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Civil Rights and Criminal Matters

By FindLaw Staff on March 26, 2010 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

In US v. King, No. 08-3822, the Eighth Circuit vacated defendant's firearm possession sentence, on the ground that the court of appeals was unable to resolve, without conjecture, whether defendant's prior adjudication of juvenile delinquency qualified as a conviction for a violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act, because the court could not determine in the first instance whether defendant's juvenile adjudication involved possessing a sawed-off rifle as opposed to possessing some "other implement," such as a knife.

McMullan v. Roper, No. 09-1176, concerned a murder prosecution in which the district court denied petitioner's habeas petition.  The court of appeals affirmed, on the ground that a Missouri Supreme Court Rule 74.06 petition did not qualify as a properly filed application for state post-conviction or other collateral review so as to toll the statute of limitations under 28 U.S.C. section 2244(d)(2).

King v. Iowa Dept. of Corrs., No. 09-1912, concerned an action by a prisoner claiming that he was unlawfully ordered to clean up effluents after a clogged toilet in one of the cells caused a floor drain in the common area to overflow.  The court of appeals affirmed the dismissal of the complaint, holding that plaintiff did not appeal either grievance response he received to the warden and thus failed to exhaust his administrative remedies.

In US v. Amerson, No. 09-1984, the court of appeals affirmed defendant's conviction for possessing a firearm after a domestic violence conviction, on the grounds that 1) at his plea hearing, defendant assented to facts showing that he had a prior domestic violence conviction; and 2) the state court in the domestic violence case had no duty to advise defendant of the possibility of a future firearm conviction.

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