Opinion ID: 617962
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether the Indictment Sufficiently Charges a Crime

Text: Mr. Irving first argues that the indictment was defective. More specifically, he contends that the interplay between attempt and conspiring in the indictment resulted in the government's failure to charge a cognizable federal offense. We rejected an identical challenge in Mr. Washington's appeal. [11] See Washington, 653 F.3d at 1257-61. Although the law of the case doctrine is not a limit on our power, see, e.g., United States v. Monsisvais, 946 F.2d 114, 116 (10th Cir.1991), nor an inexorable command, United States v. Alvarez, 142 F.3d 1243, 1247 (10th Cir. 1998) (quoting White v. Murtha, 377 F.2d 428, 431 (5th Cir.1967)) (internal quotation marks omitted), and is subject to very limited exceptions, see, e.g., Alvarez, 142 F.3d at 1247, [12] we conclude that the doctrine applies to our rejection of Mr. Washington's indictment challenge, see United States v. LaHue, 261 F.3d 993, 1010-11 (10th Cir.2001) (The law of the case doctrine posits that when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same case. Furthermore, when a rule of law has been decided adversely to one or more codefendants, the law of the case doctrine precludes all other codefendants from relitigating the legal issue (citation omitted) (quoting Alvarez, 142 F.3d at 1247; United States v. Aramony, 166 F.3d 655, 661 (4th Cir. 1999)) (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also United States v. Wardell, 591 F.3d 1279, 1306 n. 16 (10th Cir.2009) (Our analysis and rulings in [Mr. Wardell's codefendant's case] apply with full force to Mr. Wardell's arguments and are law of the case), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 430, 181 L.Ed.2d 280, 2011 WL 4770782 (Oct. 11, 2011); In re Integra Realty Res., Inc., 354 F.3d 1246, 1258-59 (10th Cir.2004) (noting the applicability of the law of the case doctrine to codefendants' claims). Accordingly, we are precluded from reconsidering this issue, and Mr. Irving is not entitled to relief.