Circuit Watcher

06-20321, 06-20593, 06-20691, U.S. v. Yeager
Before HIGGINBOTHAM, GARZA, and BENAVIDES, Circuit Judges.
FORTUNATO P. BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge: This is a consolidated interlocutory appeal of an order denying a motion to dismiss a government indictment under the doctrine of collateral estoppel.¹ In 2005, Defendants F. Scott Yeager, Joseph Hirko, and Rex Shelby (“Defendants”) were tried on various counts for their actions while employed at Enron Broadband Services (“EBS”). The jury acquitted Defendants on some of these counts but hung on others, after which the United States (“Government”) again indicted Defendants on some of the mistried counts. Contending that the acquitted counts collaterally estopped the Government from pursuing the mistried counts, Defendants moved to dismiss the indictment. The district court denied the motion. For the reasons below, we AFFIRM. … U.S. v. Yeager.

1. We have jurisdiction over this case under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651, 659 (1977) (“Although it is true that a pretrial order denying a motion to dismiss an indictment on double jeopardy grounds lacks the finality traditionally considered indispensable to appellate review, we conclude that such orders fall within the small class of cases that Cohen [sic] placed beyond the confines of the final-judgment rule.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). [↩]