District Court, D. Montana — appointed by George W. Bush
United States v. Elk-Booth
District Court, D. Montana · 2011-09-28
In this case, Defendant Charles Spotted Elk-Booth, Jr. was convicted by a jury of attempted aggravated sexual abuse but acquitted of related charges including aggravated sexual abuse and kidnaping; the conviction was later reversed on appeal due to an erroneous jury instruction on intoxication as a defense. On remand, the defendant moved to dismiss the superseding indictment, arguing that retrial on the attempt charge would violate the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause because the original indictment failed to properly allege specific intent for the attempt offense and was duplicitous. The court denied the motion, holding that jeopardy had not terminated in a way that barred retrial after reversal of a conviction for the same offense, that any defects in the original indictment were either cured or waived by failure to object before the first trial, and that attempt is treated as the same offense for double jeopardy purposes. The decision relied on precedents establishing that retrial is permitted following appellate reversal and that objections to duplicity must be raised timely.
criminal lawprocedure
KORTLANDER v. Bureau of Land Management
District Court, D. Montana · 2011-09-13 · cited 2×
The case concerned multiple FOIA requests submitted by plaintiff Christopher Kortlander to the Bureau of Land Management seeking records related to investigations involving him, his business Historical Rarities, Inc., and the Custer Battlefield Museum, including law enforcement actions and forensic testing; responses were delayed in part due to a pending criminal investigation. After the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment and the court conducted an in camera review of thousands of pages, it granted summary judgment to the BLM and denied the plaintiff's motion. The court held that the agency had conducted an adequate search reasonably calculated to locate responsive documents and properly applied FOIA exemptions, including those protecting confidential sources in law enforcement records under 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(D).
criminal lawprocedure
KORTLANDER v. Cornell
District Court, D. Montana · 2011-09-12 · cited 3×
This case involves a Bivens lawsuit brought by Christopher Kortlander and his businesses against federal law enforcement agents from the Department of the Interior, alleging violations of multiple constitutional amendments stemming from a multi-year investigation into the sale of fraudulent historical artifacts and illegal possession of eagle parts. The investigation led to two searches of the plaintiffs' property in 2005 and 2008, during which items were seized but never resulted in charges, with most property eventually returned. The court granted the defendants' motion for judgment on the pleadings and dismissed the complaint with prejudice, finding that claims related to the 2005 search were barred by the statute of limitations, while the remaining claims failed to plausibly allege violations of constitutional rights. The court also denied the plaintiffs' motion to amend the complaint, concluding that the proposed amendments did not cure the deficiencies. Core reasoning centered on the implausibility of the claims, lack of recognized causes of action in some instances, and the sufficiency of probable cause for the searches based on the underlying affidavits.
criminal lawcivil rightsprocedure
Cox v. Yellowstone County
District Court, D. Montana · 2011-06-13 · cited 1×
In Cox v. Yellowstone County, plaintiff James Cox sued Yellowstone County after his mobile home was seized and sold at public auction under Montana’s agisters’ lien statute (Mont. Code Ann. § 71-3-1203) to satisfy a claimed storage debt, alleging that the process denied him any opportunity to be heard or contest the lien before the deprivation. The U.S. District Court denied the County’s motion for summary judgment and instead entered judgment for Cox, holding that the statute’s enforcement provisions are unconstitutional as written under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The court reasoned that the statute permits government-assisted seizure and sale of property based solely on an affidavit, with only post-deprivation notice and no pre-deprivation hearing, which fails to provide a meaningful opportunity to be heard as required by established precedent. The ruling applies to the statute on its face, as the court found no circumstances in which it could satisfy procedural due process.
civil rightspropertyprocedure
Cole v. Federal Bureau of Investigations
District Court, D. Montana · 2010-06-17
This case involves claims by individual plaintiffs and personal representatives of two deceased crime victims on the Crow Indian Reservation against the FBI and federal officials, alleging discriminatory failure to investigate or prosecute crimes in violation of equal protection and due process rights under the Fifth Amendment, along with related Bivens and statutory claims. The court adopted the magistrate judge's recommendations and dismissed all individual-capacity claims by the plaintiffs for lack of Article III standing, while allowing certain representative-capacity claims by the personal representatives to proceed against one defendant. The core reasoning was that the individual plaintiffs failed to allege a concrete, particularized, or imminent injury-in-fact, as their alleged harms were abstract, shared with many others, and dependent on speculative chains of causation involving third parties; in contrast, the personal representatives had standing under Ninth Circuit precedent to challenge discriminatory law enforcement practices affecting the victims they represented.
civil rightsfederal powercriminal lawprocedure
Indreland v. Yellowstone County Board of Commissioners
District Court, D. Montana · 2010-03-08 · cited 3×
This case involved a state prisoner, Indreland, suing Yellowstone County detention facility officials for alleged violations of his First Amendment free exercise rights and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The claims centered on the denial of a Satanic medallion, placement of Christian greeting cards under his cell door, segregation from other inmates, and failure to protect him, which he attributed to his Satanist beliefs. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's findings and granted partial summary judgment to the county defendants on the medallion, segregation, failure to protect, and greeting card claims, while dismissing several defendants including the sheriff and undersheriff. The court reasoned that the facility had a legitimate penological interest in restricting chains for safety reasons, that segregation resulted from inmate fights rather than religion, that no evidence connected defendants to the greeting cards, and that §1983 claims could not proceed on respondeat superior grounds alone. Ruling was reserved on remaining issues involving access to Satanic texts pending further briefing.
religious libertycivil rights