Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

HH intended to open an Indianapolis retail establishment, “Hustler Hollywood,” entered a 10-year lease, and applied for sign and building permits. HH’s proposed store was located in a zoning district that prohibited “adult entertainment businesses.” The Department of Business and Neighborhood Services determined that HH was an adult entertainment business; the Board of Zoning Appeals affirmed. HH sought a declaratory judgment that the ordinance violated its First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The district court denied HH’s motion for a preliminary injunction. On interlocutory appeal with respect to its as-applied First Amendment claim, the Seventh Circuit affirmed. HH’s speech has not been silenced or suppressed; HH has only been told that it cannot operate in a particular commercial district. The ordinance is “content-neutral” and the city’s interest in reducing the secondary effects of adult businesses is a sufficient or substantial interest. Application of the ordinance resulted only in an incidental restriction on HH’s speech in a particular location. HH presented no evidence that officials displayed any bias or censorial intent in their determinations; the city was under no constitutional obligation to inspect the property or allow HH to open conditionally before making its determination. View "HH-Indianapolis, LLC v. Consolidated City of Indianapolis" on Justia Law

Valenti is a convicted felon and registered sex offender, with a 1993 California conviction for a “Lewd or Lascivious Act with [a] Child Under 14 Years.” Valenti claimed that Indiana violated his right to vote by refusing to let him enter a polling site located at a school (Ind. Code 35-42-4-14(b)). His neighborhood polling place is a school gymnasium. The state allows serious sex offenders to vote by absentee ballot, Ind. Code 3‐11‐10‐24(a)(12), at a county courthouse, or at a civic center. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the state defendants, noting that Valenti does not even have a constitutional right to vote: Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment gives states the “affirmative sanction” to exclude felons from the franchise. His right to vote is only statutory and the Indiana statute survives rational basis review. “Indiana’s position is an iron‐clad fortress in light of the rational basis test.” View "Valenti v. Lawson" on Justia Law

A federal warrant, issued in July 2015, authorized federal agents to use pen registers, trap-and-trace devices, historical cell-call records, and “electronic investigative techniques” to capture and analyze signals emitted by the subject phones, including in response to signals sent by law enforcement officers to find two cell phones and understand the nature of their owners’ apparently criminal activity. The reference to electronic investigative techniques is a description of a cell-site simulator, a device that pretends to be a cell tower and harvests identifying information, including location data, about every phone that responds to its signals. The Justice Department claims that it discards information about phones other than it is programmed to look for and that it does not receive the contents of any call. To obtain the contents of a call or message, agents would need a warrant under the wiretap statutes, while the 2015 warrant was issued under 18 U.S.C. 2703(d). Defendant argued that 2703(d)’s “reasonable grounds” standard violated the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause standard. The Seventh Circuit declined to address that issue because the 2015 warrant also recited the existence of probable cause. A warrant that authorizes police to follow a particular cell phone adequately describes the evidence to be acquired and is not “open-ended.” View "United States v. Sanchez-Jara" on Justia Law

Arreola-Castillo was convicted of a federal drug crime. Because he had at least two prior felony drug convictions, based on guilty pleas, in New Mexico, he was subject to the recidivism provisions of 21 U.S.C. 841 and received a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison. Had it not been for the mandatory life sentence, Arreola-Castillo’s Guidelines sentencing range would have been 188–235 months in prison. He subsequently challenged the underlying felony drug convictions in New Mexico state court; that court ultimately vacated them on grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel. He moved to reopen his federal sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255. The district court denied his petition as time-barred under 21 U.S.C. 851(e), which prohibits an individual from challenging the validity of a prior conviction that is more than five years old at the time the government seeks the recidivism enhancement. The Seventh Circuit reversed. Arreola-Castillo is not challenging the validity of his prior convictions, but rather their very existence. Section 851(e), which assumes the existence of a prior conviction and addresses its validity, does not apply because his convictions have been vacated. The government forfeited an argument under the one-year statute of limitations for filing habeas petitions. 28 U.S.C. 2255(f). View "Arreola-Castillo v. United States" on Justia Law

Terry, an Illinois prisoner proceeding pro se, sued prison officials and corrections administrators under 42 U.S.C. 1983 claiming that they were deliberately indifferent to a painful tumor on his neck and prevented him from timely filing suit on that claim. A district judge screened the case, 28 U.S.C. 1915A, held a “merit-review hearing,” and dismissed the complaint, ruling that it impermissibly joined two unrelated sets of claims against different defendants. Terry moved for reconsideration under Rule 59(e), stating that his claims were not unrelated. The judge denied the motion, observing that Rule 59(e) does not permit reconsideration of a nonfinal order of dismissal, and entered judgment ending the case. The Seventh Circuit reversed. The judge misunderstood his discretion to entertain Terry’s reconsideration motion. Though Rule 59(e) did not apply, a district judge may reconsider an interlocutory order at any time before final judgment. The judge should have done so; reading the complaint generously, Terry’s claims are related. The court noted that merit-review hearings at section 1915A screening must be strictly limited to “enabling a pro se plaintiff to clarify and amplify his complaint” and a transcript or other recording must be made. The record contains no transcript or digital recording of the judge’s merit-review hearing. View "Terry v. Spencer" on Justia Law

Wisconsin law gives state university students rights to organize themselves and to run their governments, which have the power to spend substantial funds. Plaintiffs, the University of Wisconsin Madison (UWM) Student Association and former and current UWM students, alleged a conspiracy to interfere with student governance in violation of various rights protected by 42 U.S.C. 1983. They claim that the UWM administration excluded certain students from student government by unseating the legitimately elected officers and replacing them over several years with a supposedly “puppet” student government with a similar name, the defendant Student Association at UWM. The district court dismissed the suit with prejudice. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the claims against the defendants who were not timely served with process and the dismissal of a right-to-organize claim under state law. The court reversed the dismissal with prejudice of the remaining claims for misjoinder, stating that it could understand the district court’s frustration, but the remedy for misjoinder is severance or dismissal without prejudice. View "UWM Student Association v. Lovell" on Justia Law

DaSilva, a Waupan Correctional Institution inmate, received his medication one evening, then became dizzy, vomited, lost consciousness, and fell, hitting his head. DaSilva believes he was given the wrong medication. More than three hours passed before DaSilva was taken to the hospital (only five minutes away), where doctors stapled a deep laceration and diagnosed a serious concussion. DaSilva sued the officer who gave him the medication (Coby), a corrections supervisor, and Nurse DeYoung, under the Eighth Amendment. A magistrate judge concluded that Coby should be dismissed from the case because the distribution of the medication was only a mistake, which fails as a matter of law to reflect deliberate indifference. After discovery, the court, through the magistrate, granted the remaining defendants summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit determined that the matter could proceed to appeal, even though Coby was dismissed before he had an opportunity to consent to the disposition of the case by a magistrate. There was no final judgment until after the state (representing the defendants) filed its consent and Coby was a prison employee who stood in exactly the same position as the other two defendants for purposes of legal representation. View "DaSilva v. Rymarkiewicz" on Justia Law

In 2016, the Governor of Indiana signed into law HEA 1337, which created new provisions and amended others that regulate abortion procedures within Indiana. Planned Parenthood filed suit, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief from three parts of the law: the “Sex-Selective and Disability Abortion Ban,” Ind. Code 16-34-4, which prohibit a person from performing an abortion if the person knows the woman is seeking an abortion solely for one of the enumerated reasons (the nondiscrimination provisions); an added provision to the informed consent process, instructing those performing abortions to inform women of the non-discrimination provisions; and amendments to the provisions dealing with the disposal of aborted fetuses. The district court initially entered a preliminary injunction and later granted Planned Parenthood summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The non-discrimination provisions clearly violate well-established Supreme Court precedent holding that a woman may terminate her pregnancy prior to viability and that the state may not prohibit a woman from exercising that right for any reason. Because the non-discrimination provisions are unconstitutional, so is the provision that a woman must be informed of them. The amended fetal disposition provisions violate substantive due process because they have no rational relationship to a legitimate state interest. View "Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc. v. Commissioner of the Indiana State Department of Health" on Justia Law

The Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program allocates substantial funds annually to provide for the needs of state and local law enforcement, including personnel, equipment, training. In 2017, the Attorney General tied receipt of the funds to the recipient’s compliance with conditions. Chicago, a “sanctuary city,” argued the conditions were unlawful and unconstitutional. The district court agreed and enjoined, nationwide, the enforcement of a condition mandating advance notice to federal authorities of the release date of persons in state or local custody who are believed to be aliens and a condition requiring the local correctional facility to ensure agents access to such facilities to meet with those persons. Compliance with those conditions would require the allocation of state and local resources, including personnel. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, noting that it was not assessing “optimal immigration policies” but enforcing the separation of powers doctrine. The statute precisely describes the formula through which funds should be distributed to states and local governments and imposes precise limits on the extent to which the Attorney General can deviate from that distribution. It “is inconceivable that Congress would have anticipated" that the Attorney General could abrogate the distribution scheme and deny funds to states and localities that would qualify under the Byrne JAG statutory provisions, based on a decision to impose conditions—the putative authority for which is provided in another statute (34 U.S.C. 10102(a)(6)). View "City of Chicago v. Sessions" on Justia Law

As Harvey and Eibeck walked through Peoria, four men confronted them. One reached for his waistband. Harvey and Eibeck, who was high, ran. Eibeck heard a gunshot and kept running. The shooter killed Harvey. Police found no weapon, shell casing, or eyewitness. Eibeck could generally describe, but not positively identify, the shooter. Six months later, Officer Curry conducted a photo line-up; Eibeck identified Jackson, resulting in Jackson’s warrantless arrest. He had consumed alcohol and drugs before his arrest. Curry and Officer McDaniel interrogated Jackson on video. Jackson, high and woozy, said he was not at the shooting. McDaniel, who is black, told Jackson if he remained silent he would be charged and would not receive a fair trial because he is black. The officers allegedly falsely claimed multiple witnesses identified Jackson; suggested Jackson shot in self-defense; and pressured him to make false inculpatory statements. About two hours into the interrogation, Jackson collapsed. The Illinois Appellate Court reversed his first-degree murder conviction, concluding the police lacked probable cause for arrest. The Seventh Circuit dismissed an appeal of the trial court’s refusal to dismiss, based on qualified immunity, claims the officers coerced a confession. The court held that it lacked jurisdiction because the district court’s decision not to watch the video does not fit within the exception to the general rule that only final orders are appealable. The court made no reviewable legal determination regarding McDaniel’s comments about race. View "Jackson v. Curry" on Justia Law