Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

In May 2010, defendant pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute 50 grams or more of cocaine base and two counts of distributing 5 grams or more of cocaine. Defendant's sentencing was scheduled for August 3, 2010, which was the date on which President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 ("FSA"), Pub. L. No. 111-120, 124 Stat. 2372. At issue was whether the FSA applied to defendants who committed crack cocaine offenses before August 3, 2010, but who were sentenced thereafter. The court held that the general savings statute, 1 U.S.C. 109, could not bar application of the FSA to sentencing conducted after its August 3, 2010 enactment. Accordingly, the court remanded defendant's case to the district court for resentencing.

Defendant appealed his felony drug offenses and his sentence enhancement based on two prior felony drug offenses. At issue was whether there was sufficient evidence to support his convictions; whether there were cumulative errors at trial that prejudiced him to the extent that he was entitled to a new trial; and whether the Government properly filed and served its 21 U.S.C. 851 notice of enhanced sentence. The court found that the first two issues lacked merit and focused its analysis on the Government's service of the notice of enhancement. The court held that defendant was not served before trial with a copy of the information in accordance with section 851(a)(1) and therefore, the district court lacked authority to impose an enhanced sentence on Counts I and Counts II. Accordingly, the court vacated defendant's mandatory term of life imprisonment on Count I and ten year sentence on Count II and remanded with instructions to resentence him on those counts without the enhancement. The court affirmed the judgment of the convictions on all counts.

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Pakistan, petitioned for review of the BIA's decision upholding the IJ's denial of his request for discretionary relief and order of removal. At issue was whether an attorney rendered ineffective assistance when he conceded, at a second removal hearing, that petitioner had sought to procure an immigration benefit through willful misrepresentation of a material fact in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(6)(C)(i); 1227(a)(1)(A). The court denied the petition for review and held that substantial evidence supported the finding by the BIA that the attorney's decision to concede removability was a reasonable strategic decision.

Appellant filed a complaint that Georgia Correctional Health, LLC ("Georgia Correctional") had been deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs while he was detained for nine days in jail. During his detention, appellant received sixteen evaluations from nine different employees of Georgia Correctional before he received a computer tomography scan, which revealed that he had air, bleeding, and fractures in his head that required neurological surgery. At issue was whether appellant failed to present evidence that Georgia Correctional had a policy or custom of deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of pretrial detainees in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court held that appellant had failed to prove a policy or custom based only on his "isolated incident" and that an isolated incident, however unfortunate, did not demonstrate evidence of the county's persistent or widespread policy. Accordingly, the district court's ruling was affirmed.

Petitioner, currently on death row, filed a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. 1983, contending that the Alabama Department of Corrections' ("ADOC") recent change from sodium thipoental to pentobarbitol as the first three drugs used in the lethal injection protocol constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment and violated his rights protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. At issue was whether the district court erred in granting the motion to dismiss on statute of limitations grounds because, in rejecting petitioner's claim that the ADOC's lethal injection protocol violated the Eight Amendment, the district court relied on external evidence and dicta, and the change in lethal injection protocol was significant; and petitioner's claim regarding Alabama's secrecy and arbitrary changes also accrued when the ADOC changed the first drug in the protocol. The court held that the district court did not err in basing its conclusion on the binding precedent in Powell v. Thomas, and, in light of the binding precedent, the court rejected petitioner's attempt to relitigate the issue of whether the ADOC's action in changing the first drug in the lethal injection protocol was a "significant" change for purposes of McNair v. Allen. Therefore, the district court did not err in determining that petitioner's claim was barred by the statute of limitations. The court also held that petitioner failed to show how his claim about the secrecy surrounding the ADOC's recent change in lethal injection protocol was revived by the ADOC's 2011 switch in drugs and therefore, the district court did not err in finding petitioner's second claim for relief barred by the statute of limitations.

Defendants fraudulently obtained over 300 mortgage-backed loans for buyers who used the loans to purchase houses and condominiums from defendants at more than market value. An indictment charged 18 defendants with a total of 187 counts, including three separate conspiracies and a host of substantive counts. The jury delivered split verdicts on defendants and guilty verdicts on other defendants. Numerous issues were raised on appeal related to defendants' motions for severance, jury selection issues, evidentiary issues, miscellaneous trial issues, the sufficiency of the evidence, double jeopardy claims, Kastigar v. United States claims, and sentencing issues. The court affirmed all the convictions and sentences of all of defendants in all respects except that the court vacated the district court's order denying Leslie Rector's motion to dismiss, which asserted as its ground that the government had breached the proffer agreement; as to that motion, the court remanded for further proceedings.

Petitioner, who was 65-years-old, had been on death row for nearly half of his life after he was convicted of first degree murder and second degree murder in 1980. The court granted a certificate of appealability on two issues related to petitioner's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel and his right to the independent assistance of a mental health expert. The court held that counsel's failure to adequately investigate petitioner's background and his resulting failure to present the non-statutory mitigating circumstances evidence fell below the standards of reasonably competent legal performance guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. The court also held that counsel's deficiencies established prejudice in light of the holding in Williams v. Taylor. Accordingly, the court erred in denying habeas relief on the ineffective assistance of counsel claim.

Plaintiff sued defendant, a deputy with the sheriff's office, under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the deputy violated her right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. At issue was whether the district court erred in concluding that the deputy was not entitled to qualified immunity because he was acting outside the scope of his discretionary authority. The court held that the deputy's actions were undertaken pursuant to the performance of his duties and were within the scope of his authority. The court also held that, under the particular circumstances of the case, the deputy's conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment and he was therefore, entitled to qualified immunity. Furthermore, assuming arguendo a constitutional violation, a reasonable officer in the deputy's shoes would not have known that his conduct was unlawful. Plaintiff had no binding precedent that clearly established that probable cause and exigent circumstances immediately evaporated once an officer performing a welfare check for a possibly suicidal person and saw that the person was merely alive. Accordingly, the district court's order denying the deputy's motion for summary judgment was reversed and remanded.

Defendant was indicted along with seventeen other people in a mortgage fraud case and was tried separately from his co-defendants because he insisted on proceeding pro se, at least up until the very day his trial began. The jury returned a guilty verdict on all counts and defendant now challenged his convictions. The court held that the district court acted well within its discretion when it refused to grant defendant yet another continuance on the day set for the trial to begin where defendant had insisted on proceeding pro se despite the district court's repeated warnings and thereby, contributed to his own situation. The court also held that defendant's Fourteenth Amendment right to a fair trial was not violated by the fact that he wore prison attire instead of furnishing his own street clothes as he had promised the court he would do. The court further held that the district court did not err in permitting a former real estate attorney to testify as a lay witness because the part of the witness' testimony that was elicited by the government was based on his own personal knowledge of mortgage fraud and therefore, he did not have to be qualified as an expert. Accordingly, the court affirmed the convictions.

Plaintiffs, a husband and wife, sued defendants, two sheriff's deputies, seeking damages under 42 U.S.C. 1983 on the grounds that the deputies' warrantless entry into their garage, and wife's subsequent arrest for obstruction of justice, violated their Fourth Amendment rights. Wife attempted to shut her open garage door to prevent the deputies from serving a court order on her husband, as the garage door closed, one of the deputies stepped into the threshold, breaking the electronic-eye safety beam on the garage door and caused the door to retreat to its open position. At issue was whether the warrantless seizure inside plaintiffs' garage violated their Fourth Amendment rights and, if so, whether those rights were clearly established when the incident occurred, such that the deputies should be stripped of qualified immunity. The court held that although the deputies' entrance into the garage did violate plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment rights, the boundaries of the right violated were not clearly established and therefore, the deputies were entitled to qualified immunity. Accordingly, the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of the deputies both on plaintiffs' arrest claim and on plaintiffs' challenge of the entrance of the garage.