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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
WESLEY SCOTT HAMM (17-6383); ROBERT LEE
SHIELDS (18-5121),
Defendants-Appellants. |
Nos. 17-6383/18-5121 |
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Kentucky at Lexington.
No. 5:16-cr-00085—Danny C. Reeves, District Judge.
Argued: March 19, 2019
Decided and Filed: March 6, 2020
Before: BOGGS, GIBBONS, and BUSH, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
BOGGS, Circuit Judge. By the summer of 2016, Wesley Hamm had already been
addicted to opioids for a decade and, as his tolerance grew, he settled into a new routine. Each
day, he made the two-hour drive from his hometown of Mt. Sterling, Kentucky to Cincinnati,
where he typically bought several grams of fentanyl. When he returned to Mt. Sterling, he and
his wife used some of the drug themselves and gave the rest to their roommate, Tracey Myers, a
local drug dealer. Myers diluted, divided, and sold her share.
Late that August, Hamm found a new Cincinnati supplier: Robert Shields. Myers
advertised Shields’s offerings to one of her customers. A few hours after Hamm returned from a
visit to Shields and gave Myers her usual share, Myers sold three small packets of opioids to a
man we will call L.K.W. Later that night, L.K.W. died of an overdose. Police officers quickly
traced L.K.W.’s drugs back to Myers, and they arrested her and Hamm.
The story did not end there. After her arrest, Myers smuggled her remaining drugs into
the county jail. She gave them to three of her cellmates, who soon lost consciousness.
Paramedics arrived quickly enough that all three women survived. Myers died by suicide a week
later.
In the aftermath, a jury convicted Hamm and Shields of one count of conspiracy to
distribute controlled substances and two counts of distributing carfentanil. See 21 U.S.C.
§§ 841(a)(1), 846. On the latter two counts, the jury applied a statutory sentencing enhancement
for distribution resulting in death or serious bodily injury. See id. § 841(b)(1)(C). This triggered
a mandatory minimum sentence of twenty years for Hamm and a mandatory life sentence for
Shields (who had a prior felony drug conviction).
On appeal, Hamm and Shields challenge the jury instructions on the § 841(b)(1)(C)
sentencing enhancement, a remark in the prosecutor’s closing argument, and the sufficiency of
the evidence on all counts. While the evidence is sufficient to sustain their convictions and the
prosecutor’s remark was not prejudicial, the jury instructions on the sentencing enhancement
misstated the law. We therefore affirm Hamm and Shields’s convictions, vacate their sentences,
and remand for a new trial solely on the question of whether to apply § 841(b)(1)(C)’s sentencing
enhancement on the distribution counts. |
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KASSI TCHANKPA,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
ASCENA RETAIL GROUP, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee. |
No. 19-3291 |
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Ohio at Columbus.
No. 2:16-cv-00895—Edmund A. Sargus, Jr., District Judge.
Argued: December 10, 2019
Decided and Filed: March 6, 2020
Before: SUTTON, NALBANDIAN, and READLER, Circuit Judges.
_________________________
OPINION
_________________________
NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judge. Kassi Tchankpa suffered a serious shoulder injury while
employed by Ascena Retail Group, Inc. (Ascena). Neither party challenges this. The dispute
stems from Ascena’s treatment of Tchankpa after the injury. Despite having resigned from his
position, Tchankpa contends that Ascena violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by
not accommodating his injury and constructively discharging him.
Tchankpa’s claim centers on his request for a work-from-home accommodation. He
argues that Ascena failed to accommodate his disability by not allowing him to work from home
three days per week. But employees cannot mandate an accommodation. And an employer may
request medical records supporting the employee’s requested accommodation. Thus Ascena had
every right to ask Tchankpa for medical documentation linking his injured shoulder and his
work-from-home request. After finally providing a doctor’s note, Tchankpa resigned before
Ascena fully responded. Yet even that document did not specify that Tchankpa needed to work
from home.
The ADA is not a weapon that employees can wield to pressure employers into granting
unnecessary accommodations or reconfiguring their business operations. Instead, it protects
disabled employees from disability-related mistreatment—no more, no less. This means
Tchankpa must not only show that Ascena wronged him, but also that the alleged offense related
to his injured shoulder. Because he cannot do so, Tchankpa’s ADA claims fall short.
We AFFIRM. |
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