The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals released the following opinions with Colorado ties. Read the summary or the entire opinion, below.
Cronick v. City of Colorado Springs, No. 25-1235 (10th Cir. Aug. 28, 2026). Sasha Cronick sued two Colorado Springs police officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for unlawfully arresting and searching her in a motel parking lot. A jury found against her at trial.
But a specter haunts the jury’s verdict: the specter of character evidence. That specter, and its troublesome sidekick, propensity reasoning, warped Sasha Cronick’s trial. The issue was meant to be, “Did the officers illegally arrest and search Cronick under § 1983?” It became, “Is Sasha Cronick a bad person?”
It all started with social media. After Cronick’s allegedly unlawful arrest, she posted videos, messages, and comments about the incident. In the years after, she posted and deleted several unrelated videos of her encounters with the police. During this lawsuit, she deleted financial records, as well as messages and comments about the arrest. The district court ruled that Cronick disobeyed its discovery order, and it sanctioned Cronick with a fine and adverse-inference jury instructions.
Before trial, the officers found some of Cronick’s deleted videos. They show Cronick berating police officers and security guards, threatening to sue them, and asking viewers for money. All were from encounters unrelated to the arrest at issue. At trial, over Cronick’s objection, the district court let the officers play more than twenty clips from the videos. Later, the court gave an adverse-inference instruction that implied that Cronick regularly disrupts police officers. The jury returned a verdict for the officers. On appeal, Cronick first points to errors during her trial. To her, the court’s admitting the video clips and giving the adverse-inference instructions require vacating the verdict. Cronick next argues that we should vacate the monetary sanction issued against her and her lawyers for discovery violations.
We agree with her first argument, but we disagree with the second.
Retired Senior Judge Christine M. Arguello and Magistrate Judge Maritza Dominguez Braswell
Panel: PHILLIPS, McHUGH, and ROSSMAN, Circuit Judges. (Entered for the Court by Judge Phillips.)
Decision: We VACATE the district court’s judgment for the officers and REMAND for retrial. We AFFIRM the monetary sanction. Read the opinion.
United States v. Moon Seals, No. 24-1028 (10th Cir. Aug. 28, 2026) En Banc. This case requires us to clarify how district courts impose sentences after an offender has violated his probation conditions. Under federal law and the United States Sentencing Guidelines, we conclude that after a court revokes probation, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4) requires the resentencing court to consider the recommended sentence under Chapter 7 of the Sentencing Guidelines Manual for the offender’s probation violation; and then, when considering whether to vary from that recommended sentence, the court should consider Chapter 5’s recommended sentence for the offender’s original offense.
Malachi Moon Seals pleaded guilty to six counts of threatening members of Congress and their families, see 18 U.S.C. § 115(a)(1), and six counts of sending those threats in interstate communication, see 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). His presentence report calculated a guidelines range of 33 to 41 months’ imprisonment, a function of his total offense level of 20 and criminal-history category of I. Because his guidelines range was so high, he did not qualify for a probation sentence. But the Guidelines being advisory, the government, the probation office, and Moon Seals urged the district court to vary from the Guidelines and impose a term of probation. The court—“with severe hesitation”—acquiesced and sentenced Moon Seals to five years’ probation.
Within days, Moon Seals violated the conditions of his probation by threatening a former federal official. The court revoked his sentence of probation, and then “resentence[d]” Moon Seals, as required by 18 U.S.C. § 3565(a)(2). In United States v. Moore (Moore I), 30 F.4th 1021 (10th Cir. 2022), we explained how a court must resentence a defendant after revoking probation: first, the court “impose[s] a sentence for the originally charged crime based only on a defendant’s pre-probation conduct” with reference to Chapter 5 of the Guidelines Manual, and second, the court “sentence[s] a defendant for the probation violation based only on the defendant’s post-probation conduct” with reference to Chapter 7 of the Guidelines Manual. The court here resentenced Moon Seals to 36 months’ imprisonment.
We now reject Moore I’s two-step sentencing procedure. Moore I’s approach finds little persuasive support in the text of the relevant statutes and is at odds with other circuits’ sentencing procedures. And the countervailing considerations urged by Moore I in support of its reading of the statutes cannot justify our departure from Congress’s own instruction.
Congress tells courts to sentence a defendant “in the case of a violation of probation,” according to “the applicable guidelines or policy statements” in Chapter 7. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4)(B). That means that a court employs the typical tools in assessing and sentencing for the new conduct—the violation of probation. It does not tell courts to first sentence the defendant for his underlying crime under Chapter 5 and then to sentence him for the probation violation under Chapter 7. When sentencing a defendant after revoking his probation, a court must consider the sentencing range recommended by Chapter 7 of the Guidelines; it should consider the range recommended by Chapter 5 when deciding whether to vary from the Chapter 7 range.
Under this single-step process, the district court here was required to take Chapter 7’s recommended range as its starting point. Because it did not do so, we reverse Moon Seals’s sentence and remand for resentencing.
Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney
Panel: HOLMES, Chief Judge, HARTZ, TYMKOVICH, MATHESON, BACHARACH, PHILLIPS, McHUGH, MORITZ, EID, CARSON, ROSSMAN, and FEDERICO, Circuit Judges. (Entered for the Court by Judge Tymkovich. Judge Phillips entered a dissenting opinion.) Read the opinion.