Latest 2 Cases: United States v. RaPower-3 (Business Law), Hinkle v. Beckham County Board of County (Civil Rights)

William Barr Has Made the Federal Death Penalty a Weapon in Trump’s Campaign Arsenal

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost, Associate Dean of the Faculty, and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College—comments on Attorney General William Barr’s recent order to resume federal executions and the political implications of that order. Sarat briefly describes the history of the federal death penalty in the United States and explains that, regardless of what state we live in, when the federal government puts someone to death, it does so in all of our names.

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United States v. RaPower-3

Docket: 19-4089

Opinion Date: June 22, 2020

Judge: Scott Milne Matheson, Jr.

Areas of Law: Business Law, Civil Procedure

In 2015, the Government filed a civil action against Neldon Johnson, Gregory Shepard, and Johnson’s three companies: RaPower-3 LLC (“RaPower”), International Automated Systems, Inc. (“IAS”), and LTB1, LLC (“LTB”) (collectively, Defendants). The Government alleged Defendants promoted an abusive tax scheme. Following a bench trial, the district court found for the Government, enjoined the Defendants from further promoting their scheme, and ordered disgorgement of ill-gotten gains. In 2018, the district court appointed a receiver (Appellee) to take control of Defendants' assets and to investigate whether their affiliated entities possessed proceeds from the illicit tax scheme. On the Receiver’s recommendation, the court added 13 nonparty affiliated entities to the Receivership. Six of the added entities (“Appellant Entities”) appeals, arguing the district court included them in the Receivership without providing sufficient due process. Finding the "Receivership Expansion Order" was not immediately appealable because the Appellant Entities did not show the order was final, the Tenth Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

Hinkle v. Beckham County Board of County

Docket: 18-6202

Opinion Date: June 22, 2020

Judge: Gregory Alan Phillips

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

"A series of coincidences and mistaken beliefs led to the arrest of Laramie Hinkle for possessing a stolen trailer that was not even stolen. And things got worse from there." After investigation showed Hinkle innocent, he sued, alleging as unlawful his arrest, the press release, and the body-cavity strip search by the sheriff's office that arrested him. While the Tenth Circuit sympathized with Hinkle, it found the deputy sheriff had probable cause for the arrest, that the deputy arrested Hinkle based on that probable cause, and that the district court did not err in dismissing Hinkle’s claim that the sheriff issued the press release to retaliate against Hinkle. That said, the Court concluded the body-cavity strip search was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. And because this unlawful search was based on the County’s indiscriminate strip-search policy, the Court held the Beckham County, Oklahoma was directly liable.