Even if the prior panel had erred, the extent of a district court’s discretion on remand is not determined by our fallibility or the district court’s satisfaction with our explanation. The court’s discretion on remand is determined by the limitations expressly imposed on it by our mandate. This court need not plumb the depths and details of an issue to preclude further argument about it on remand.On those occasions, hopefully few and far between, when this court is wrong or unclear, the district courts are not in the position to engage in error correction on remand. We have processes in place to ensure parties can have errors corrected: petitions for panel rehearings, rehearings en banc, and writs of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court. Dutch pursued these processes following Dutch I to no avail. If the mandate rule means anything, it must mean that a district court cannot disregard a specific mandate on remand because it disagrees with it or thinks it insufficiently explained.
Sunday, November 22, 2020
Tenth Circuit Breviaries
Thursday, November 5, 2020
Some justice for Olin Pete Coones
A Wyandotte County judge Thursday vacated the 2009 murder conviction of Olin “Pete” Coones, who says he was framed in a double shooting that was actually a murder-suicide.
After more than 12 years behind bars, Coones left the courthouse a free man.
The Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office moved to drop the charges against Coones, now 63, after the judge found Coones received an unfair trial in the 2008 shooting deaths of Kathleen and Carl Schroll.
It is a complicated story, one expertly told in the beautifully written petition. Really, here is the opening paragraph:
Kathleen Schroll’s last scheme was her most ambitious one. Granted, her first one netted her around $30,000 in cash, a house, and a $46,000 life-insurance policy. And her second one, requiring her to falsify bank records, paid her about $11,000. But with her last scheme, Kathleen aimed to steal someone’s life.
In sum, prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence, ignored alibi evidence, withheld information from the medical examiner, and sponsored an untrustworthy jailhouse snitch to convict Mr. Coones. The prosecution was led by WyCo assistant prosecutor Edmund “Ed” Brancart, under then-WyCo DA Jerome Gorman. The MIP explains the case more fully here.
This was the first case to go through Wyandotte County's Conviction Integrity Unit, under the supervision of current WyCo District Attorney Mark Dupree.
The winning team. Our best to Mr. Coones and his family.
-- Melody
Monday, November 2, 2020
Who you gonna call? 1-866-OUR-VOTE