Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, developer of a passive radio frequency identification (RFID) system for commercial use, alleged a number of Texas claims against a group of software companies in state court. Defendants moved the suit to federal court and obtained a dismissal from the district court on the basis that all of plaintiff's claims were preempted by the Copyright Act, 28 U.S.C. 1338. The court held that the complete preemption doctrine applied in copyright preemption cases; plaintiff had pled factual allegations that at least in part fell outside of the scope of copyright; and defendants have argued enough of a basis for preemption on plaintiff's conversion claim to stay in federal court. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded.

Plaintiffs sued the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, challenging the constitutionality of Louisiana's Act 490, which amended Louisiana's Outpatient Abortion Facility Licensing Law of 2001. The district court granted the Secretary's motion to dismiss, holding that the claims were not ripe. The court affirmed because plaintiffs have failed to show that hardship would result from withholding court consideration at this time.

An FCC investigation concluded that Jerry and Deborah Stevens operated an unlicensed FM radio station from their Austin, Texas residence in violation of section 301 of the Communications Act of 1934. The FCC issued a forfeiture order in the amount of $10,000. Thereafter, the government brought an action to enforce the forfeiture in district court pursuant to 47 U.S.C. 504(a). The Stevenses moved to dismiss the enforcement action, arguing that the FCC lacked jurisdiction to regulate intrastate broadcasts and that section 301 did not apply to radio broadcasts. The district court denied the motion, determining it did not have jurisdiction to consider legal challenges to the validity of an FCC forfeiture order in a section 504(a) enforcement action. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the district court correctly determined it lacked jurisdiction to consider the Stevenses' legal defenses in the government's action to enforce the forfeiture order, as the Stevens failed to raise legal challenges to the validity of the order in a timely petition for review in the appropriate court of appeals.

David Scruggs pleaded guilty to a one-count superseding information charging misprision of a felony. After he was released from prison but before the conclusion of his term of supervised release, Scruggs filed a motion to vacate conviction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255. After a hearing, the district court denied Scruggs's section 2255 motion and granted a certificate of appealability on three issues. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) because the information charged an offense against the laws of the United States, Scruggs's claim that, under Skilling v. United States, the district court lacked jurisdiction to accept his guilty plea was without merit; (2) Scruggs failed to prove ineffective assistance of counsel based on a conflict of interest; and (3) Scruggs failed to show that alleged governmental misconduct induced him to plea guilty.

This appeal arose out of the alleged use of excessive force in the arrest of Roger Poole following a traffic stop in Louisiana. Poole sued police officers John Stalnaker and J. Creighton, former chief of police Mike VanSant, and the City of Shreveport, seeking damages for constitutional violations under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of Defendants. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the district court did not err in granting Creighton and Stalnaker summary judgment on Defendant's excessive force claims based on the affirmative defense of qualified immunity; and (2) Defendant failed to meet his burden of proving genuine issues of material fact existed to preclude judgment on Defendant's claim that the City and VanSant failed to establish a policy implementing or enforcing Louisiana's policy against the use of public office for private gain.

A trade group and a physician-owned hospital sued the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. They sought injunctive relief to remedy multiple alleged constitutional infirmities with Section 6001 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Section 6001 limits Medicare reimbursement for services furnished to a patient referred by a physician owner. Although it denied the Secretary's motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, the district court granted summary judgment to the Secretary, concluding that Congress had a rational basis for enacting Section 6001, the new law did not constitute a real or regulatory taking, and the law's requirements were not unconstitutionally vague. The plaintiffs appealed. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the district court's decision and dismissed the appeal, holding that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over this case.

Appellees, several individuals, claimed that the City of Galveston police used excessive force against them. Appellees filed this 42 U.S.C. 1983 against Appellants Steven LeBlanc and and Charles Wiley, former city manager and former chief of police for the City, respectively, and over a dozen individual officers. Appellees claimed that LeBlanc and Wiley were individually liable for failing to train the responding officers, especially on the appropriate use of force. Appellants moved to dismiss on qualified immunity under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The district court refused to rule on Appellants' threshold qualified immunity defense, concluding it was premature to address the qualified immunity defense before general discovery. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the district court's order, holding that the district court abused its discretion by withholding its ruling pending general discovery and by failing to limit discovery to facts necessary to rule on Appellants' qualified immunity defense. Remanded.

Defendant was found guilty of conspiracy with intent to distribute cocaine base, conspiracy to distribute marijuana, possession with intent to distribute cocaine base, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of and in relation to a drug trafficking crime. Defendant was sentenced to a total of 420 months' imprisonment. After he exhausted his remedies on direct appeal, Defendant filed a pro se 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion, claiming that his trial counsel was ineffective. The district court denied Defendant's motion. At issue before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was whether Defendant's trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by advising him not to testify on his own behalf. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that because Defendant failed to demonstrate that he was prejudiced, he did not establish a constitution violation and was not entitled to section 2255 relief.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals considered these cases jointly because they raised a single issue: whether Defendants, who were convicted of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, among other things, were entitled to be sentenced according to the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) when their illegal conduct preceded the FSA but their sentencing proceedings occurred post-enactment. The Fifth Circuit held that the penalties described by the FSA did not apply to federal criminal sentencing for illegal conduct that preceded the FSA's enactment, and therefore, the sentences imposed by the district courts in these cases were affirmed. However, after the Fifth Circuit issued its opinion in these consolidated cases, the Supreme Court decided Dorsey v. United States, which held, contrary to the Fifth Circuit's opinion, that the more lenient penalties of the FSA apply to offenders who committed an offense before the Act was passed but were sentenced after the Act was enacted. The Fifth Circuit, therefore, vacated and remanded these cases for resentencing consistent with the Court's holding in Dorsey.

Appellants Walter Teel, Paul Minor and John Whitfield raised several appellate issues arising from their final amended judgments of convictions and sentences entered by the district court after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case for resentencing in United States v. Whitfield. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's judgment on remand, holding (1) Appellants' argument that the jury instructions erroneously defined honest-services fraud were barred by the mandate rule; (2) Appellants' argument that the indictment was erroneous for failure to state an offense was also barred by the mandate rule; and (3) the district court did not err in sentencing Minor and Whitfield.