty-eight days after the district court entered its order denying the motion for reconsideration on August 1, 2011. The notice was therefore untimely. Nevertheless, an untimely notice of appeal does not always require dismissal.” In considering the appeal, however, the Court found that because Petitioner’s motion to reconsider was untimely without justification, the district court properly denied the motion.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in United States v. Lopez-Avila on Friday, December 2, 2011.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s sentence. Petitioner is a native and citizen of Honduras. He was deported from the United States in 2006 and again in 2007, and again returned to the United States unlawfully in April 2009. He was arrested a few months later on a complaint of domestic violence, and is now charged with illegal re-entry. He entered a guilty plea and did not object to the presentence report (PSR), and the advisory guidelines sentence was for 37-46 months’ imprisonment. The district court denied Petitioner’s request for a downward variance and imposed a sentence at the bottom of the guidelines range at 37 months of imprisonment. Petitioner appealed, contending that his sentence “was procedurally unreasonable because the district court erroneously concluded that it could not consider the disparities created by the existence of fast-track programs when determining his sentence.”
“The primary issue raised by [Petitioner] has now been resolved in this circuit. In United States v. Lopez-Macias, [the Court] held that ‘where the circumstances warrant, a district court in a non-fast-track district has the discretion to vary from a defendant’s applicable guideline range based on fast-track sentence disparities . . . .’” The Court also held, however, that “a ‘generalized argument’ in which a defendant simply points to the disparity created by fast-track programs ‘is alone not sufficient to justify such a variance.’” In this case, Petitioner presented only such a generalized argument. Therefore, the Court rejected Petitioner’s claim of error in the district court’s decision.
On Friday, December 2, 2011, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued two published opinions and three unpublished opinions.
Unpublished
No case summaries are available for unpublished opinions. However, published opinions are summarized and provided by Legal Connection.
CBA CLE Legal Connection is published by Colorado Bar Association CLE (also known as CLE in Colorado, Inc.). It is focused on delivering timely resources, updates and continuing legal education to … [Read More...]
Solo Tip Tuesday: Move Outlook Emails to Your Hard Drive with Acrobat
This week, I’ve created a video tutorial to demonstrate how to use Adobe Acrobat to move emails out of Microsoft Outlook onto your hard drive. Click here to read more.
