Mark A. Moreno

How Judge Moreno rules, drawn from 5 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.

Court
United States District Court for the District of South Dakota
Position
magistrate
Commissioned
1993
Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (B.A. 1980); Creighton University School of Law (J.D. 1983)
Signed orders read
5

How Judge Moreno decides

Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.

What persuades

Moreno applies the Miranda 'routine booking question' exception robustly: a pre-warning request for identifying/contact information (e.g. a physical address) is not interrogation even if the suspect volunteers incriminating detail in response: the volunteered statement is the suspect's own doing.

“Judge Moreno concluded that Agent Tucker 'could ask for identifying and contact information, including whether Poor Bear had a physical address without having to administer Miranda warnings.' ... 'if Poor Bear's gratuitous statements were inculpatory, they were his own doing and he has only himself to blame.'”

Moreno treats a post-invocation request for consent to search (e.g. a DNA swab) as outside Miranda: a consent to search is not an incriminating statement, so it does not require fresh warnings even after the suspect invokes the right to silence.

“Judge Moreno deemed this request not 'interrogatory within the meaning of Miranda.' ... This Court agrees with Judge Moreno that Agent Tucker's request that Poor Bear complete a cheek swab after he refused to waive his rights did not violate Miranda.”

For insurance bad-faith discovery, Moreno treated an adjuster's handling of comparable weather-related claims as relevant, while limiting production by time, claim type, and privacy redactions to keep it proportional.

“How he has handled weather-related property claims in the past is relevant, particularly in the bad faith context. ... the scope of the RFP is, however, limited to weather-related homeowners' claims since 2020.”

Signed rulings

A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.

United States v. Keeble
3:16-cr-30058-RAL · 2017-01-18
Motion to suppress (defendant) Denied

“ORDER ADOPTING REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION AND DENYING MOTION TO SUPPRESS”

United States v. White Horse
3:20-cr-30058-RAL · 2021-03-01
Motion to suppress (defendant) Denied

“ORDERED that White Horse's Motion to Suppress, Doc. 105, is denied.”

United States v. Poor Bear
3:21-cr-30074-RAL · 2022-09-02
Motion to suppress (defendant) Granted in part

“ORDERED that Poor Bear's Motion to Suppress and corresponding supplements, Doc. 34; Doc. 37; Doc. 44, are granted in part and denied in part as set forth in this Opinion and order.”

Kotelman v. Farm Bureau Financial Services
4:24-cv-04066-RAL · 2025-10-22
Motions to compel (plaintiff) Granted in part

“ORDERED that the Kotelmans’ motion to compel is granted in part and denied in part.”

Motion for attorneys fees (plaintiff) Denied

“ORDERED that the Kotelmans’ request for attorney’s fees is denied.”

Kotelman v. Farm Bureau Financial Services
4:24-cv-04066-RAL · 2026-04-03
Motion for reconsideration (defendant) Denied

“Judge Moreno denied Farm Bureau's motion to reconsider as the motion was not based on new evidence or a change in the law, the documents ordered by the previous decision on the motion to compel are relevant and not unduly burdensome to produce, and his earlier modifications to the original RFP 19 made the production order proportional.”

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