Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-15-01104/USCOURTS-ca10-15-01104-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Mikeal G. Stine
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

_________________________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee, 

v.

MIKEAL G. STINE, 

 Defendant - Appellant.

No. 15-1104

(D.C. No. 1:13-CR-00491-CMA-1)

(D. Colo.)

_________________________________

ORDER

_________________________________

Before KELLY, LUCERO, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges.

_________________________________

The defendant, Mikeal G. Stine, filed a pro se notice of appeal identifying three 

interlocutory district court minute orders as the subjects of the appeal. This court 

challenged the defendant to demonstrate why this court has jurisdiction to consider the 

appeal. See 10th Cir. R. 27.2(B). Through his appointed counsel, the defendant filed a 

response. The court also directed the government to answer the jurisdictional question 

and respond to the defendant’s argument on jurisdiction, which it did. Upon consideration 

of the parties’ submissions, the record, and the applicable law, we dismiss the appeal for 

lack of appellate jurisdiction.

Appellate courts generally have jurisdiction to review only final decisions of 

district courts. 28 U.S.C. § 1291. A criminal case is not considered final “until 

conviction and imposition of sentence.” Flanagan v. United States, 465 U.S. 259, 263 

FILED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

April 27, 2015

Elisabeth A. Shumaker

Clerk of Court

Appellate Case: 15-1104 Document: 01019421342 Date Filed: 04/27/2015 Page: 1 
2

(1984). The defendant has not been convicted in the underlying proceedings. Thus, no 

final order or judgment exists from which the defendant can appeal.

While the defendant agreed that none of the orders appears to be immediately 

appealable, he argued in his response to our order to show cause that the action he is 

actually seeking from this court is to “require the district court to consider the pro se 

motions that he has filed and rule upon them.” (Aplt. Resp. at 2.) But this relief is not 

obtainable via appeal. See, e.g., In re: Cooper Tire & Rubber Co., 568 F.3d 1180, 1186 

(10th Cir. 2009) (noting that a writ of mandamus is different than an appeal because the 

writ is used “to confine an inferior court to a lawful exercise of its prescribed jurisdiction 

to compel it to exercise its authority when it is its duty to do so”). We take judicial notice 

that the defendant has filed a petition for writ of mandamus seeking similar relief. See 

Case No. 15-1117, In re: Stine.

Furthermore, the case the defendant cited as grounds for ordering the district court 

to rule on the defendant’s motions is unpersuasive. United States v. McConnell, 749 F.2d 

1441, 1448 (10th Cir. 1984). The defect cited by the district court and reason for striking 

the pro se motions can be resolved: counsel can file the motions rather than the pro se 

defendant. The issues would then be preserved for any future appeal from the final 

judgment. In sum, the defendant has offered no authority supporting this court’s 

jurisdiction to entertain his interlocutory appeal.

The government agreed that none of the orders being appealed is a final order 

under § 1291. The government also addressed whether the orders might fall into an 

exception to the final judgment rule under the “collateral order doctrine” first described 

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in Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949). Exceptions to the 

final judgment rule are particularly rare in criminal cases. Flanagan at 264. “Under the 

collateral-order doctrine, we can hear immediate appeals of decisions before final

judgment that ‘[1] finally determine claims of right [2] separable from, and collateral to, 

rights asserted in the action, [and] [3] too important to be denied review and too 

independent of the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be deferred until the 

whole case is adjudicated.” United States v. Angilau, 717 F.3d 781, 785 (10th Cir. 2013) 

(quoting Cohen) (alterations in original). The government provided several reasons why 

the collateral order doctrine does not apply here, but we focus only on the first: the 

district court’s minute orders did not “finally determine claims of right.” The orders at 

issue here only identified a procedural defect with the defendant’s motions and did not 

conclusively decide the merits. As noted above, the procedural issue can be resolved if 

counsel files the motions instead. As a result, the collateral order doctrine does not apply 

to the orders being appealed.

In conclusion, the court lacks jurisdiction to consider this appeal. The appeal is 

therefore dismissed.

Entered for the Court

ELISABETH A. SHUMAKER, Clerk

by: Lara Smith

 Counsel to the Clerk

Appellate Case: 15-1104 Document: 01019421342 Date Filed: 04/27/2015 Page: 3