The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (in case citations, 1st Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:
MoreLIPEZ, Circuit Judge. This case requires us to apply the doctrine of judicial estoppel in somewhat unusual circumstances. While engaged in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy action, the appellant, Kevin Guay, brought numerous claims against the appellees, government officials and a police officer, seeking damages for an allegedly illegal search of his property. Guay, however, failed to amend his bankruptcy schedules, as required, to disclose the existence of his claims as newly acquired assets prior to...
NOT FOR PUBLICATION PER CURIAM. Defendant Harold Chorney, having been ordered in 1994 to pay $569,469 in restitution as part of a criminal sentence, appeals from a recent district court order requiring him to make installment payments of $500 per month. His principal arguments on appeal are that (1) the installment-payment provision is inapplicable and (2) his only two sources of income—a monthly social security benefit and a monthly veterans disability benefit—cannot be considered in...
THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. Preface Around midnight on a January evening in 2009, Viggens Guerrier and Christian German ducked into a crack house at 371 Manchester Street in Manchester, New Hampshire, looking for Dwight Bennett, a drug dealer who made a living taking crack from New York to New Hampshire for sale there. 1 They found him, and an irate German then robbed him of $1,500 and 10 grams of crack at gunpoint while Guerrier stood guard at the crack-house door. The backstory behind this—...
TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge. William V zquez-Rivera ("V zquez") was charged with (1) possession of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252(a)(4)(B), (2) three counts of transportation of child pornography via computer in interstate and/or foreign commerce in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252(a)(1), and (3) two counts related to use of the internet in order to transfer obscene matters to an individual the appellant knowingly believed to be under the age of sixteen in violation of 18 U.S.C....
SELYA, Circuit Judge. This appeal poses a question that has divided the circuits. The question, which is a matter of first impression for this court, is whether a state waives its sovereign immunity to a pleaded claim by removing that claim to the federal court. We conclude that a waiver occurs only if the removal confers an unfair advantage on the removing state. Because the district court reached this same conclusion and because its other rulings are unimpugnable, we affirm the judgment...
TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge. John Collins, ("Collins"), a professor at the University of New Hampshire ("UNH"), was arrested and charged with stalking and disorderly conduct after unleashing an expletive-filled tirade against a colleague whom he suspected of causing him to receive a parking ticket. Although the charges were later dismissed, Collins sued UNH and various UNH officials for false arrest, defamation, and violation of his due process rights. The district court granted judgment on the...
TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge. Defendant-Appellant Tiem Trinh ("Trinh") was convicted after a jury trial for the following charges: conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 1,000 kilograms or more of marijuana; money laundering; engaging in unlawful monetary transactions; and perjury. He now appeals his convictions on three grounds. First, he claims the district court improperly denied his motion to suppress evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant that he alleges was...
HOWARD, Circuit Judge. After a four-day trial, a jury in the District of Puerto Rico convicted Jose Rodr guez-Rodr guez of using an interstate commerce facility or means in attempting to persuade a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2422(b). 1 He presses two arguments in support of his appellate claims that the district court erroneously denied his post-trial motion for judgment of acquittal or for a new trial. First, he asserts that the indictment...
THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. Oleksandr Romer, a citizen of Ukraine who is married to a United States citizen, asks that we overturn an immigration-court decision denying his motion to reopen removal proceedings as time- and number-barred, rejecting his request that the time and number limitations be tolled, ordering him removed to Ukraine, and imposing a ten-year bar on any adjustment of status because he overstayed an earlier voluntary-departure deadline. Finding that the immigration court...
SELYA, Circuit Judge. After defendant-appellant Shawn C. Clogston pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of child pornography, the district court imposed a sentence within the guideline sentencing range (GSR). The appellant challenges this sentence. Concluding that the sentence is both procedurally sound and substantively reasonable, we affirm. This case has its genesis in a March 30, 2009, foray by agents of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Acting on a lead furnished...
LYNCH, Chief Judge. The district court denied state prisoner Reginald Butler's petition for habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2254 in a well-reasoned opinion. Butler v. O'Brien, No. 07cv11398, 2010 WL 607295 (D.Mass. Feb. 18, 2010). Butler appeals; we affirm the denial of relief. I. Butler was convicted in 2002 after a jury trial under the Massachusetts aggravated rape statute, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 265 22(a). The Massachusetts Appeals Court ("MAC") affirmed his conviction on appeal....
NOT FOR PUBLICATION PER CURIAM. We have reviewed the record and the parties' submissions, and we affirm. We bypass the question of whether the petitioner, Kenneth Ware ("Ware"), exhausted his federal due process claim in the state courts, see 28 U.S.C. 2254(b)(2), and we affirm the denial of his claim on the merits. Ware argues that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction under the Massachusetts Armed Career Criminal statute. See Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 269, 10G(b). He...
PER CURIAM. Gentian Hajdari is a native and citizen of Albania who entered the United States on a fraudulent Italian passport in December 2004. Italy participates in the Visa Waiver Program ("VWP"), which waives the visa requirement for entry into the United States for citizens of certain countries. 8 U.S.C. 1187(a) (2006). The program requires that anyone invoking this exemption to enter the United States also waive any right "to contest, other than on the basis of an application for...
SELYA, Circuit Judge. Defendant-appellant Gregory Pontoo stands convicted as a felon in possession of a firearm. 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). He asserts that the police stopped him on the street without reasonable suspicion and arrested him without probable cause. These infringements, he says, demand suppression of the weapon seized in the incident and dismissal of the charge against him. We think not. I. BACKGROUND The events surrounding the appellant's arrest took place in Lewiston, Maine. There...
LYNCH, Chief Judge. This case presents the issue of the constitutionality of an ordinance of the City of Providence requiring that, when there is a change in the identity of a hospitality employer, that employer must retain its predecessor's employees, subject to some conditions, for a three-month period. Plaintiffs, in their request for a pre-enforcement declaratory judgment that the ordinance is unlawful, contend that the ordinance is pre-empted under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA),...
HOWARD, Circuit Judge. This case raises issues of First Amendment law. At the center of the dispute is The Price of Sugar, a documentary film released in 2007 by film company Uncommon Productions, LLC, and its principal William M. Haney, III. The film depicts the treatment of Haitian laborers on sugarcane plantations in the Dominican Republic. It refers by name to brothers Felipe and Juan Vicini Lluberes, senior executives of a family conglomerate that owns and operates Dominican sugar...
HOWARD, Circuit Judge. Raymond Fogg, Jr. appeals his convictions for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana and for social security fraud, 1 claiming that the district court erred by admitting several hearsay statements. The government cross-appeals the district court's decision not to impose a forfeiture order. That decision was based on a finding of Fogg's inability to pay. We affirm appellant's conviction. We reverse the court's decision to decline to issue a final order...
HOWARD, Circuit Judge. After a six-day jury trial in July 2007, Michael Pelletier was convicted of various counts related to his role in the importation, possession and distribution of marijuana. 1 He was sentenced to life imprisonment. On appeal, he asserts that the district court erred when it admitted certain testimony, improperly instructed the jury, and denied his motion for acquittal based on insufficiency of the evidence. We affirm. I. Background We recite the relevant factual...
RIPPLE, Circuit Judge. Christine Hines originally brought this action in Massachusetts state court against the State Room, Inc., where she formerly was employed. 1 In the amended complaint, which was before the district court following removal, Ms. Hines and her coplaintiffs sought unpaid overtime wages that they claimed were due under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. 201-219, and related state statutes. In addition to the State Room, Longwood Events, Inc., Belle Mer,...
SELYA, Circuit Judge. A jury convicted defendant-appellant Jeffrey Martin Walker on charges of interstate stalking, cyberstalking, and mailing a threatening communication. On appeal, he challenges both the verdict and the ensuing sentence, presenting (among other issues) three questions of first impression in this circuit. Two of these questions involve statutory interpretation and the third involves the operation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(e). After careful consideration of...
