United States v. Best

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES CO URT O F APPEALS
February 23, 2007
TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
U N ITED STA TES O F A M ER ICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee, No. 06-6178
v. (W . D. Oklahoma)
LAV INA ELIZAB ETH BEST, (D.C. No. CR-06-15-T)
Defendant - Appellant.
OR D ER AND JUDGM ENT *
Before BR ISC OE, B AL DOC K , and HA RTZ, Circuit Judges.
Lavina Elizabeth Best pleaded guilty before a magistrate judge to unlawful
entry to a military installation, see 18 U.S.C. § 1382. She was sentenced to 60
days’ imprisonment and a $10.00 assessment. She now appeals, arguing that the
magistrate judge had no jurisdiction over her case because documents in the case
were not filed properly, so the case was not “officially open[ed].” Aplt. Br. at 8.
The history of this case is unremarkable. M s. Best admitted to military
authorities that she had knowingly violated a written order from the commander
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited,
however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th
Cir. R. 32.1.
of Tinker Air Force Base to stay off the base. In view of her criminal history and
drug problems, the magistrate judge sentenced her to 60 days’ imprisonment. She
gave oral notice of appeal.
After the magistrate judge filed an Order and Notice of Appeal, M s. Best
apparently discovered that the pleadings in this case, including the charging
document, had not been filed with the clerk of the United States District Court for
the W estern District of Oklahoma or recorded in the court’s CM /ECF system
before the filing of the Order and Notice. M s. Best argued in district court that
this filing failure deprived the magistrate judge of jurisdiction over her case. The
district court rejected the argument.
M s. Best’s claim is that a court lacks jurisdiction over a criminal case in
which critical documents are not filed correctly. M s. Best has not, however,
presented any authority— statute, rule, or judicial decision— that her case
documents were not properly filed. All she cites are inapposite rules of
procedure. For example, she cites Fed. R. Crim. P. Rule 32(k)(1), which reads in
full:
In the judgment of conviction, the court must set forth the plea, the
jury verdict or the court’s findings, the adjudication, and the
sentence. If the defendant is found not guilty or is otherwise entitled
to be discharged, the court must so order. The judge must sign the
judgment, and the clerk must enter it.
Even if this rule were violated, the rule’s exhortations do not imply the remedy
M s. Best seeks. The correct course of action when a judgment has not been
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signed or entered is simply to sign or enter it when the court notices the omission,
or when the defendant or another party objects to it. W e are not asked to decide
whether M s. Best could lawfully be imprisoned before such a judgment is signed
or entered; we are asked instead to vacate an allegedly unfiled judgment.
Similarly, M s. Best does not explain why alleged violations of the ECF Policies
& Procedures M anual or Fed. R. Crim P. 55 require vacation of a judgment.
Nor has M s. Best established that she was prejudiced by the failures she
alleges. At the end of her brief she suggests that her right to a public trial under
the Sixth A mendment and her due-process rights under the Fifth Amendment were
violated, but she does not support the suggestions with authority or argument, and
they appear meritless.
M oreover, M s. Best offers no argument why failure to file the documents
would be a jurisdictional defect. The Supreme Court has limited the term
jurisdiction to encompass only questions involving the subject matter or class of
persons subject to a court’s rulings. See Eberhart v. United States, 126 S. Ct.
403, 405 (2005) (“‘Clarity would be facilitated,’ we have said, ‘if courts and
litigants used the label ‘jurisdictional’ not for claim-processing rules, but only for
prescriptions delineating the classes of cases (subject-matter jurisdiction) and the
persons (personal jurisdiction) falling within a court’s adjudicatory authority.”
(quoting Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443, 455 (2004)). Accordingly, we see no
jurisdictional defect in this case.
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W e AFFIRM the district court’s judgment.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Harris L Hartz
Circuit Judge
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