Case: 20-10363 Document: 00515772141 Page: 1 Date Filed: 03/09/2021 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit FILED March 9, 2021 No. 20-10363 Lyle W. Cayce Clerk United States of America, Plaintiff—Appellee, versus Solomon Emakoji, Defendant—Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas No. 4:20-CR-18-1 Before Jones, Smith, and Elrod, Circuit Judges. Jerry E. Smith, Circuit Judge: Solomon Emakoji entered a plea agreement. But when it came time to plead guilty, he requested two continuances, citing fears about traveling to the courthouse during the COVID-19 pandemic (“COVID”). The district court declined and ordered Emakoji to obtain housing in the Northern Dis- trict of Texas. On appeal, we affirm in part and dismiss in part for want of jurisdiction. I. Emakoji participated in an alleged “romance scheme.” The perpetra- tors used bogus social media profiles to “lure lonely women and men into Case: 20-10363 Document: 00515772141 Page: 2 Date Filed: 03/09/2021 No. 20-10363 romantic relationships” and “request[] money from the victims under materially false pretenses.” Emakoji helped move some of that money from the United States to Nigeria. 1 The government thus indicted him for engag- ing in a monetary transaction in property derived from a specified unlawful activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1957 and 2. The government arrested Emakoji in Alabama, where a magistrate judge released him on the conditions that he “maintain [his] current resi- dence” and “appear at all proceedings as required.” Because the alleged crime occurred in the Northern District of Texas, the district court in Fort Worth adopted those release conditions and set Emakoji’s case for a jury trial. After the court granted an initial continuance, the government and Emakoji reached a plea agreement, and the court set rearraignment—which is, as Emakoji puts it, “for all intents-and-purposes, a guilty plea hearing”— for April 6, 2020. Meanwhile, COVID arrived in the United States. In response, Con- gress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act, which says, in relevant part, that a “plea . . . may be con- ducted by video teleconference” if “the chief judge of a district court . . . specifically finds . . . that felony pleas . . . cannot be conducted in person without seriously jeopardizing public health and safety.” CARES Act, Pub. L. No. 116-136, § 15002(b)(2), 134 Stat 281, 528–29 (2020). Accordingly, the Chief Judge of the Northern District of Texas concluded that felony pleas “cannot be conducted in person without seriously jeopardizing public health and safety” and thereby authorized district judges to conduct pleas via video. Special Order No. 13-9, at 2. Regardless, in a series of orders, the Chief Judge 1 As the district court put it, Emakoji “receiv[ed] funds sent by victims to his bank account,” “withdr[ew] those funds,” and sent them “to other scheme participants domes- tically and ultimately in Nigeria.” 2 Case: 20-10363 Document: 00515772141 Page: 3 Date Filed: 03/09/2021 No. 20-10363 noted that each …
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