Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of distribution of child pornography to an unidentified person, not connected with law enforcement, who convinced him that she (or he) was a minor. The district court applied the distribution to a minor enhancement under U.S.S.G. 2G2.2(b)(3)(C) after concluding that the actual age of the recipient, which had never been determined in the case, did not matter so long as defendant thought that the recipient was a minor. The court held that defendant's belief that the recipient was a minor at the time he sent her the child pornography was not enough to justify the enhancement and that the government must prove that the recipient was under the age of 18 years at the time. Therefore, the court vacated defendant's sentence and remanded to the district court to make a finding regarding whether the government had proven by a preponderance of the evidence that at the time defendant sent the child pornography, the recipient was 18 years of age. If the district court found that the government had not carried its burden of proving that fact, about which the court expressed no view, it should resentence defendant without the section 2G2.2(b)(3)(C) enhancement.

Defendant was convicted of three murders and sentenced to death. At issue on appeal was whether defendant's second state petition for a writ of habeas corpus was "properly filed," under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(2), so as to toll the one-year limitation period for filing a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The court held that defendant's second state habeas petition was untimely, and the district court did not err by dismissing his petition.

In 1994, defendant was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, one count of armed burglary, and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, but those convictions were set aside on appeal by the Florida Supreme Court. In 2004, defendant was retried and again convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and defendant claimed that this second trial violated the Fifth Amendment's prohibition on double jeopardy. On direct appeal, the Florida Supreme Court denied him relief, as did the federal district court on his application for a writ of habeas corpus. Having carefully reviewed the Florida Supreme Court's decision in light of United States Supreme Court precedent, the court held that defendant was not entitled to habeas relief because he was not "twice put in jeopardy" as that phrase was defined in federal constitutional law.

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Cuba and a lawful permanent resident of the United States, petitioned for review of the decision of the BIA affirming the IJ's order of removal rendered on the ground that he was inadmissible to the United States because he was convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude due to his conviction for false imprisonment under section 787.02, Florida Statutes. The court held that the BIA and the IJ erred by considering evidence beyond the record of petitioner's false imprisonment conviction to determine that he had been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude. The court held, however, that because the BIA and IJ assumed without deciding that the Florida offense of false imprisonment was not categorically a crime involving moral turpitude, the court must remand to the BIA to determine in the first instance whether petitioner's false imprisonment conviction qualified as a conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude. Therefore, the court granted the petition and remanded for further proceedings.

In 1987, petitioner burglarized a home and murdered the two people inside. Petitioner, now a death-row inmate, appealed the district court's denial of his section 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The court held that petitioner had pointed to no Supreme Court precedent establishing that the Florida Supreme Court's decision, that petitioner's trial lawyers had performed well enough, was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law, or that it was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. The court also held that the Florida Supreme Court's decision rejecting petitioner's Batson claim was neither contrary to, nor an unreasonable application of, federal law as determined by the United States Supreme Court. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief.

In this Section 1983 case, four homeless plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of two ordinances in the City Code of St. Petersburg, Florida and of the city's enforcement of the ordinances. The trespass ordinance at issue authorized certain city agents to issue a temporary trespass warning for specific city land on which the agent determined that the warning recipient had violated city or state law. The storage ordinance at issue prohibited storage of personal property on city land such as parks and rights-of-way. The district court dismissed all of plaintiffs claims. The court affirmed the district court's rulings, except the court vacated part of the district court's ruling about the trespass ordinance. Plaintiffs have stated claims on the issues of procedural due process under the United States Constitution and on their right to intrastate travel under the Florida Constitution.

Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence, filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court erred in ruling that his sentencing claim was not cognizable under section 2255. Defendant also argued that the actual innocence exception to the procedural default rule applied to excuse the procedural default of his sentencing claim. The court held that defendant procedurally defaulted his claim by failing to raise it on direct appeal and that the actual innocence exception did not apply to defendant's claim of legal innocence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of the section 2255 motion.

This case stemmed from Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc.'s (Odyssey) discovery of a 19th Century Spanish vessel in international waters where Odyssey filed a verified admiralty complaint in rem against the shipwrecked vessel and sought a warrant of arrest. The Kingdom of Spain, the Republic of Peru, and twenty-five individuals filed claims against the res and Spain subsequently filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the res was a Spanish warship and the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over Odyssey's claims because the vessel was immune from judicial arrest under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. 1602-1611. The court affirmed the district court's grant of Spain's motion to dismiss where the district court correctly applied the Rule 12(b)(1) standard for factual challenges to jurisdiction to Spain's motion to dismiss; the district court did not abuse its discretion by evaluating Spain's Rule 12(b)(1) motion based on the extensive record before it; the evidence in the record fully supported the finding of the district court that the res was the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes (Mercedes), a Spanish vessel that sank in 1804, for the purposes of sovereign immunity and the district court correctly decided that FSIA immunity applied to the arrest of the Mercedes; the cargo aboard the Mercedes was treated as part of the shipwreck of the Mercedes for sovereign immunity purposes; and the district court did not err when it ordered the Odyssey to release the recovered res to the custody of Spain.

Defendants were convicted of offenses relating to their support for Islamist violence overseas. The issues raised on appeal related to the admission of testimony from an FBI agent; sufficiency of the evidence; admission of an expert's testimony; admission of portions of a television interview with Osama bin Laden; denial of a motion to suppress statements made to FBI agents; denial of a motion to dismiss an indictment based on alleged outrageous government conduct; admission of evidence of innocent intent; denial of a motion for severance; application of the terrorism enhancement to defendants' sentences; and, on cross-appeal, substantive and procedural error in sentencing. After review of the entire record, the court held that defendants were not entitled to relief on any of their claims. The court held, however, that the district court erred in imposing Jose Padilla's sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed defendants' convictions in all respects but vacated Padilla's sentence and remanded his case to the district court for re-sentencing.

Plaintiff appealed the district court's judgment dismissing his petition for a writ of mandamus and his complaint seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 551 et seq. Plaintiff's complaint requested the district court to mandamus the defendants (1) to determine as a matter of law that plaintiff had been "admitted" to the United States for purposes of his application for adjustment of status under 8 U.S.C. 1255(a) and (2) to re-open and re-adjudicate plaintiff's application for adjustment of status, which was previously denied. The court held that plaintiff could not satisfy the requirements for mandamus relief and that he had not demonstrated that he lacked an adequate remedy for obtaining relief. In fact, plaintiff had sued under the APA, which provided an adequate remedy. Therefore, the court held that because plaintiff had an adequate remedy available to him, the district court properly dismissed his request for mandamus relief. The court also held that the plain language of section 1255(a) limited eligibility for status adjustment to an alien who had been inspected and admitted or paroled. That an alien with Temporary Protected Status had lawful status as a nonimmigrant for purposes of adjusting his status did not change section 1255(a)'s threshold requirement that he was eligible for adjustment of status only if he was initially inspected and admitted or paroled. Accordingly, the court held that the district court's ruling was consistent with the plain language of the statute. Furthermore, even if the statutory language was ambiguous, the court deferred to the Department of Homeland Security's consistent and well-reasoned interpretation of the interplay between section 1255(a) and section 1254a(f)(4). Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the petition and complaint.