United States v. Bowers, 847 F.3d 1280

ClearOne sued WideBand and related defendants for misappropriating the "Honeybee Code" trade secret; jury found for ClearOne and awarded damages.
Donald Bowers (father of a WideBand officer) funded WideBand, acquired related entities, and filed UCC financing statements and transfers that the district court found violated pretrial TROs and a permanent injunction protecting the Honeybee Code.
The district court found Bowers in civil contempt multiple times, entered three civil judgments against him for attorneys’ fees and costs (unpaid), imposed injunctions and a TRO, and issued a criminal referral to the U.S. Attorney.
A federal grand jury indicted Bowers under 18 U.S.C. § 401(3) for willful disobedience of court orders; a jury convicted him on two counts; he received 15 months’ imprisonment and 36 months’ supervised release.
As a condition of supervised release, the district court required Bowers to pay a minimum of $200/month toward the outstanding civil judgments in the underlying civil case; Bowers appealed this condition, denial of disclosure of the criminal referral, and the length of imprisonment.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed: it held the special payment condition lawful, the criminal-referral was not discoverable, and § 402’s six-month cap did not apply to convictions under § 401(3).

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (ClearOne / Prosecution)	Defendant's Argument (Bowers)	Held
Validity of special supervised-release condition requiring payments toward civil judgments	Condition is appropriate to remedy harms caused by contempt and may be ordered as a supervised-release condition	Condition is improper because Bowers was not a party to the underlying civil verdict or judgment against him	Affirmed — district court did not abuse discretion; three final civil judgments against Bowers existed and condition met § 3583(d) requirements
Disclosure of district-court criminal referral to prosecutor	(Gov’t) Referral not discoverable; not Rule 16, Brady, Giglio, or Jencks material	Referral is like a police report/complaint and due process entitles Bowers to it	Affirmed — referral was not discoverable under Rule 16, Brady/Giglio, or the Jencks Act
Legality of 15-month sentence vis-à-vis § 402 cap	(Gov’t) § 401(3) carries no statutory maximum; § 402 limit applies only to contempts also constituting other statutory crimes	§ 402 caps contempt sentences at six months, so 15 months is illegal	Affirmed — § 402 applies only to contempts that also violate other statutes; § 401(3) has no statutory maximum, so longer sentences are permissible

ClearOne Commc’ns, Inc. v. Bowers, 643 F.3d 735 (10th Cir. 2011) (civil appeal addressing personal jurisdiction and injunction-related issues)
ClearOne Commc’ns, Inc. v. Bowers, 651 F.3d 1200 (10th Cir. 2011) (civil appeal affirming contempt findings and injunction enforcement)
United States v. Munoz, 812 F.3d 809 (10th Cir. 2016) (standard of review for supervised-release conditions)
United States v. Bear, 769 F.3d 1221 (10th Cir. 2014) (district courts have broad discretion to impose special supervised-release conditions under § 3583(d))
United States v. Trudeau, 812 F.3d 578 (7th Cir. 2016) (recognizing § 401 lacks a statutory maximum and affirming long sentence under § 401)
United States v. Halliday, 665 F.3d 1219 (10th Cir. 2011) (affirming sentence under § 401(3))
United States v. Voss, 82 F.3d 1521 (10th Cir. 1996) (affirming § 401(3) contempt sentences)
United States v. Mitchell, 429 F.3d 952 (10th Cir. 2005) (condition requiring defendant remain current on existing obligations is not a deprivation of liberty)
United States v. Apperson, 441 F.3d 1162 (10th Cir. 2006) (abuse-of-discretion review for discovery denials in criminal cases)
United States v. Henry, 839 F.3d 1271 (10th Cir. 2016) (issues first raised in reply brief are generally waived)
United States v. Courtney, 816 F.3d 681 (10th Cir. 2016) (appellate courts may recognize obvious errors despite briefing deficiencies)