Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs, a father and his children, brought various claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 asserting that a children's services caseworker entered their home unlawfully and effected an unconstitutional removal of the children into state custody. At issue was whether the district court properly concluded that the caseworker was entitled to qualified immunity with respect to all of the claims against him and granted summary judgment in his favor. The court held that the caseworker was not entitled to qualified immunity and vacated the district court's grant of summary judgment on plaintiff's claims for Fourth Amendment violations arising out of the allegedly unlawful search of plaintiffs' home; plaintiffs' claims for violations of procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment; the father's claim for violation of substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment; and the children's claim for unlawful seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings.

Petitioner sought a writ of habeas corpus to overturn his conviction on one count of felony murder in the second degree for a street robbery that resulted in the death of a young doctor and soon-to-be father. Petitioner, whose first trial on these charges resulted in a hung jury, principally challenged admission at his second trial of the transcript and testimony offered by a State witness at the first trial without informing the jury that the witness had, since the first trial, "recanted." The court held that, because the claim was not properly raised and preserved before the trial court and was therefore procedurally defaulted under New York state law, the district court's grant of the habeas corpus petition was reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

Petitioner applied for leave to file a successive 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion, challenging his 2006 murder-for-hire conviction and resulting sentence. At issue was whether a movant's prior unsuccessful motion under section 2255 seeking reinstatement of his right to direct appeal rendered a subsequent section 2255 motion challenging his conviction or sentence "successive" under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"), 28 U.S.C. 2255. The court held that, because a prior unsuccessful section 2255 motion was filed for the purpose of obtaining a direct appeal, and did not directly attack his conviction or sentence, the section 2255 motion that petitioner now wished to filed was not "successive" within the meaning of section 2255(h). Therefore, the court denied his motion as unnecessary and transfered the matter to the district court.

Defendant, subject to delinquency and default penalties under 18 U.S.C. 3612(g) for failure to pay restitution and a fine arising from his criminal conviction, appealed a district court order denying his request that the district court waive or reduce such penalties. At issue was whether the district court erred by finding that it lacked the authority under section 3612 to waive all or part of defendant's delinquency and default penalties. The court held that the district court correctly interpreted section 3612(h) as authorizing only the Attorney General, in its discretion, to waive all or part of delinquency and default penalties properly assessed pursuant to section 3612(g). Therefore, the district court properly denied defendant's motion for waiver of his delinquency and default penalties.

Defendant appealed from two judgments of conviction related to his involvement in "pump and dump" stock schemes. At issue was whether the first judgment of conviction, entered upon a jury verdict, should be overturned, either because the evidence was insufficient to permit a jury to find a fiduciary duty, or because the jury was improperly instructed about how to determine the existence of a fiduciary duty. Also at issue was whether the second judgment of conviction should be overturned because defendant's guilty plea, entered after his conviction in the first trial, was premised on the outcome of that trial. The court held that, upon reviewing the jury instructions for plain error and taking the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government, the jury was entitled to find that the brokers in this case had a duty to disclose their exorbitant commissions, just as they had a duty to refrain from making affirmative misrepresentations regarding the size of their commissions, and thus, the district court properly instructed the jury on the elements of that duty. The court also held that, because it found no principled basis on which to distinguish this case from United States v. Szur, the court concluded that there was no error in the charge, and affirmed defendant's first conviction. Therefore, the court's conclusion necessarily defeated defendant's argument challenging his subsequent guilty plea and the second judgment of conviction was also affirmed.

Defendants appealed from an order of the district court granting summary judgment to plaintiffs and entering a permanent injunction barring the Board of Education of the City of New York ("Board") from enforcing a rule that prohibited outside groups from using school facilities after hours for "religious worship services." At issue was whether the rule constituted viewpoint discrimination in violation of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. The court held that because the rule did not exclude expressions of religious points of view or of religious devotion, but excluded for valid non discriminatory reasons only a type of activity, the conduct worship services, the rule did not constitute viewpoint discrimination. The court also held that because defendants reasonably sought by this rule to avoid violating the Establishment Clause, the exclusion of religious worship services was a reasonable content-based restriction, which did not violate the Free Speech Clause. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was reversed and the injunction barring enforcement of the rule against plaintiffs was vacated.

Defendants appealed from May 17, 2010 judgments of conviction entered by the district court for possession with intent to distribute a mixture of 3, 4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine ("MDMA"), methamphetamine, and N-Benzylpiperazine ("BZP"), all Schedule I controlled substances, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1),(b)(1)(C) and 21 U.S.C. 846. At issue was whether the district court engaged in clearly erroneous fact-finding that led to a procedurally unreasonable sentence when it determined that the controlled substance referenced in the United States Sentencing Guidelines, U.S.S.G. 2D1.1, that was mostly related to the mixture found in defendants' possession, was MDMA or "ecstasy." The court held that there was insufficient evidence in the record to conclude that the appropriate substitute for the mixture contained in the pills found in defendants' possession was MDMA and therefore, remanded the case to the district court with instructions to conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine the composition of the pills for the purposes of U.S.S.G. 2D1.1.

Defendant was sentenced to 14 months imprisonment and 18 months of supervised release for violating two conditions of his previous term of supervised release. At issue was whether the district court had the power to revoke the supervised release finding that defendant had violated a condition of supervised release when he failed to report changes in employment and residence. The court vacated and held that the district court retained jurisdiction to revoke supervised release because the delays in adjudicating the revocation petitioner were reasonably necessary under 18 U.S.C. 3583(i). The court also held that the district court erred by finding that defendant violated the asserted condition, based on the district court's view of the "purpose" of the condition, rather than the "clear and specific" meaning that a person of ordinary intelligence would attribute to it.

Plaintiffs, former students of Ithaca High School, claimed that defendants violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by prohibiting the publication of a sexually-explicit cartoon in the Ithaca High School student newspaper ("IHS newspaper") and by prohibiting the on-campus distribution of an independent student newspaper containing the same cartoon. At issue was whether the district court erred in holding that the IHS newspaper was a limited public forum. The court concluded that the IHS newspaper was a limited public form and held that defendants lawfully prohibited the publication of the sexually-explicit cartoon pursuant to the standards for regulation of speech set forth in Bethel School District Number 403 v. Fraser and Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. The court also held that defendants lawfully prohibited the on-campus distribution of the sexually-explicit cartoon in an independent student newspaper pursuant to Fraser and that the court need not reach the question of whether defendants' prohibition of the on-campus distribution of the independent student newspaper was lawful under Tinker v. DesMoines Indep. Cmty. Scho. Dist.

Respondents appealed the district court's grant of habeas relief to petitioner where petitioner had been convicted of first-degree murder. At issue was whether the trial court abused its discretion by precluding defense counsel from cross-examining a witness about a document that contained multiple hearsay. The court held that the trial court's preclusion of cross-examination on the document was not so clearly an abuse of its broad discretion, to balance the probative and prejudicial aspects of potential cross-examination, that the state appellate court's failure to find such an abuse of discretion was an unreasonable application of clearly established law. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's grant of habeas corpus.