Court Opinion

ID: 9886349
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 16:00:46.190351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:49:32.234358
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                            For the Eighth Circuit
                        ___________________________

                                No. 22-1381
                        ___________________________

                             United States of America

                        lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee

                                           v.

                                    Lyle Newsom

                       lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant
                                       ____________

                     Appeal from United States District Court
                 for the Western District of Missouri - Springfield
                                  ____________

                         Submitted: September 18, 2023
                            Filed: October 6, 2023
                                 [Unpublished]
                                 ____________

Before SMITH, Chief Judge, ARNOLD and ERICKSON, Circuit Judges.
                              ____________

PER CURIAM.

       Lyle Newsom was charged in a federal court in Iowa with possessing a firearm
as a person adjudicated as a mental defective. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4). That court
determined that Newsom was incompetent to proceed, see id. § 4241(a), and so
ordered that he be committed to the custody of the attorney general to determine
whether there was a substantial probability that Newsom would, in the foreseeable
future, attain the requisite capacity for the proceedings to go forward. See id.
§ 4241(d). Tracking the language of § 4241(d), the court ordered that Newsom remain
in the attorney general's custody "for such a reasonable period of time, not to exceed
four months, as is necessary" to reach a determination. The attorney general
ultimately recommended that Newsom was not likely to be restored to competency
in the foreseeable future. The court adopted the attorney general's recommendation.

       So the government petitioned a federal court1 in Missouri, located in the district
where Newsom was confined, for an order civilly committing him under 18 U.S.C.
§ 4246(a). See United States v. Ryan, 52 F.4th 719, 721 n.2 (8th Cir. 2022). As
relevant here, § 4246(a) applies to someone "who has been committed to the custody
of the Attorney General pursuant to section 4241(d)" as Newsom had been. Newsom
moved to dismiss the petition on the ground that he was not then lawfully committed
to the custody of the attorney general because his custody had extended beyond the
four-month period specified in the Iowa court's order and § 4241(d). The district court
denied Newsom's motion.

      Newsom maintains that the district court erred in refusing to hold that he was
not lawfully in the custody of the attorney general. He also maintains that his
extended stay with the attorney general violated due process. But as Newsom appears
to concede, a panel of this court recently rejected these very same arguments. See
United States v. Ryan, 52 F.4th 719 (8th Cir. 2022). The decision of that prior panel
binds us. See United States v. Hall, 44 F.4th 799, 806 (8th Cir. 2022).

      Affirmed.
                        ______________________________

      1
       The Honorable Douglas Harpool, United States District Judge for the Western
District of Missouri.

                                          -2-