The case involves defendant Richard Red Elk, who was charged with the murder of a twenty-month-old child on the Cheyenne River Reservation in violation of federal law. Red Elk moved to dismiss the indictment, alleging multiple instances of prosecutorial misconduct before the grand jury, including improper comments on evidence, calling his ten-year-old son as a witness, intimidating witnesses, and pressuring the grand jury. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation and denied the motion without prejudice to raising the issue after trial. The court reasoned that an indictment may be dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct only upon a showing of flagrant error that significantly infringes on the grand jury's ability to exercise independent judgment and actually prejudices the defendant, and no such showing was made here.
This case involved a dispute between two insurance companies over coverage for a wrongful termination lawsuit against their mutual insured, Tri-State Electric. Crum & Forster, which provided an umbrella policy and defended the suit after Pacific Employers denied coverage under its commercial general liability policy, sought reimbursement for the $66,267.14 it spent to settle the claim. The court granted summary judgment to Pacific, holding that it had no duty to defend because the underlying complaint alleged only wrongful termination, which did not fall within the policy's defined personal injury coverage for offenses such as false arrest, libel, or invasion of privacy. Although the complaint mentioned reputational injury, the court found it did not arguably trigger coverage and rejected speculation about potential claims that might have arisen in discovery.
In Thompson v. Ellenbecker, plaintiffs with more than $1,000 in child support arrears challenged South Dakota statutes that barred issuance or renewal of driver's licenses and certain professional licenses to such individuals, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief on grounds that the laws violated substantive and procedural due process as well as equal protection. The court first ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing to contest the professional-license statute. It then upheld the driver's-license statute under rational-basis review, finding no fundamental right or suspect classification at issue and concluding that the restrictions were rationally related to the legitimate state interest in collecting child support; the required stipulation for continued payments was also deemed consistent with procedural due process. The court granted summary judgment to the defendants and denied the plaintiffs' motion.
This case concerned whether the Farmers Home Administration retained a lien on real estate sale proceeds after Ralph and Delores Harmon completed payments under a confirmed Chapter 12 bankruptcy reorganization plan. The court granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs, holding that FmHA had no remaining claim on the escrowed proceeds once both the secured claim (capped at the property's bankruptcy valuation) and the agreed unsecured claim portion had been paid in full. The core reasoning was that Chapter 12 reorganization under the Bankruptcy Code bifurcates claims under 11 U.S.C. § 506(a), limits secured claims to the property's value at plan confirmation, and releases liens upon full payment per the plan and 11 U.S.C. § 1227(c), distinguishing this from Chapter 7 lien survival precedents like Dewsnup v. Timm.
The case involved defendant Wayne Robert Haggerty, a Canadian citizen charged with illegal reentry into the United States after prior deportation following a conviction for an aggravated felony under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(b)(2). Haggerty moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that his June 1994 California conviction for unauthorized possession of methamphetamine was not an aggravated felony because it was not a felony under state law. The magistrate judge recommended denial after finding that the offense qualified as a felony under California Penal Code provisions (as the court had suspended sentence without declaring it a misdemeanor) and met the federal definition of a drug trafficking crime punishable under the Controlled Substances Act. The district court conducted a de novo review, adopted the report and recommendations, and denied the motion to dismiss.
This case involved plaintiffs Chance Management, Inc., a South Dakota corporation majority-owned by a Wyoming resident, and William A. Sanders challenging South Dakota's statutory residency requirement for video lottery machine operator licenses after their application was denied. The court granted summary judgment to the state defendants on all claims. It reasoned that the Commerce Clause did not apply because the state was participating in the market through its control of lottery operations, programs, and machines rather than merely regulating private activity. The Equal Protection Clause was not violated because the residency rule was rationally related to legitimate state purposes. The individual plaintiff lacked standing to assert a Privileges and Immunities Clause claim, as corporations cannot invoke the clause and he suffered no separate injury.
