Opinion ID: 3153543
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Government Breach Claim Is Moot

Text: Mr. Fisher contends the district court erred by failing to rule on his request to find the Government in breach of the plea agreement for failing to dismiss the second indictment before he was sentenced. He argues the “Government’s breach of its plea - 11 - agreement obligations requires remand for resentencing before a different judge.” Aplt. Br. at 22. We may reach the merits of Mr. Fisher’s appeal only if (1) Mr. Fisher’s appeal waiver is unenforceable, and (2) his claims are not moot. “The mootness question necessarily constitutes our threshold inquiry, because the existence of a live case or controversy is a constitutional prerequisite to the jurisdiction of the federal courts.” In re L.F. Jennings Oil Co., 4 F.3d 887, 889 (10th Cir. 1993) (quotation omitted). We review mootness de novo as a legal question. Id.
“Article III of the United States Constitution limits the jurisdiction of federal courts to the adjudication of ‘Cases’ or ‘Controversies.’” Jordan v. Sosa, 654 F.3d 1012, 1019 (10th Cir. 2011) (quoting U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1). This case-or-controversy limitation requires that parties continue to have a personal stake in the outcome of a lawsuit during all stages of litigation, including appellate review. See United States v. Juvenile Male, 131 S. Ct. 2860, 2864 (2011); Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 7 (1998); S. Utah Wilderness All. v. Smith, 110 F.3d 724, 727 (10th Cir. 1997) (“Article III mootness is ‘the doctrine of standing set in a time frame: The requisite personal interest that must exist at the commencement of the litigation (standing) must continue throughout its existence (mootness).’” (quoting Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 520 U.S. 43, 68 n.22 (1997))). “We have held a case or controversy no longer exists when it is impossible to grant any effectual relief.” Chihuahuan Grasslands All. v. Kempthorne, 545 F.3d 884, - 12 - 891 (10th Cir. 2008); see also S. Utah Wilderness All., 110 F.3d at 727 (“[T]o be cognizable, a suit must be ‘a real and specific controversy admitting of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character.’” (quoting Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U.S. 395, 401 (1975))). A claim is moot if a party has already obtained the only relief it seeks. See S. Utah Wilderness All., 110 F.3d at 727 (affirming district court’s finding that case was moot where “the only relief sought . . . has already been obtained”).
Mr. Fisher’s claim for government breach of the plea agreement is moot. He has already received all the relief he requested for that alleged breach. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(i)(3)(B) provides that “[a]t sentencing, the court . . . must—for any disputed portion of the presentence report or other controverted matter—rule on the dispute or determine that a ruling is unnecessary either because the matter will not affect sentencing, or because the court will not consider the matter in sentencing.” Mr. Fisher contends the court violated this rule when it declined to decide his “disputed” motion to find the Government had breached the plea agreement and instead determined the alleged governmental breach should be addressed in his structuring case. This claim is moot because, even if the district court erred in declining to decide this issue, or even if the court had determined the Government had breached the plea agreement, Mr. Fisher received everything he requested by way of relief. He asked the district court only for release from paragraphs 1(c)-(g) of the plea agreement, which - 13 - concern his cooperation obligations, as the sole remedy for the Government’s alleged breach.1 At the sentencing hearing, Mr. Fisher obtained release from his cooperation obligations. The prosecutor announced that the Government had “no intention of asking [Mr. Fisher] to cooperate any further” and that it “d[id] not intend to take his deposition, [and] d[id] not intend for him to provide any more information.” ROA, Vol. 3 at 126. Although the parties did not execute any formal amendment of the plea agreement to clarify that Mr. Fisher’s duty to cooperate terminated with the entry of judgment, the entirety of the transcript indicates that it did. The district court confirmed this interpretation when it told defense counsel that the Government had “conceded that they are no longer able to enforce any obligation on Mr. Fisher’s part to continue to cooperate in the identification and recovery of assets.” ROA, Vol. 3 at 132 (116:19-22). Mr. Fisher has obtained “the only relief [he] sought” for the Government’s alleged breach of the plea agreement. S. Utah Wilderness All., 110 F.3d at 727. That relief renders his breach claim moot and divests us of subject matter jurisdiction over the breach issue. Id. Accordingly, we have neither the need nor the authority to decide whether Mr. Fisher has waived his right to bring this appeal on the breach claim or whether his claim is meritorious. 1 The motion containing that request also sought a sentence of time served. But Mr. Fisher requested time served only as a remedy for the Government’s alleged prosecutorial vindictiveness—not as a remedy for breach of the plea agreement. We address the vindictive prosecution part of his motion below. - 14 - B. Vindictive Prosecution Claim Was Waived and Forfeited We do not consider Mr. Fisher’s vindictive prosecution claim because he has waived it through inadequate briefing. In any event, this claim also was forfeited in district court.2 1. Mr. Fisher Waived His Vindictive Prosecution Claim a. Requirement to Present Arguments in the Opening Brief We have said that the “first task of an appellant is to explain to us why the district court’s decision was wrong.” Nixon v. City & Cty. of Denver, 784 F.3d 1364, 1366 (10th Cir. 2015). We cannot rule on those issues the appellant does not bring to our attention. For this reason, 10th Circuit Rule 28(a)(8) instructs that the “appellant’s brief must contain, under appropriate headings and in the order indicated . . . appellant’s contentions and the reasons for them, with citations to the authorities and parts of the record on which the appellant relies.” 2 The Government argues in its motion to dismiss that Mr. Fisher’s Rule 32 vindictive prosecution claim is moot because it “stem[med] from the filing of the new indictment in the new case,” which was subsequently dismissed. Doc. 10231156 at 1011. We ordinarily decide subject matter jurisdiction questions such as mootness before addressing other issues. See Smith v. Rail Link, Inc., 697 F.3d 1304, 1313 (10th Cir. 2012). But “[f]ederal courts may choose to avoid difficult subject matter jurisdiction questions and dispose of a case on a ‘threshold, nonmerits issue,’ . . . so long as resolving the issue ‘does not entail any assumption by the court of substantive law-declaring power.’” Valenzuela v. Silversmith, 699 F.3d 1199, 1205 (10th Cir. 2012) (quoting Sinochem Int’l Co. v. Malay. Int’l Shipping Corp., 549 U.S. 422, 433, 436 (2007)). Here, deciding Mr. Fisher’s vindictive prosecution claim on the basis of inadequate briefing and forfeiture resolves a “nonmerits issue” that “does not entail any assumption . . . of substantive law-declaring power.” We may therefore pass over the question of whether the Government mooted that claim by dismissing the structuring charges against Mr. Fisher. - 15 - “Consistent with this requirement, we routinely have declined to consider arguments that are not raised, or are inadequately presented, in an appellant’s opening brief.” Bronson v. Swensen, 500 F.3d 1099, 1104 (10th Cir. 2007). The latter half of this formulation is as important as the former. While the “omission of an issue in an opening brief generally forfeits appellate consideration of that issue,” Kitchen v. Herbert, 755 F.3d 1193, 1208 (10th Cir. 2014) (quotation omitted), it is equally true that an “issue mentioned in a brief on appeal, but not addressed, is waived,” Utah Envtl. Cong. v. Bosworth, 439 F.3d 1184, 1194 n.2 (10th Cir. 2006); see also Muscogee (Creek) Nation v. Pruitt, 669 F.3d 1159, 1166 (10th Cir. 2012) (“[I]ssues designated for review are lost if they are not actually argued in the party’s brief.” (quotation omitted)). And the appellant must present his claims in a way that does not compel us to scavenge through his brief for traces of argument. See Nixon, 784 F.3d at 1370 (declining to address an argument in part because it was “misleadingly placed under a heading for a different issue”). b. Analysis In district court, Mr. Fisher claimed vindictive prosecution at the same time he moved to find the Government in breach of the plea agreement. The portion of his opening appeal brief that addresses Rule 32, however, only argues that the district court erroneously failed to rule on his government breach claim. There is no argument the district court also violated Rule 32 by sidestepping a ruling on his vindictive prosecution claim. See Aplt. Br. at 23 (“Clearly, raising governmental breach of the present plea agreement needs to be resolved prior to sentencing.”), 24 (“The issue raised here, breach of a plea agreement, is not trivial, and required a ruling from the district court.”). - 16 - Read generously, several stray sentences elsewhere in Mr. Fisher’s brief could be construed to present an argument that the district court should have ruled on his vindictive prosecution claim. See, e.g., Aplt. Br. at 24-25 (“The district court’s error in this case stems from its erroneous belief that sentencing Fisher would moot the underlying obligations of the plea agreement, and that issues of vindictive prosecution and breach of the plea agreement by the Government didn’t have to be decided for purposes of this sentencing, but simply in the new indictment’s case before a different judge.” (emphasis in original)). But these scattered sentences fail to comply with 10th Circuit Rule 28(a)(8) because they do not “contain, under appropriate headings and in the order indicated . . . appellant’s contentions and the reasons for them.” We therefore need not consider a Rule 32 argument regarding Mr. Fisher’s vindictive prosecution claim. See Bronson v. Swensen, 500 F.3d at 1104. Language in Mr. Fisher’s reply brief could be construed as an argument that the district court violated Rule 32 when it declined to rule on his vindictive prosecution claim. See Aplt. Reply Br. at 12 (disputing Government’s assertion that “defense trial counsel . . . fail[ed] to object to the district court’s ruling that it was deferring the prosecutorial vindictiveness claim to the new case and court”). But this language does not present Mr. Fisher’s “contentions and the reasons for them” any more clearly than his opening brief. Mr. Fisher’s Rule 32 vindictive prosecution claim is not properly before us, and we do not consider it. - 17 - 2. Mr. Fisher Forfeited His Vindictive Prosecution Claim in District Court Mr. Fisher also forfeited his Rule 32 vindictive prosecution argument because he did not object to the lack of a Rule 32 ruling in the district court and does not argue for plain error on appeal. If a defendant “ha[s] not raised a separate objection to the district court’s failure to make an appropriate finding under [. . . Rule 32(i)(3)(B)], our review [i]s limited to determining whether this alleged failure to make a specific finding amounted to plain error.” United States v. Warren, 737 F.3d 1278, 1284 (10th Cir. 2013) (second brackets in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). “[T]he failure to argue for plain error and its application on appeal . . . surely marks the end of the road for an argument for reversal not first presented to the district court.” United States v. Lamirand, 669 F.3d 1091, 1099 n.7 (10th Cir. 2012) (ellipsis in original) (quotation omitted). Mr. Fisher never invoked Rule 32 before the district court. It was therefore Mr. Fisher’s burden to argue in his opening brief that the district court committed plain error. He failed to do so.