William Paul Johnson

This case involves a trademark infringement and unfair competition claim by BASIS International Ltd. against Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM). BASIS, which has used the BBX mark for software for 26 years, sought a temporary restraining order to prevent RIM from using the BBX mark at a conference in Singapore. The court granted the TRO, finding it had jurisdiction under the Lanham Act to issue an injunction with extraterritorial effect because RIM's actions would have a significant effect on U.S. commerce. The reasoning centered on the potential irreparable harm to BASIS's goodwill and the lack of adequate legal remedies, despite the international aspects of the case.

business & regulatory

This case involves a plaintiff's motion to remand a lawsuit to state court after defendants removed it to federal court. The underlying complaint alleges battery, negligence, and constitutional violations against two county sheriff's deputies and their employer, the Taos County Board of Commissioners. The court denied the motion, holding that the notice of removal was timely because the thirty-day removal period runs from the date each defendant is served under the last-served defendant rule, and that service on one deputy was insufficient so his consent to removal was not required. The court adopted the last-served defendant approach over the first-served rule, noting a trend in case law favoring it to avoid unfairness where later-served defendants would otherwise lose removal rights before being brought into the case.

procedurecivil rights

This case involves the sentencing of defendant Jose Fernando Vallecillo-Rodriguez, who pled guilty to illegal reentry of a previously removed alien under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) and (b). The advisory Sentencing Guidelines range was calculated at 51 to 63 months, incorporating a 16-level enhancement for his prior second-degree murder conviction. The defendant requested a below-guidelines sentence of 38 months based on arguments including cultural assimilation, unusually harsh conditions of confinement, double-counting of old convictions, and reduced culpability due to his age at the time of prior offenses, but the court declined all such departures and variances. The court imposed a sentence within the guidelines range, reasoning that it properly reflected the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors such as the seriousness of the offense, just punishment, deterrence, public protection, and avoidance of unwarranted disparities.

immigrationcriminal law

This case involved sentencing determinations for defendant Mario Ochoa-Olivas, who was charged with illegal reentry after deportation under 8 U.S.C. § 1326. The government objected to a two-level reduction in the defendant's offense level for acceptance of responsibility under the Sentencing Guidelines, arguing that his guilty plea on the morning of trial—after jurors and witnesses had been summoned—did not timely demonstrate acceptance. The defendant separately moved for a downward departure, contending that the presentence report overrepresented his criminal history category of V by including points from an old 1988 marijuana conviction and recency points tied to supervised release. The court sustained the government's objection and denied the motion, reasoning that the late plea failed to qualify for the reduction under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1 and that the criminal history calculation accurately reflected the defendant's repeated immigration offenses and probation violations without substantial overrepresentation under U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3.

immigrationcriminal law

In this case, defendant Camille Lente pled guilty to three counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of assault resulting in serious bodily injury after a drunk-driving crash on an Indian reservation that killed three people and seriously injured a fourth. The advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines range was 46 to 57 months, but following an initial above-guidelines sentence of 216 months that was vacated on appeal, the district court resentenced Lente to 192 months' imprisonment. The court determined that an upward variance was justified under the factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), citing the defendant's blood alcohol level of 0.21, her five prior tribal convictions and probation terms involving alcohol and violence, the extreme harm to multiple victims, and the need for the sentence to reflect the offense's seriousness and promote respect for the law.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved current and former employees of St. Vincent Hospital who filed a collective action in New Mexico state court alleging violations of the New Mexico Minimum Wage Act and state common law claims for unjust enrichment, based on the hospital's policy of deducting time for unpaid lunch breaks that employees were often unable to take due to staffing issues. The hospital removed the case to federal court, arguing that the claims were preempted by Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act because the employees were covered by collective bargaining agreements that addressed lunch breaks and pay. The court granted the plaintiffs' motion to remand, holding that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the state-law claims were independent of and did not require interpretation of the collective bargaining agreements. The core reasoning was that Section 301 preemption applies only when claims are substantially dependent on the agreements, allowing parallel state claims to proceed without federal displacement, and that defenses based on the agreements do not create federal jurisdiction.

labor & employmentfederal powerprocedure

In Torres v. McHugh, plaintiff Rosemary Torres, a GS-11 Budget Analyst for the Department of the Army, sued the Secretary of the Army claiming retaliation under Title VII and age discrimination under the ADEA after she was not selected for two budget analyst promotions in 2007 and 2008. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment, dismissing both claims. For the retaliation claim, the court found that Torres had not engaged in protected activity herself and produced no evidence of a causal connection to the non-selections, noting also that decision-makers were unaware of any related prior EEO activity. For the age discrimination claim, the court determined that the Army had provided legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for selecting other candidates based on qualifications, experience, and panel rankings, which Torres did not rebut. The 2008 position was filled via non-competitive reassignment of a qualified GS-13 employee, for which Torres was ineligible.

labor & employmentcivil rights

This case is a qui tam action under the False Claims Act alleging that Community Health Systems and related hospital defendants engaged in a scheme to manipulate New Mexico's Medicaid Sole Community Provider funding program, resulting in improper federal matching payments through non-bona fide provider donations and inter-governmental transfers. The defendants moved to dismiss the second amended complaint for insufficient pleading, lack of jurisdiction under 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A) for certain claims, and inapplicability of post-FERA amendments to the FCA. The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part, finding some allegations adequately pleaded material false statements or records under § 3729(a)(1)(B) that caused false claims, while dismissing others for failing to meet particularity requirements or jurisdictional bars. Core reasoning focused on whether the relator and government sufficiently alleged a direct or indirect link between provider contributions and Medicaid payments that violated federal regulations on bona fide donations, along with issues of retroactivity and causation in the submission of claims.

criminal lawhealthcarebusiness & regulatory

In Hernandez v. Donovan, a former Senior Project Manager at HUD sued the agency for allegedly breaching a 2004 settlement agreement that resolved prior discrimination claims, initially asserting a claim under the ADA and later seeking to amend the complaint to add claims of discrimination, retaliation, harassment, and constructive discharge under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act. The court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the original complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and denied the motion to amend as moot. The core reasoning was that the ADA expressly exempts the United States from coverage, precluding suits against federal agencies like HUD, and that federal courts lack jurisdiction over claims to enforce or reinstate EEO settlement agreements because 29 C.F.R. § 1614.504 requires employees to pursue specific administrative remedies with the agency or EEOC rather than filing directly in court. The court further determined that the proposed amended claims would not relate back to the original pleading under Rule 15(c) because they arose from different facts and time periods.

civil rightsprocedurelabor & employment

In this case, defendant Donald Scott Taylor faced federal charges including violent crimes in aid of racketeering for a murder as well as using firearms during crimes of violence and drug trafficking. He entered into a binding Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement in which he pled guilty to all counts in exchange for the government withdrawing its notice seeking the death penalty and the parties stipulating to a sentence of life imprisonment, which the court accepted. A dispute later arose because the firearm counts carry mandatory minimum consecutive sentences that would total life plus 35 years, creating tension between the plea agreement and statutory requirements. The court granted the defendant's motion for specific enforcement of the plea agreement and ordered a sentence of life imprisonment, reasoning that the agreement was binding once accepted and that the court would resolve the statutory ambiguity in the defendant's favor.

criminal lawprocedureguns

In this criminal case, the defendant faced charges related to a 2005 murder by gunshot, and the government intended to introduce expert testimony from a firearms examiner matching a recovered .30-30 rifle to the bullet that killed the victim. The defendant moved to exclude all such firearm identification evidence, arguing it failed to meet the reliability standards for expert testimony under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert. Following a hearing with competing experts, the court denied the motion to exclude, holding that the methodology allows an examiner to form opinions on matches based on observable, peer-reviewed markings imparted by a gun to a bullet. However, the court limited the testimony by prohibiting claims of scientific certainty or absolute exclusion of all other firearms, permitting only statements of a match to a reasonable degree of certainty in the firearms examination field.

criminal lawprocedureguns

In United States v. Taylor, the defendant faced charges including conspiracy to murder, murder, methamphetamine manufacturing, and multiple firearms offenses tied to the Aryan Brotherhood. The government sought to introduce expert testimony from a firearms examiner linking a recovered rifle to the crime, while the defendant intended to counter with Dr. Adina Schwartz, an academic critic of firearms and toolmark identification methods, to argue the field's inherent unreliability. The court granted the government's motion to exclude Dr. Schwartz's testimony after a Daubert hearing. It reasoned that she lacked the practical qualifications of a practitioner in the field, her proposed testimony would not meaningfully assist the jury beyond cross-examination of the government's expert, risked juror confusion through a collateral reliability challenge, and her methodology raised doubts due to inaccuracies in summarizing relevant literature.

criminal lawprocedure

In United States v. Taylor, the defendant moved to suppress incriminating statements he made to a government informant while in state prison custody on a parole violation, along with derivative evidence, arguing that the statements were coerced and obtained in violation of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. The court held an evidentiary hearing and denied the motion in full. The core reasoning was that Taylor was not subjected to custodial interrogation by law enforcement during the relevant period, his statements to the informant were voluntary and not the product of any constitutional violation, and the informant arrangement did not trigger Miranda or other protections in this context.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involves the United States seeking to reduce to judgment federal tax assessments against defendant Edelman totaling over $412 million for tax years spanning 1979 to 2003, following his conviction for tax fraud and conspiracy. Edelman had petitioned the Tax Court for redetermination of his liabilities but fled as a fugitive, resulting in dismissals of his petitions under the fugitive dismissal rule and final decisions on his tax deficiencies. The district court denied Edelman's motion to dismiss the collection action, granted the government's summary judgment motion in part for assessments not barred by the statute of limitations, and denied it in part for certain years where the limitations period had expired, reasoning that the prior Tax Court decisions established the deficiencies and that the limitations periods were suspended due to fraud, notices of deficiency, and pending proceedings.

taxescriminal lawprocedure

In United States v. Taylor, the defendant, charged with murder and other violent crimes in aid of racketeering and facing the death penalty under the Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA), moved for a four-phase trial that would separate the guilt phase from multiple distinct penalty phases to address eligibility, unadjudicated conduct, and other factors. The district court denied the motion. The court reasoned that Supreme Court precedents such as Apprendi and Ring require only that aggravating factors be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, which the FDPA already provides, and that the statute's evidentiary standards for the penalty phase are constitutional. The court further held there is no due process requirement for trifurcating the penalty phase, as congressional intent reflected in the FDPA favors a single penalty proceeding following the guilt phase.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission seeking a declaratory judgment to require Vonage, a provider of nomadic interconnected VoIP telecommunications services, to pay surcharges into the state's Universal Services Fund for rural telecommunications support. The court lifted a prior stay and overruled the plaintiff's objections to the magistrate judge's recommendation, adopting the recommendation to dismiss the case. The core reasoning was that the FCC's Vonage Preemption Order barred state regulation of such VoIP services due to the inherent difficulty in distinguishing interstate from intrastate traffic, and that challenges to the FCC's order must be pursued through federal channels rather than state lawsuits, consistent with rulings from the Eighth Circuit and other federal courts.

business & regulatoryfederal power

The case involved defendant Taylor, who faced federal charges including violent crimes in aid of racketeering and murder, with the government seeking the death penalty under the Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA), 18 U.S.C. § 3591 et seq. Taylor moved to declare the FDPA unconstitutional, arguing that its penalty-phase procedures—requiring jurors to find mental-state factors, statutory aggravating factors, and then weigh them against mitigating factors—are incomprehensible to reasonable jurors and result in arbitrary application of the death penalty, violating the Eighth Amendment and Due Process Clause; he alternatively sought an evidentiary hearing based on social science studies. The district court denied the motion without a hearing, holding that the FDPA's structure permits clarification through jury instructions, that the cited studies (none specific to the FDPA) failed to show intrinsic incomprehensibility, and that Taylor did not meet his burden to establish unconstitutionality.

criminal law

The case involved a defendant's lawyer filing a notice to remove an Arizona state court lawsuit (Jane Doe, a minor, by next friend Eva Hughes, et al. v. Isaac Martinez, et al.) from Maricopa County Superior Court to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico. The court granted the plaintiffs' motion to remand the case back to Arizona state court. It also awarded attorney's fees, expenses, and costs to the plaintiffs, to be paid by defense counsel. The core reasoning was that 28 U.S.C. §§ 1441 and 1446 plainly require removal only to the federal district embracing the location of the pending state action, which is Arizona, rendering the New Mexico filing jurisdictionally invalid on its face; the attorney's continued defense of the removal after notice justified sanctions under §§ 1447(c) and 1927.

procedure

In United States v. Taylor, the defendant filed a motion seeking broad discovery of materials related to the Department of Justice's process for authorizing federal capital prosecutions over the prior ten years, including data on the race of victims, in order to support a potential selective prosecution claim under the Federal Death Penalty Act. The court denied the motion, holding that Taylor failed to satisfy the demanding evidentiary threshold established in United States v. Armstrong for obtaining discovery in a selective prosecution case. Specifically, the defendant did not present clear evidence of discriminatory effect by identifying similarly situated defendants outside the protected class who were not prosecuted, nor any evidence of discriminatory purpose. The court further ruled that the requested materials concerning the government's deliberative process in deciding to seek the death penalty were protected by deliberative process and attorney work product privileges.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights

The case involves a breach of contract and covenant of good faith lawsuit filed by San Juan Basin Royalty Trust against Burlington Resources Oil & Gas Co. in New Mexico state court, which Burlington removed to federal court asserting diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332. The Trust moved to remand, contending that Burlington, as a limited partnership, must be deemed a citizen of every state where its partners reside and that the Trust itself takes on the citizenship of its beneficiaries rather than solely its trustee. The court granted the motion to remand, ruling that Burlington's notice of removal did not properly establish its citizenship under Supreme Court precedent governing unincorporated entities and that the Trust's beneficiaries reside in states overlapping with Burlington's, destroying complete diversity. The court further held that amendment of the removal notice would be futile and that the citizenship of the Trust's beneficiaries controls when the trust sues in its own name.

procedure