Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

This case stemmed from appellant's participation in the Bayou Hedge Fund Group (Bayou), a classic Ponzi scheme masked as a group of domestic and offshore hedge funds. Appellant appealed from his sentencing, following a plea of guilty to misprision of felony in violation of 18 U.S.C. 4. At issue was whether the district court's order of restitution in the amount of $60 million was improper because it relied on events occurring outside the relevant time period and the putative victims' losses were neither directly nor proximately caused by his actions as required by the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA), 18 U.S.C. 3663A. The court found no error, much less plain error, in the district court's use of appellant's fraudulent 2003 faxes at sentencing. The court also found no error in the district court's conclusion that appellant's failure to report the Bayou fraud was both the direct and the proximate cause of the victim investors' losses. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Plaintiffs appealed from a judgment of the district court granting summary judgment in favor of a school district and principal on 42 U.S.C. 1983 claims arising out of the treatment of their son, a middle school student with a history of misbehavior in school, who wrote an essay with descriptions of illegal activity, violence, and suicide (Racing Time essay). Plaintiffs appealed the dismissal of a First Amendment retaliation claim brought on behalf of their son and the dismissal of their own Fourth Amendment substantive due process claim. The court held that none of the principal's actions in response to the student's speech constituted retaliation; and because neither of the principal's actions in response to the essay were adverse, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the principal on the First Amendment retaliation claim. The court also held that the principal's call to Child and Family Services (CFS) did not violate the parents' substantive due process rights where there was no actual loss of the parents' custody and no reasonably jury could conclude that the principal's report to CFS, or the resulting requirement that the student by psychiatrically evaluated, was even remotely "outrageous" or "conscience-shocking." The court did not reach the question of qualified immunity. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Plaintiff, an African-American firefighter for the City of New Haven, alleged that the firefighter promotion exams challenged in Ricci v. DeStefano were arbitrarily weighted, yielding an impermissible disparate impact. The district court dismissed the claim as "necessarily foreclosed" by Ricci. The court vacated the judgment of the district court and remanded for further proceedings, but expressed no view as to whether dismissal was warranted based on other defenses raised by the city.

Plaintiffs, a group of retail sales employees of defendant, appealed from an order of the district court vacating an arbitration award on the ground that the arbitrator had exceeded her authority in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Stolt-Nielson S.A. v. AnimalFeeds International Corp. At issue was whether a district court had the authority to vacate an arbitration award where it believed that the arbitrator improperly interpreted the terms of an arbitration agreement. The court held that, because the district court did not undertake the appropriate inquiry - whether, based on the parties' submission for the arbitration agreement, the arbitrator had the authority to reach an issue, not whether the arbitrator decided the issue correctly - and instead substituted its own legal analysis for that of the arbitrator's, the court reversed the judgment of the district court. The court also held that, because the court found that the arbitrator acted within her authority to reach an issue properly submitted to her by the parties and reached her decision by analyzing the terms of the agreement in light of applicable law, the award should not have been vacated. Accordingly, the court remanded with instructions to confirm the award.

Defendant appealed from the judgment of the district court granting defendants' motion to dismiss his claims brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983 and Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics. At issue was whether the district court erred in finding that the statute of limitations had run on the first of his two causes of action and in dismissing his second cause of action for improper venue. The court vacated and remanded on the grounds that claims brought by an inmate under the Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA"), 32 U.S.C. 1997e(a), were entitled to equitable tolling during the time-period the inmate was exhausting his administrative remedies, as required by the PLRA. The court also vacated the judgment insofar as it dismissed some of defendants' claims for improper venue and remanded with instructions that the court transfer those claims to the Eastern District of New York if the court deemed it proper to do so upon reexamination of defendants' claims.

Defendant appealed from a 45 month prison sentence following his guilty plea to possession of a firearm where the district court imposed a six-level sentence enhancement after finding that the stolen weapon was a machine gun. At issue was whether the enhancement was reversible error where the weapon's automatic fire feature was disabled at the time of defendant's theft and therefore, it no longer qualified as a machine gun. The court held that the weapon was a machine gun within the meaning of 26 U.S.C. 5845(b) because the undisputed evidence established that the weapon originally was designed to fire automatically. Accordingly, the sentence was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of immigration fraud and sentenced to 51 months imprisonment. At issue was under what circumstances did the exclusion of the public from a courtroom during voir dire violate a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a public trial. The court held that, although the district court's exclusion of defendant's brother and girlfriend during voir dire failed to meet the four-factor test set forth in Waller v. Georgia, and now Presley v. Georgia, the exclusion was too trivial to implicate defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a public trial. The court also held that Presley did not alter the "triviality exception" to the public trial guarantee. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Petitioner brought this mandamus action to compel USCIS to make a determination on the merits of her I-212 application, alleging that USCIS denied her application in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"), 5 U.S.C. 551 et seq., the Due Process Clause, and the Equal Protection Clause. At issue was whether the district court properly dismissed petitioner's complaint, concluding that it lacked jurisdiction pursuant to the REAL ID Act of 2005, 8 U.S.C. 1252(a)(5), and in the alternative, petitioner's claims were barred by res judicata. The court held that petitioner was indirectly challenging her reinstated order of removal and accordingly, the court held that section 1252(a)(5)'s jurisdictional bar applied equally to preclude such an indirect challenge. Therefore, because the court concluded that the district court lacked jurisdiction over petitioner's complaint, the court did not reach her remaining arguments.

Defendants Linda O'Connor and Dean Sacco appealed from convictions of sex trafficking of a child; O'Connor appealed from convictions of selling a child for the purpose of producing child pornography and producing child pornography; and Sacco appealed from convictions of buying a child for the purpose of producing child pornography, producing and possessing child pornography, and interstate travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor. O'Connor contended that evidence was insufficient to support her conviction on any count and that the district court deprived her of a fair trial by denying her motions for severance of her trial from Sacco's trial. O'Connor also challenged certain evidentiary rulings. Sacco contended chiefly that the district court deprived him of a fair trial by denying his attorney's request to withdraw from the case, by admitting in evidence portions of his self-titled autobiography that gave an account of his past thoughts and conduct, and by denying his request for a continuance following unexpected testimony from a government witness. The court found no merit in any of defendants' contentions and therefore, affirmed the judgments and convictions.

Defendant appealed from a judgment of conviction for securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud. At issue, among other things, was whether venue was proper in the Eastern District of New York. The court held that venue in the Eastern District was proper for the conspiracy counts where defendant committed overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracies in the Eastern District. Accordingly, the court did not find venue for the conspiracy charges to be unfair or prejudicial. The court held, however, that venue in the Eastern District was improper for the substantive securities fraud count where no conduct that constituted the offense took place in the Eastern District. Accordingly, nothing in United States v. Svoboda called into question the principle that preparatory acts alone were insufficient to establish venue. Therefore, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part.