United States v. Orrantia

── United States v. Orrantia ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Date: May 04, 2026 Category: General Appellate Case: 24-2132 Document: 71-1 Date Filed: 05/04/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT May 4, 2026 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. No. 24-2132 (D.C. No. 2:22-CR-01360-MIS-DLM-1) OSCAR ORRANTIA, (D.N.M.) Defendant - Appellant. _________________________________ ORDER AND JUDGMENT * _________________________________ Before PHILLIPS, McHUGH, Circuit Judges, and VRATIL, District Judge. ** _________________________________ Oscar Orrantia, a Customs and Border Protection officer, was on duty at an inspection point in Southern New Mexico when he pulled a man out of his truck and threw him to the ground. He then wrote in his incident report that the man had threatened him and was not cooperative. But that information was false. So the government charged him with depriving the man of his rights and This order and judgment is not binding precedent except under the * doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. But it may be cited for its persuasive value consistent with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1 and Tenth Circuit Rule 32.1. The Honorable Kathryn H. Vratil, U.S. District Judge, United States ** District Court for the District of Kansas, sitting by designation.  Appellate Case: 24-2132 Document: 71-1 Date Filed: 05/04/2026 Page: 2 falsifying records. See generally 18 U.S.C. §§ 242, 1519. A jury convicted Orrantia on both counts. On appeal, Orrantia raises six alleged errors from his trial. We address only one of them because he has withdrawn or waived the other five. Orrantia’s only live issue is whether the government violated Orrantia’s due process rights under California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479 (1984), and Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51 (1988), by deleting under its retention policy a video of a separate incident involving Orrantia. We reject Orrantia’s due process argument. He does not show that the government acted in bad faith by deleting the video. So the government didn’t violate his due process rights. Thus, seeing no error, we exercise our jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm. BACKGROUND I. Factual Background On a hot June day in southern New Mexico in 2019, sixty-three-year-old Anastacio Granillo and his cousin’s husband, Jose Nevarez, were returning home to Deming, New Mexico, after having a truck repaired in Mexico. They carried some allergy pills they had purchased in Palomas, Mexico. Granillo and Nevarez returned to the United States through the Columbus Port of Entry (POE) in Columbus, New Mexico. Granillo was driving. The two waited in the truck for half an hour before reaching the inspection point. The truck’s air conditioning had stopped working. 2  Appellate Case: 24-2132 Document: 71-1 Date Filed: 05/04/2026 Page: 3 Orrantia was the CBP officer on duty. Orrantia greeted Granillo in Spanish: “Hello. What are you going to tell me?” 1 “That you have us roasting with the heat out there,” Granillo said, handing Orrantia his pass