U.S. v. Madrid, 2013 WL 1632692 (4/17/13) (N.M.) (Published) - The 10th finds reasonable suspicion to stop the car the defendant was driving in the following circumstances: an unidentified tipster reported that in a parking lot of an apartment complex in Bernalillo, NM there were two men arguing and "getting into each other's faces," appearing as though they were about to fight; the caller said he was worried for his fiancee who was supposed to arrive there soon; the tipster described one of the cars and the clothing of the arguing men; the tipster saw no weapons; as he was talking to the 911 operator, the caller saw police cars drive past the parking lot entrance and then the suspects "scattering" with the described car about to leave the lot; An officer stopped the described car the defendant was driving, leading to the discovery of a firearm the defendant wasn't supposed to have. The 10th upholds the d. ct.'s finding that the stopping officer was unaware a physical fight never occurred; the fight could have happened in the couple of minutes between the original dispatch and the officer's arrival. It didn't matter that the officers didn't subjectively believe the defendant was trying to evade the police; the imaginary objective observer could have surmised that was so. The crime the officers were investigating was serious, involving a threat to public safety. So the intrusion on the defendant's personal security was brief and minimal and the government had a strong interest. The 10th characterized the tipster as "marginally less truly anonymous" than the unrecorded tip from an unknown location in J.L. The 10th conceded the police might not have been able to identify the caller because he might have left the parking lot once the police arrived and so there was significantly less information about the tipster in this case than in the 10th's prior tipster cases. Nonetheless, there were enough indicia of the tipster's reliability to justify the stop: he said where he was calling from; there was no reason to believe the tipster wouldn't have provided identifying information if the dispatcher had asked him to; there was no indication he was making up the story; he was reporting his contemporaneous, first-hand knowledge; he gave a detailed account; he said he was motivated to call because of his concern for his fiancee; and the officers verified some of the information he gave [albeit nothing relating to the supposedly imminent, but non-existent, fight], including the arguers leaving the lot. there was no need for him to exhibit inside knowledge because he was reporting on a public event [an event that was not a crime].

U.S. v. Chapman, 2013 WL 1613228 (4/16/13) (N.M.) (unpub'd) - It was okay for Judge Browning, in explaining the rationale for the defendant's sentence, to distinguish the defendant's case involving soliciting bribes from Manny Aragon's on the grounds, among others, that Aragon waived his right to appeal and the defendant did not. The absence of an appellate waiver is not one of the few exceptions to the sort of information a sentencing court may consider. And, besides, any error was harmless, given the many reasons the d. ct. gave for distinguishing Aragon's case and the many other cases it compared and the 7 other factors the d. ct. relied upon.

U.S. v. Fivaz, 2013 WL 1501977 (4/15) (Wyo.) (unpub'd) - The 10th rejects a plain error challenge to delegating to the probation officer the decision whether the defendant would have to participate in cognitive behavioral therapy as a condition of supervised release. The defendant did not demonstrate such a condition would touch on a significant liberty interest in a manner analogous to requiring residential treatment, penile plethysmographic testing or forced administration of psychotropic medication [which are instances the 10th has recognized do implicate a significant liberty interest in the probation officer delegation context].