On the evening of July 1, 2019, Wagoner County Lieutenant Elizabeth Crockett and Deputy Matthew Lott responded to a call from deputies requesting assistance for one suspect fighting. At the time Petitioners Crockett and Lott arrived at the scene, the suspect was prone on the ground in handcuffs and was struggling with other officers. Petitioner Crockett, after observing the suspect kick one of the officers, knelt on his left buttock and left upper thigh for between forty-five seconds to one minute total, and assisted in placing him in leg irons. She then went to her car, where she had no further contact with him. Petitioner Lott placed his foot at the top of the suspect’s right shoulder for approximately one minute. At the request of another officer, Petitioner Lott left to retrieve a hobble chain from his patrol car, handed it to the officers, and then left the immediate area. Shortly thereafter, the suspect began experiencing breathing problems, and was transported by ambulance to the hospital where he was subsequently pronounced dead.

The District Court and the Tenth Circuit denied Petitioners Crockett and Lott qualified immunity with regard to the Respondents’ Fourth Amendment excessive force claim. The questions presented are:

1. Whether the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals erred in denying qualified immunity to the Petitioner law enforcement officers on the issue of excessive force without conducting an individualized qualified immunity analysis, but rather engaged in a collective qualified immunity analysis which considered the aggregate actions of multiple officers at the scene.

(1) When a district court is presented with a motion for relief from judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), does it abuse its discretion by refusing to correct a sanctions award expressly based on facts and law the appellate court exposed to have been in error?

(2) Does a district court’s sanctions award violate the holding of this Court in Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Haeger, 581 U.S. 101 (2017) as being punitive when it is not causally connected but only temporally linked to the misconduct as expressly identified by the district court?

(3) Is the holding of this Court in Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 523 U.S. 838, 94 (1998), that a court has no authority to proceed after determining it lacks subject matter jurisdiction, weakened when an appellate court, after first finding the facts and law on which a sanctions award is expressly based (i.e., continuing litigation after relinquishing standing) to be in error, declines to hear whether the district court abuses its discretion in refusing to reconsider that sanctions award when confronted with those errors through a motion for relief from judgment under Rule 60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure?

Donatus Iriele was indicted for violations of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a) based on a superseding indictment that failed to allege a knowing violation of the statute, and was subsequently convicted by a jury that was erroneously instructed that they could base their decision on objective, rather than subjective, knowledge. Following Mr. Iriele’s conviction and direct appeal, this Court held that violations of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a) can only be supported where evidence of a defendant’s subjective knowledge or intent is established. Ruan v. United States, 597 U.S. 450 (2022).

This petition presents the following question: whether reasonable jurists would find it debatable, under Ruan v. United States, 597 U.S. 450 (2022), that a criminal defendant’s constitutional rights were violated when he was convicted of violating 21 U.S.C. § 841(a) based on a defective indictment and incorrect jury instructions which failed to inform the jury that the Government was required to prove subjective, not objective, knowledge beyond a reasonable doubt?

1. Where there have been substantial changes in the circumstances since a municipality enacted an ordinance under its police powers that impacts free expression, and the facts that justified the ordinance have ceased to exist, in evaluating a constitutional challenge brought under the First Amendment, should courts consider whether the ordinance still serves a substantial governmental interest when it is enforced, or is an assessment of the need for the ordinance limited solely to consideration of the governmental interest at the time the ordinance is enacted?

2. Where the state courts with jurisdiction over the facts have authoritatively and affirmatively held that a type of business that offers adult material in only a portion of its establishment does not give rise to negative secondary effects, and the record as a whole shows that zoning restrictions on those types of businesses constitute a forbidden intrusion on the field of expression, is the challenged municipal zoning ordinance unconstitutional?

Since at least 1988, race- and gender-based discrimination was permissible when selecting court- martial panel members, the functional equivalent of jurors. United States v. Crawford, 15 C.M.A. 31 (1964); United States v. Smith, 27 M.J. 242, 249 (C.M.A. 1988). But after Petitioners’ courts-martial, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces held it was unconstitutional to consider a potential member’s race for the purpose of selection for or exclusion from a court-martial panel. United States v. Jeter, 84 M.J. 68, 73 (C.A.A.F. 2023). On direct appeal, both Petitioners asserted they made a prima facie showing that impermissible demographic considerations affected panel selection. But the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief, erroneously interpreting the facts and law in both cases. When seeking the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces’ discretionary review, Petitioners asserted the lower court’s misapplication of the law and facts constituted “good cause” to grant their petitions. But they failed to secure review, even though the Government presented racial and gender identifiers to the officer who chose one Petitioner’s panel, the selection of both Petitioners’ panels featured a one-for-one swap of minorities, and military case law permitted race- and gender-based discrimination when the panels were selected.

This case raises the following question:

Did the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces abuse its discretion by failing to grant review “upon petition of the accused and on good cause shown” where Petitioners made an unrebutted prima facie showing that race and gender influenced panel selection?

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