Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Texas recently enacted such a ban on new entrants in a market with a more direct connection to interstate commerce than the drilling of oil wells: the building of transmission lines that are part of multistate electricity grids. The operator of one such multistate grid awarded Plaintiff NextEra Energy Capital Holdings, Inc. the right to build new transmission lines in an area of east Texas that is part of an interstate grid. But before NextEra obtained the necessary construction certificate from the Public Utilities Commission of Texas, the state enacted the law, SB 1938, that bars new entrants from building transmission lines. NextEra challenges the new law on dormant Commerce Clause grounds. It also argues that the law violates the Contracts Clause by upsetting its contractual expectation that it would be allowed to build the new lines   The Fifth Circuit concluded that the dormant Commerce Clause claims should proceed past the pleading stage. But the Contracts Clause claim fails as a matter of law under the modern, narrow reading of that provision. The court explained that limiting competition based on the existence or extent of a business’s local foothold is the protectionism that the Commerce Clause guards against. Thus, the court reversed the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of the claim that the very terms of SB 1938 discriminate against interstate commerce. Further, the court held that SB 1938 did not interfere with an existing contractual right of NextEra. NextEra did not have a concrete, vested right that the law could impair. It thus fails at the threshold question for proving a modern Contracts Clause violation. View "NextEra, et al v. D'Andrea, et al" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his guilty plea conviction for attempted bank robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 2113(a). Defendant contends that the district court violated Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1) by improperly involving itself in plea negotiations and that he was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to self-representation. Defendant, now represented by counsel, asserts that the district court violated Rule 11(c)(1) by participating in plea negotiations before the parties reached an agreement. Second, he contends that his Sixth Amendment right to self-representation was violated during the plea-bargaining process.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed holding that Defendant failed to show reversible error. The court held that the district court’s participation in negotiations here was far less egregious than that in other cases requiring reversal under the harmless error standard. Here, Defendant indicated that he understood the plea agreement, that it was voluntarily entered, and that his decision to plead guilty was based on conversations between himself, standby counsel, and the prosecution. These facts fall short of demonstrating manifest injustice.   Further, the court concluded, that Defendant was not deprived of his right to self-representation. From April 29, 2020, the date Defendant elected to proceed pro se, to January 8, 2021, the date of the plea discussions at issue. The court could not say Defendant was deprived of his right to self-representation by virtue of his exclusion from this one conference. At all times, Defendant maintained “actual control” over the plea negotiations. View "USA v. Mamoth" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was prosecuted for knowing failure to report scrap metal transactions to the Texas Department of Public Safety, as required by state law. A jury acquitted him. Plaintiff then sued Houston Police Sergeant, claiming Defendant had provided false information that led to Plaintiff’s arrest and prosecution. The district court, concluding Defendant’s affidavit omitted material facts, denied him qualified immunity. The Fifth Circuit reversed and rendered judgment for Defendant.   The court explained that contrary to the district court’s ruling, C&D’s computer problems were not material to whether probable cause existed to suspect Plaintiff had violated the reporting provisions. By his own admission, Plaintiff did not submit approximately twenty-four required reports to DPS. Plaintiff also knew Scrap Dragon was failing to send reports to DPS. The court explained that one could reasonably believe Plaintiff knew that continuing to use the flawed system would result in reporting failures. He had been warned about the system’s deficiencies months before his arrest and yet failed to use the statutory safe haven. So, even had Defendant mentioned the Scrap Dragon glitch, his affidavit still would have shown probable cause. Thus, Plaintiff failed to allege a Fourth Amendment violation. Further, even assuming a Fourth Amendment violation, the claimed right was not clearly established at the time of the challenged conduct. View "Laviage v. Fite" on Justia Law

Petitioner was sentenced to death. He did not appeal or pursued state habeas relief. However, he subsequently filed for a Certificate of Appealability with the Fifth Circuit on several grounds. The Fifth Circuit rejected two of the grounds based on current precedent. However, the Fifth Circuit granted the Certificate of Appealability on the following issues:(1) Did Petitioner's state habeas counsel render inadequate assistance by conceding that Petitioner was competent to waive review?(2) Can the court reach that conclusion based on evidence consistent with Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez, 142 S. Ct. 1718 (2022)?(3) If Petitioner's state habeas counsel rendered inadequate assistance, was the inadequate assistance a cause external to Petitioner? View "Mullis v. Lumpkin" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a person of color and of mixed heritage, reported to school administrators that she was harassed by her peers on the basis of her race and national origin during her sixth-grade year in the Austin Independent School District. Plaintiff alleged that she was told to "go back where [she] came from" and that, in some cases, the harassment involved physical shoving. There were also incidents in which Plaintiff responded physically to verbal threats and name-calling, resulting in the school requesting she be transferred. Through her parents, Plaintiff sued the District for failure to address the harassment under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.The trial court dismissed Plaintiff's 1983 claim under Rule 12(b)(6) and ultimately granted summary judgment in favor of the district on Plaintiff's Title VI claim.While the Fifth Circuit took issue with some of the district court's findings, the Fifth Circuit concluded that the district court ultimately reached the correct result. Thus, the court affirmed the dismissal of Plaintiff's 1983 claim and the court's grant of summary judgment on the Title VI claim. View "Menzia v. Austin Indep School Dist" on Justia Law

Plaintiff claimed that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated because he was detained without probable cause for driving while intoxicated. He brought suit under Section 1983, seeking damages from the officers who submitted an affidavit and incident reports to a magistrate to support his pretrial detention. The defendants moved for summary judgment, asserting the defense of qualified immunity. The district court determined that fact issues precluded summary judgment, specifically, whether the officers made false statements that Plaintiff was “operating a motor vehicle” in violation of Texas law.The Fifth Circuit reversed. Under Texas law, the inquiry when determining whether a person caused a vehicle to move must take into account “the totality of the circumstances [regarding whether] the defendant took action to affect the functioning of his vehicle in a manner that would enable the vehicle’s use.” The court explained that the officers' allegedly false statements pertained to how far the vehicle moved rather than whether it moved at all. Even if a vehicle only moved six inches, that may be sufficient to establish the operation element. View "Garcia v. Orta" on Justia Law

Defendants were convicted by a jury of conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) by interfering with its lawful functions and evasion of payment of taxes. On appeal, Defendants both challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting their convictions and raise challenges to a number of jury instructions.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed. The court held that the district court’s denial of Defendant’s last-minute continuance request was not an abuse of discretion, and Defendant was not denied the counsel of his choice. Further, because Defendant failed to meaningfully address all four prongs of plain error review either in his opening brief or in reply, his constructive amendment challenge fails.   Further, the court wrote, that viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence showed that Defendant failed to report a substantial amount of income; influenced MyMail to amend its tax return to underreport how much income it distributed to Defendant; converted at least $1 million of income into gold coins; purchased a house with gold coins and transferred it to a trust controlled by a relative; and hid his income in Co-Defendant’s trust accounts and used the concealed funds to pay his living expenses for at least a decade, including during the years that the IRS Agent was contacting Defendants, as Defendant’s IRS power-of-attorney, in an attempt to collect Defendant’s unpaid tax liabilities. Based on the foregoing evidence, a reasonable jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt both willfulness and an affirmative act of evasion. View "USA v. Selgas" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, on behalf of her son, sued District Attorney, Sheriffs, and Clay County under Section 1983 alleging that Defendants violated her son’s Fourteenth Amendment due process rights by unlawfully detaining him for years. The complaint also contends that, at one point, the Sheriff held Defendant down and forced him to take unwanted medication. As to Clay County, Plaintiff argued that Sheriffs were final policymakers, making the county liable under Monell. Defendants sought summary judgment; Plaintiff responded with a motion for partial summary judgment.   After summary judgment, the following claims remained: the detention claim against the Sheriffs and Clay County; the forced medication claim against Clay County alone. The Sheriffs and Clay County appealed. The Fifth Circuit, in treating the petition for rehearing en banc as a petition for panel rehearing, granted the petition for panel rehearing. The court dismissed Clay County’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction and affirmed the district court’s denial of summary judgment as to the Sheriffs.   The court explained that this is not a case about jailers following court orders that turned out to be unconstitutional. These Sheriffs held Plaintiff’s son in violation of a court order that followed Jackson’s commit-or-release rule. The court wrote that it cannot be that the initial detention order in a case overrides subsequent release orders and allows jailers to indefinitely hold defendants without consequence. Thus, taking the evidence in Plaintiff’s favor, the Sheriffs violated Plaintiff’s due process right by detaining him for six years in violation of the commit-or-release rule and qualified immunity thus does not protect the Sheriffs. View "Harris v. Clay County, MS" on Justia Law

The issue before the en banc court was whether the current version of Miss. Const. art. 12, Section 241 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. This provision was upheld in Cotton v. Fordice, 157 F.3d 388 (5th Cir. 1998), which was binding on the district court and the panel decision here, but the court voted to reconsider Cotton en banc.   Plaintiffs are black men in Mississippi who were convicted, respectively, of forgery and embezzlement. Both are disenfranchised under current Mississippi law because of their convictions. They filed suit against the Mississippi Secretary of State under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to restore the voting rights of convicted felons in Mississippi. They contend that the crimes that “remain” in Section 241 from the 1890 Constitution are still tainted by the racial animus with which they were originally enacted.   The Fifth Circuit reaffirmed that the current version of Section 241 superseded the previous provisions and removed the discriminatory taint associated with the provision adopted in 1890. Cotton, 157 F.3d at 391–92. Further, the court held that Plaintiffs failed to establish the 1968 reenactment of Section 241 was motivated by racism. The court explained that contrary to Plaintiffs’ principal assertion, the critical issue here is not the intent behind Mississippi’s 1890 Constitution, but whether the reenactment of Section 241 in 1968 was free of intentional racial discrimination. Accordingly, as a matter of law, Plaintiffs have not demonstrated that Section 241 as it currently stands was motivated by discriminatory intent or that any other approach to demonstrating the provision’s unconstitutionality is viable. View "Harness v. Watson" on Justia Law

State troopers arrested Defendant after finding drugs in his car during a traffic stop. Morton also had three cell phones in the car. A state judge later signed warrants authorizing searches of the phones for evidence of drug crime. The warrants allowed law enforcement to look at photos on the phones. When doing so, troopers discovered photos that appeared to be child pornography. This discovery led to a second set of search warrants. The ensuing forensic examination of the phones revealed almost 20,000 images of child pornography. This federal prosecution for receipt of child pornography followed. Defendant argues the evidence discovered during those searches should be suppressed. Defendant principally tries to defeat good faith by invoking the third exception, which involves what are commonly known as “bare bones” affidavits.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision. The court held that law enforcement is usually entitled to rely on warrants and none of the exceptions that undermine good-faith reliance on a judge’s authorization applies. The court wrote that the affidavits used to search Defendant’s phones are not of this genre. Each is over three pages and fully details the facts surrounding Defendant’s arrest and the discovery of drugs and his phones. They explain where the marijuana and glass pipe was discovered, the number (16) and location of the ecstasy pills, and the affiant’s knowledge that cellphones are used for receipt and delivery of illegal narcotics. The court explained that it decides only that the officers acted in good faith when relying on the judge’s decision to issue the warrants. View "USA v. Morton" on Justia Law