No Interlocutory Appeal From Denial of Motion to Dismiss Criminal Contempt: Tenth Circuit Reaffirms “Substance Over Form” and the Narrow Reach of the Collateral-Order Doctrine and 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)

Introduction

In In re: Contempt Proceedings Against Carpenter (No. 24-6138), the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit dismissed Daniel E. Carpenter’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Carpenter sought interlocutory review of a district court order denying his motion to dismiss pending criminal contempt proceedings arising out of a modified injunction in the long-running Universitas Education, LLC judgment-enforcement litigation. The Tenth Circuit held that the denial of Carpenter’s motion to dismiss is a nonfinal order, not immediately appealable under the final-judgment rule; that the collateral-order doctrine does not apply; and that 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)’s narrow categories for interlocutory review of injunctive and receivership orders could not be invoked by characterizing the motion as seeking dissolution of the injunction or winding up of the receivership.

The decision underscores several recurring principles in federal appellate practice: (1) the “utmost strictness” with which courts apply the collateral-order doctrine in criminal matters; (2) the “substance over form” inquiry that controls § 1292(a) jurisdiction; and (3) the nonfinality, for § 1291 purposes, of criminal proceedings prior to sentencing—even where a defendant has entered a guilty plea. It also situates these jurisdictional doctrines against the backdrop of the Tenth Circuit’s merits decision in Universitas Education, LLC v. Avon Capital, LLC (Universitas II), 124 F.4th 1231 (10th Cir. 2024), which affirmed the district court’s receivership and injunction underlying the contempt charges.

Summary of the Opinion

The panel (Judges Moritz, Kelly, and Rossman) dismissed for lack of appellate jurisdiction Carpenter’s interlocutory appeal from the district court’s order denying his motion to dismiss criminal contempt proceedings. The court ruled:

The order is nonfinal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 because, in criminal cases, finality typically occurs after conviction and imposition of sentence (Midland Asphalt Corp. v. United States, 489 U.S. 794 (1989)). Carpenter had pleaded guilty but had not yet been sentenced, so the proceedings were not final, and Catlin v. United States (324 U.S. 229 (1945)) forecloses interlocutory review of a denial of a motion to dismiss, even when grounded in jurisdictional arguments.
The collateral-order doctrine does not apply because the order is not effectively unreviewable after final judgment. The court emphasized that “rights not to be tried” are rare and typically confined to explicit constitutional or statutory guarantees like the Double Jeopardy or Speech or Debate Clauses; an asserted defect in subject-matter jurisdiction does not itself establish a right not to be tried.
Section 1292(a) does not confer jurisdiction. Looking past the label of Carpenter’s motion and the fact that it asked the district court to dissolve the injunction and wind up the receivership, the court held that the order under review simply denied dismissal of contempt proceedings and neither granted, denied, nor modified an injunction nor refused to wind up a receivership (see FTC v. Zurixx, 26 F.4th 1172 (10th Cir. 2022); Pimentel & Sons Guitar Makers, Inc. v. Pimentel, 477 F.3d 1151 (10th Cir. 2007)).
To the extent Carpenter also challenged venue, such rulings are not immediately appealable either (United States v. Martin, 620 F.2d 237 (10th Cir. 1980)).

The court therefore dismissed the appeal. It noted that while the appeal was pending, the court decided Universitas II, affirming the district court’s injunction and related orders, and separately dismissed two other interlocutory appeals Carpenter filed in the same contempt matter. Carpenter’s later guilty plea (containing an appeal waiver) did not change the jurisdictional analysis because sentencing had not yet occurred.

Analysis

Precedents Cited and Their Role

Catlin v. United States, 324 U.S. 229 (1945): The cornerstone of the federal final-judgment rule, Catlin holds that denial of a motion to dismiss—even when predicated on jurisdictional grounds—is not immediately appealable. The panel applied Catlin directly to Carpenter’s appeal.
Midland Asphalt Corp. v. United States, 489 U.S. 794 (1989) and Flanagan v. United States, 465 U.S. 259 (1984): These Supreme Court decisions impose “utmost strictness” on the collateral-order doctrine in criminal cases and reiterate that criminal appeals ordinarily must await conviction and sentence. The panel used Midland Asphalt to reinforce the timing of finality and the narrowness of collateral-order exceptions.
Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949) and Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Carpenter, 558 U.S. 100 (2009): Cohen established the collateral-order doctrine; Mohawk clarified its “effectively unreviewable” prong and emphasized the doctrine’s narrow scope. The panel cited these to define the doctrinal framework.
United States v. Tucker, 745 F.3d 1054 (10th Cir. 2014) and United States v. Quaintance, 523 F.3d 1144 (10th Cir. 2008): These Tenth Circuit decisions explain that interlocutory appeals in criminal cases typically lie only for rights that guarantee freedom from trial itself (e.g., Double Jeopardy, Speech or Debate). The panel relied on Tucker to reject Carpenter’s attempt to recast a subject-matter jurisdiction objection as a “right not to be tried.”
Pimentel & Sons Guitar Makers, Inc. v. Pimentel, 477 F.3d 1151 (10th Cir. 2007) and FTC v. Zurixx, 26 F.4th 1172 (10th Cir. 2022): These cases articulate the “substance rather than form” approach to § 1292(a). Zurixx, in particular, held that a contempt order is not, in substance, an injunctive order for § 1292(a)(1) purposes. The panel deployed these authorities to reject Carpenter’s attempt to bootstrap § 1292(a) jurisdiction by embedding dissolution/winding-up requests in a motion to dismiss a contempt case.
Universitas Educ., LLC v. Avon Capital, LLC (Universitas I), 2023 WL 5005654 (10th Cir. Aug. 4, 2023) and Universitas Educ., LLC v. Avon Capital, LLC (Universitas II), 124 F.4th 1231 (10th Cir. 2024): Universitas I held that the district court lacked jurisdiction at one juncture due to an expired registered judgment; Universitas II explained that the district court reacquired jurisdiction upon refiling and affirmed the injunction that Carpenter was accused of violating. The panel invoked Universitas II to demonstrate that the underlying injunction was valid, undermining any suggestion that interlocutory review was necessary to guard a right not to be tried.
United States v. Solco I, LLC, 962 F.3d 1244 (10th Cir. 2020) and City of Albuquerque v. Soto Enterprises, Inc., 864 F.3d 1089 (10th Cir. 2017): These cases reiterate de novo review of jurisdiction and the appellant’s burden to establish appellate jurisdiction.
United States v. Martin, 620 F.2d 237 (10th Cir. 1980): Venue rulings are neither final nor within the collateral-order doctrine. The panel applied this to dispose of the venue portion of Carpenter’s motion.

Legal Reasoning

The court’s reasoning proceeds in three steps.

Finality under § 1291. In criminal cases, an appeal normally lies only after conviction and sentencing (Midland Asphalt). Carpenter had entered a guilty plea but had not yet been sentenced. Hence there was no final judgment. Catlin bars interlocutory review of denials of motions to dismiss even when those motions assert jurisdictional defects.
Collateral-order doctrine. The court focused on the third prong—effective unreviewability after final judgment—as dispositive. In criminal cases, this prong is satisfied only when an explicit statutory or constitutional guarantee confers a right not to be tried (e.g., Double Jeopardy, Speech or Debate). Carpenter’s reliance on Universitas I’s earlier jurisdictional ruling did not create such a right. Moreover, Universitas II confirmed the district court’s jurisdiction and affirmed the very injunction Carpenter was charged with violating. Any alleged error in denying the motion to dismiss could be reviewed, if at all, after final judgment. Thus the collateral-order doctrine was inapplicable.
Section 1292(a). The court emphasized that § 1292(a) is narrowly construed and that appellate courts examine the substance, not the label, of the order under review. Although Carpenter’s motion asked the district court to dissolve the injunction and wind up the receivership, the order on appeal did not, in fact, grant, deny, or modify an injunction, nor did it refuse to wind up the receivership. It simply declined to dismiss the contempt case. As in Zurixx, where a contempt ruling was not treated as an “injunction” for § 1292(a)(1) purposes, the panel declined to allow jurisdiction based on artful characterization. Allowing jurisdiction to turn on how a party captions a motion would swallow the narrow statutory exception.

Finally, the panel noted that venue challenges are not subject to interlocutory appeal under established circuit precedent (Martin), and Carpenter presented no separate basis for jurisdiction on that issue.

Impact and Implications

The court’s order—while nonprecedential—has several important practical and doctrinal implications and will carry persuasive weight within the circuit.

Criminal contempt practice: Defendants facing criminal contempt cannot obtain interlocutory review of a denial of a motion to dismiss by piggy-backing requests to dissolve an injunction or wind up a receivership. The path to appellate review ordinarily runs through final judgment—i.e., after sentencing.
“Substance over form” check on § 1292(a): Litigants may not manufacture interlocutory appellate jurisdiction by labeling a motion as one that “refuses to dissolve or modify” an injunction or “refuses to wind up” a receivership when, in substance, the district court merely declined to dismiss a separate contempt prosecution. Zurixx and Pimentel continue to police this boundary.
Collateral-order doctrine restraint: Assertions of prior subject-matter jurisdiction defects—even when they speak to the power of the court—do not by themselves create a “right not to be tried.” The decision reinforces Tucker’s admonition that rights triggering interlocutory appeal in criminal cases are rare and tied to explicit constitutional or statutory guarantees.
Finality after guilty pleas: A guilty plea does not create appellate finality. The order underscores that criminal cases are final for § 1291 purposes only after sentencing. That matters for timing and for how appeal waivers in plea agreements may ultimately be enforced (questions not reached here).
Judgment-enforcement litigation: In the broader Universitas saga, this order complements Universitas II by stabilizing the procedural posture of the district court’s injunction and receivership. Parties seeking to impede enforcement via interlocutory appeals from contempt proceedings will find a high jurisdictional bar in the Tenth Circuit.
Venue challenges: The brief treatment of venue reiterates longstanding doctrine that venue rulings do not fit within the collateral-order doctrine and must await final judgment.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Final-judgment rule (28 U.S.C. § 1291): Most federal appeals can be taken only from “final decisions” of district courts. In criminal cases, this ordinarily means after conviction and sentence. Interlocutory orders (e.g., discovery, denials of motions to dismiss) are not final.
Collateral-order doctrine: A narrow exception to the final-judgment rule allowing immediate appeal of a small class of orders that conclusively resolve important issues, separate from the merits, and that would be effectively unreviewable after final judgment. In criminal cases, this is applied with “utmost strictness.” Classic examples include orders denying motions to dismiss on Double Jeopardy or Speech or Debate grounds, or orders refusing to reduce bail.
“Right not to be tried”: To qualify for collateral-order review in a criminal case, a defendant typically must show an explicit legal guarantee that prohibits the trial itself (e.g., Double Jeopardy). A claim that the court lacks jurisdiction or that charges should be dismissed does not by itself create such a right.
Section 1292(a): A statute allowing interlocutory appeals from certain injunctive orders and receivership orders. Courts look at the substance of the district court’s order, not how parties caption their motions. Orders that merely enforce existing injunctions (e.g., contempt findings) are usually not appealable under § 1292(a).
Receivership: A court-supervised mechanism where a receiver is appointed to take custody of and manage property, often to protect and marshal assets for judgment enforcement.
Criminal contempt: A punitive proceeding to punish willful violations of a court order. It is criminal in nature and carries the protections of criminal procedure. A denial of a motion to dismiss a criminal contempt charge is treated like other criminal denials for appellate finality.
Substance over form: A recurring appellate principle that courts look to what an order actually does in practice—not what it is called—when determining appealability.

Contextual Notes

Relationship to Universitas litigation: The contempt proceedings arise out of a March 2024 modification of an injunction in the Universitas enforcement actions, extending the injunction to Carpenter and those acting under his direction. Universitas II later affirmed that injunction and related orders, and explained that the district court reacquired jurisdiction when Universitas refiled its judgment after the expiration issue identified in Universitas I.
Other interlocutory appeals in the same matter: The Tenth Circuit previously dismissed Carpenter’s separate interlocutory appeals challenging the denial of speedy-trial motions to dismiss in the contempt case (Nos. 25-6030 and 25-6064), reinforcing the court’s consistent refusal to entertain piecemeal appeals in this criminal context.
Nonprecedential but citable: The panel issued the ruling as an “Order and Judgment,” designated as nonbinding precedent except under law-of-the-case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel, but citable for its persuasive value under Fed. R. App. P. 32.1(a) and Tenth Circuit Rule 32.1(A).

Conclusion

The Tenth Circuit’s dismissal in In re: Contempt Proceedings Against Carpenter offers a clear, tightly reasoned reaffirmation of fundamental jurisdictional limits on interlocutory appeals in criminal contempt cases. Three messages stand out:

Finality is paramount. A denial of a motion to dismiss in a criminal contempt proceeding is not final, and a guilty plea does not render the case final before sentencing.
The collateral-order doctrine remains exceedingly narrow in criminal matters and does not encompass subject-matter jurisdiction objections absent an explicit right not to be tried.
Section 1292(a) cannot be leveraged through artful pleading; courts evaluate the “actual, practical effect” of the order and will not transform a denial of a motion to dismiss into an appealable refusal to modify or dissolve an injunction or to wind up a receivership.

Against the backdrop of Universitas II’s affirmation of the underlying injunction and receivership, this decision’s jurisdictional holdings strengthen the Tenth Circuit’s commitment to avoiding piecemeal review, particularly in criminal contempt, and to enforcing the “substance over form” approach to interlocutory appellate jurisdiction. The opinion will serve as a persuasive marker for future litigants seeking—unsuccessfully—to short-circuit criminal contempt prosecutions through interlocutory appeals.