Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

A Caucasian high school football player (H) accidentally hit an African-American team member (D) with his car, causing D to suffer a sprained ankle. H got out and apologized. D threatened to kill him. The principal had instructed staff to be lenient with African-Americans because too many were serving suspensions. Although the Code of Conduct prohibits threats, the school did not discipline D. D's parents threatened suit. The principal admitted suspending H for 10 days to "cover" himself and the school. H's witness statements were not provided to panelists in advance. H's attorney was limited to passing notes and not allowed to present witnesses. Employees were informed that they would lose their jobs if they attended the hearing. The board sustained the charge of reckless endangerment and suspension, so that it went on H's record. An appeal was denied. Before his suspension, college recruiters had approached H and a congressman had offered an appointment, the first step to attend a military academy. H alleges he lost those opportunities. The district court dismissed 42 U.S.C. 1983 claims for substantive due process violations, failure to train, and negligence; claims by H's parents; claims against individuals in their official capacities; claims against the board of education and the public school system. The Sixth Circuit affirmed denial of the motion to dismiss procedural due process and equal protection claims based on the conduct of three defendants and that those defendants are not protected by qualified immunity.

Petitioner was convicted of murdering a man and raping his daughter, setting their house on fire, and related offenses. At the mitigation hearing, his parents testified about an unpleasant childhood, but defense counsel did not present evidence of "horrific" conditions in records from Childrenâs Services and in affidavits from his siblings, including evidence of rape, incest, and sexual abuse, or present evidence of petitioner's attempt to help his younger sister. A psychiatric consultant, employed despite the fact that he was not a trained mitigation specialist, advised the attorneys to obtain those records, but they did not do so, nor did they prepare witnesses to testify. The Sixth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of a writ of habeas corpus on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel at the mitigation hearing and granted a conditional writ of habeas corpus vacating the death sentence, unless the State of Ohio begins a new mitigation hearing within 180 days. Despite gruesome crime, there is a reasonable probability that, had the three-judge panel heard the true horror of petitioner's childhood, at least one of the judges would not have sentenced him to death; the Ohio court's conclusion to the contrary was unreasonable,

Police investigated an airplane landing at an unstaffed airport in Jackson, Tennessee at 9:00 p.m., approached the plane, and asked three occupants for identification. A warrant check came up clean. The officers returned the identifications, chatted with the men for 10-15 minutes, and asked for consent to search the plane. The pilots refused, nervously, according to the officers, climbed back into the plane, and flew to Nashville, where local police discovered 70 kilograms of cocaine hidden in the plane. The district court suppressed the officers' account of what happened at the Jackson airport. The Sixth Circuit reversed. The evidence was not the product of an illegal seizure, so the exclusionary rule does not apply. Defendants' contact with police was relatively short in duration and non-threatening and defendants did not establish any causative link between the alleged police misconduct and the evidentiary discovery.

Larry Gibbs was convicted of conspiracy to distribute heroin and was sentenced as a career offender to thirty years' imprisonment. Later, Gibbs filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on the grounds that a prior state conviction for narcotics possession had been improperly assessed as a predicate trafficking offense under federal sentencing guidelines. The Supreme Court denied the petition, finding that Gibbs's failure to raise this claim during his direct appeal constituted a procedural default. Gibbs subsequently filed a motion to set aside the Court's judgment pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b), claiming that his procedural default should be excused because (1) he was "actually innocent" of the sentence he received, and (2) the claim he pursued was unavailable during his direct appeal. The district court denied Gibbs's motion. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding (1) because Gibbs's argument was available to him on direct appeal, his procedural default was not excused; and (2) because a court could have reasonably believed a thirty-year sentence was appropriate in this case, Gibbs could not rely on "actual innocence" to excuse his procedural default.

The executor of the estate's suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 claims that decedent was killed while riding a motorcycle across an empty field, in the middle of the night, after a low-speed chase, when a deputy intentionally rammed that motorcycle. The district court held that the deputy's actions, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, violated decedent's clearly established constitutional rights, precluding qualified immunity. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. If a suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so.

In 2005 petitioner was convicted, under Michigan law, of felony murder for his role in the robbery, fire, and homicide at a gun shop. He had initially invoked his right to counsel, after which an officer made a remark about the possibility of the death penalty. A day later, petitioner stated that he had planned the crime. The trial court refused to suppress the statement. After exhausting state appeals, petitioner was denied habeas corpus (28 U.S.C. 2254) by the district court. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The state court decision, that the death penalty statement did amount to an impermissible interrogation and that the coercive effect of this interrogation had subsided by the next morning, so that petitioner had validly waived his right to counsel before giving his statement, did not reflect an unreasonable application of relevant Supreme Court precedent. The court noted that it is not clear that the death-penalty comment qualified as the functional equivalent of interrogation, as opposed to a type of "subtle compulsion" to cooperate that is not foreclosed by precedent.

Defendant was discharged from the U.S. Army due to a personality disorder. He was later charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, 18 U.S.C. 3261(a), and sentenced, by a federal district court, to life in prison for participating in a sexual assault and multiple murders while stationed in Iraq. Co-conspirators, still on active duty and subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. 802(a)(1), were tried by courts-martial and each sentenced to between 90 and 110 years imprisonment; they are eligible for parole in ten years. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, first noting that Iraq could not prosecute the defendant and that prosecution in the U.S. did not violate international law. The Army completed a valid discharge of defendant, so that he was no longer subject to courts-martial. His trial under MEJA did not violate the separation-of-powers principle or his due process or equal protection rights. Defendant was no longer similarly situated with his co-conspirators when charges were filed.

Proposal 2, a successful voter-initiated amendment to the Michigan Constitution, became effective in 2006 and prohibited public colleges from granting "preferential treatment to[] any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin." The district court entered summary judgment upholding Proposal 2. The Sixth Circuit reversed, based on two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and applying strict scrutiny because the enactment changed the governmental decision-making process for determinations with a racial focus. Proposal 2 targets a program that "inures primarily to the benefit of the minority" and reorders the political process in Michigan in such a way as to place "special burdens" on racial minorities. Admissions committees are political decision-making bodies and the Proposal is more than a mere repeal of desegregation laws. The court noted the procedural obstacles that would be faced by minorities favoring race-based admissions.

Defendant, convicted as a felon in possession of a firearm (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)) appealed denial of a motion to suppress. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that under the totality of the circumstances, officersâ suspicions that the defendant was armed and a danger to them was reasonable. The detention and search occurred at a location where officers had been recently informed that a black man was selling drugs; defendant initially approached the officers in a calm way, but his demeanor subsequently changed once he realized they were police; defendant acted nervously, "like a deer at headlights;" defendant turned away from the officers as if to leave; and defendant frantically dug his hands into his pockets and would not remove them.

The district court denied the petitioner, facing the death penalty for murders in 1990, habeas corpus. The Sixth Circuit affirmed and denied a request to file a successive petition. Petitioner did not show that the Ohio Supreme Courtâs rejection of his claims was contrary to, or involved unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court, or that it resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding. The court noted concerns: the case was not prosecuted until five years after the killings and there was no physical evidence to tie petitioner to the crimes; witnesses have recanted. This "worrisome scenario" is not enough to create a constitutional claim cognizable under habeas and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. Newly discovered facts--a cigarette butt with DNA belonging to another person who had a history with a victim-- and all the other evidence do not establish clearly and convincingly that a reasonable factfinder could not have found petitioner guilty.