The First Circuit affirmed the district court's application of the captain enhancement and its sentencing disparity analysis, vacated the denial of a minor participant reduction, and remanded for further consideration of that adjustment.
Federal court
U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
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Recent opinions
The First Circuit considered the defendants' request for a stay of the district court's injunction enjoining New Hampshire House Bill 1569's elimination of qualified and challenged voter affidavits.
The court vacated the district court's grant of summary judgment to nonbinary plaintiffs challenging Puerto Rico's refusal to provide an “X” gender marker on birth certificates. Assuming without deciding that rational-basis review applied, the court held that the policy was rationally related to Puerto Rico's…
The court affirmed the district court's civil-contempt order because Reynoso failed to identify a genuine dispute of material fact requiring an evidentiary hearing. Service of the seizure warrant on Reynoso's attorney, who agreed to accept it on his behalf, provided the relevant notice, and Reynoso produced no…
The court denied review of the agency's determination that the petitioners did not establish past persecution or an objectively reasonable fear of future persecution in Brazil. Because the petitioners failed to satisfy the lower asylum standard, their withholding-of-removal claim also failed, and the court upheld the…
The court affirmed Bourget's conviction for willfully depriving a handcuffed inmate of his Eighth Amendment rights through excessive force. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, the court held that a rational jury could infer malicious and sadistic intent and the specific bad-purpose intent…
The court affirmed summary judgment for the officers on all claims arising from three warrantless entries into a sober home. It held that the October claims failed because the plaintiffs offered only conclusory evidence of an excessive search or unreasonable questioning, the December claims failed for lack of evidence…
The court affirmed dismissal of Galakatos's claims against Marsh for breach of contract, negligence, and breach of fiduciary duty. The complaint did not identify a definite contractual promise, an intelligible request for the insurance coverage allegedly missing, or facts establishing the special circumstances…
The court dismissed the appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction because the district court's judgment was not final under the final-judgment rule. A counterclaim dismissed voluntarily without prejudice could be revived in the same district court, so the dismissal did not create a genuinely final judgment, and no…
The court affirmed the judgment imposing approximately $3.3 million in disgorgement and prejudgment interest against Raimund Gastauer. It held that Gastauer forfeited all challenges to the post-remand jurisdictional-discovery order, the use of the Federal Rules rather than the Hague Convention, and the resulting…
The court held that the state-law clarification of the phrase "construction and design of improvements" eliminated both grounds on which the district court granted summary judgment to Veolia.
The court affirmed dismissal of the securities-fraud complaint because the alleged omissions did not make defendants' statements about the absence of retinal vasculitis in clinical trials materially misleading.
The court affirmed the denial of Amex's motion to stay the litigation and compel arbitration. It held that the district court had authority to decide whether Amex defaulted under the Federal Arbitration Act and that Amex waived arbitration by deliberately refusing to pay filing fees despite repeated warnings that the…
The court affirmed dismissal of Kyick Holdings’ untimely Tax Court petition, but rejected the Tax Court’s conclusion that the filing deadline deprived it of jurisdiction. The court held that the IRS used reasonable diligence by mailing the transferee-liability notice to the address on the company’s most recent federal…
The court affirmed the order requiring the return of the children to Canada under the Hague Convention. It held that Canada was the children's habitual residence as of the date of their retention because the totality of the circumstances, including the temporary nature of the move, the family's Canadian ties, and the…
1st Cir.Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services
August 14, 2026
The court granted the government's emergency motion for a stay pending appeal in part, limiting the stay to the Comprehensive Re-Review Policy. It denied a stay as to the other two policies because the government did not carry its burden under the governing four-factor stay analysis.
The court dismissed LUMA's appeal because LUMA lacked statutory appellate standing under the stringent "person aggrieved" standard. LUMA could not show that the order allowing the consumer-protection action to proceed directly and adversely affected its pecuniary interests or subjected it to the type of harm the…
The majority holds that noncitizens who entered the United States without inspection and are present without admission are not "seeking admission" under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(2)(A).
The First Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment on the pleadings in favor of Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of America, holding that the insurer's policy did not cover losses from a pregnancy-discrimination judgment against the insured employer.
The First Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part, and vacated in part the district court's grant of summary judgment to Molly Cosel in this diversity dispute over Massachusetts property formerly held by Molly and her ex-husband as tenants by the entirety.
The First Circuit granted Ishmael Koigor Bangs' petition for review and vacated the Board of Immigration Appeals' decision that his New Hampshire witness-retaliation conviction was an aggravated felony relating to obstruction of justice.
The First Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part a preliminary injunction barring federal agencies and OMB/NEC officials from categorically freezing billions of dollars in already-awarded grant funds appropriated under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act pursuant to the…
The First Circuit denied Lesvi Lucia Monzon Guzman's petition for review of the BIA's dismissal of her appeal from an immigration judge's denial of asylum and withholding of removal.
The court affirmed Cooper's convictions for sex trafficking and transporting a minor, holding that the listed acts in the sex-trafficking statute are alternative means of committing one offense and that the evidence supported both convictions.
The court affirmed the thirty-six-month sentence imposed after the fourth revocation of Andino-Arroyo's supervised release. It held that Andino forfeited both appellate arguments and, under plain-error review, failed to show that the district court inadequately explained the upward variance or unmistakably relied on…
The First Circuit affirmed a district court's permanent injunction barring enforcement of Article 5.14(a) of Puerto Rico's Law 20, which criminalizes disseminating false warnings or alarms about an imminent catastrophe during a governor-declared emergency.
The First Circuit affirmed Napoleon Gonzalez's convictions and restitution order arising from his decades-long assumption of his deceased brother's identity to collect Social Security benefits under two names and obtain a passport.
The court affirmed dismissal of the federal equal-protection and due-process claims and the state-law arbitrary-and-capricious claim, concluding that the complaint violated Rule 8 and that counts I–V failed on the merits.
The First Circuit granted Deman Kim's petition for review of the BIA's denial of his second motion to reopen his removal proceedings. The court held the BIA committed legal error by adjudicating the motion under the statutory reopening framework — the ninety-day and numerical bars and equitable tolling — when Kim had…
The court summarily reversed the district court's order postponing the termination of Temporary Protected Status for South Sudan. Applying an intervening Supreme Court ruling, the court held that the TPS statute's judicial-review bar foreclosed the nonconstitutional claims that formed the sole basis for the…
The court denied motions to stay the district court's injunction against implementation of portions of the executive order in the Plaintiff States for the 2026 federal elections.
The court affirmed Irizarry-Irizarry's convictions for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering, holding that the evidence permitted a rational jury to find that he knowingly joined the overarching conspiracy.
The court denied the defendants' motion to stay pending appeal the district court's judgment vacating the policy that implemented a $100,000 payment requirement for H-1B visa petitions.
The court held that the appeal became moot because the trial ended and the challenged buffer-zone order expired, leaving no injunctive or declaratory relief that could affect the demonstrators' legal interests.
The court affirmed the dismissal of Cruz's claims as moot. It held that the possibility of recovering prevailing-party attorney's fees did not preserve a sufficient stake in the otherwise moot controversy, and the parties agreed that the fee issue had no bearing on mootness.
The court held that the record compelled a finding that Rana displayed indicia of incompetency during his removal proceedings. Because the immigration judge failed to conduct the required competency inquiry and instead treated the mental-health evidence only as bearing on credibility, the court vacated the removal…
The court affirmed dismissal of the plaintiffs' facial constitutional challenge to Massachusetts's restrictions on assault-style firearms. The Second Amendment claim was foreclosed by binding circuit precedent, while the dormant Commerce Clause claim failed because the plaintiffs neither alleged discrimination…
The court affirmed summary judgment for Daimler on Rhode Island Truck Center's breach-of-contract and implied-covenant claims. It held that the Dealer Agreement gave Daimler sole discretion to appoint another dealer when Daimler had a reason connected to the Agreement's objectives, and the record showed such…
The court held that Iguana's written and implied agreements with the hotel and its DNER permit did not impose a duty to protect hotel guests from ocean dangers. It declined to decide whether Puerto Rico's heightened duty of care applies to a contractor operating a limited hotel area or to an entity providing beach…
The court affirmed the convictions, prison sentences, and restitution orders for both defendants. It held that the evidence supported bank-fraud and bank-fraud-conspiracy convictions, the challenged jury instructions did not constitute reversible error, and the authentication enhancement was properly applied.