Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of sex trafficking of a child in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 1591(a)(1) and (b)(2). On appeal, he challenged the introduction of evidence pulled from his cellphone using Cellebrite technology. He claimed that the district court erred by permitting a police investigator to introduce the Cellebrite extract without first being qualified as an expert under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that when law enforcement uses Cellebrite to pull information from a phone, and a lay juror would require no additional interpretation to understand that information, the party does not need to introduce the evidence through an expert. The court explained that all the investigator testified to was how he downloaded the information from the phones using Cellebrite technology. At no point did he speak to the reliability of the software, except that he double-checked some of the reports by looking directly at the source material in the phones themselves. To that end, he did not state any information on how Cellebrite operated in a technical sense, nor information that was beyond the knowledge of an average cell phone user. Without a showing of specialized knowledge, the mere use and understanding of a Cellebrite extract at trial is insufficient to require an expert. Operating a Cellebrite device and understanding its report require knowledge in the realm of a reasonably tech-savvy layperson, regardless of the investigator’s testimony that he was a “certified” operator and analyzer. View "USA v. Williams" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Van Sant & Co. (Van Sant) owned and operated a mobile home park in Calhan, Colorado, for a number of years. In 2018, Van Sant began to publicly explore the possibility of converting its mobile home park to an RV park. In October 2018, Calhan adopted an ordinance that imposed regulations on the development of new RV parks, but also included a grandfather clause that effectively exempted the two existing RV parks in Calhan, one of which was connected to the grandparents of two members of Calhan’s Board of Trustees (Board) who voted in favor of the new RV park regulations. Van Sant subsequently filed suit against Calhan, several members of its Board, the owners of one of the existing RV parks, and other related individuals. asserting antitrust claims under the Sherman Act, as well as substantive due process and equal protection claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The defendants successfully moved for summary judgment. Van Sant appealed, but finding no reversible error, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Van Sant & Co. v. Town of Calhan, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant Seth Alarie appealed a final relief-from-abuse (RFA) order requested by plaintiff Carissa Poss, his former girlfriend. On February 6, 2023, plaintiff filed a form RFA complaint alleging defendant physically abused and stalked her on two previous occasions. The family division issued a temporary RFA order on that date, and set a hearing for ten days later. Defendant was served with the complaint, both affidavits, the temporary order, and the notice of hearing at 4 p.m. on February 15. Both parties appeared at the hearing pro se. After the hearing, the trial court found by a preponderance of the evidence that defendant had abused and stalked plaintiff. The court issued its findings and conclusions orally from the bench and followed up with a written order prohibiting defendant from, among other things, contacting plaintiff or coming within 300 feet of plaintiff, her residence, place of employment, or car for one year. Represented by counsel on appeal, defendant attacked the proceedings, arguing that due process rights applied to RFA proceedings and that the court violated those rights by holding the hearing after he received less than twenty-four hours’ notice and not granting a continuance for defendant to retain counsel. He argued the trial court violated other due process rights when it did not permit him to cross-examine plaintiff and took testimony outside the scope of the facts alleged in the pleadings. Finding no deprivation of due process nor other reversible error, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed. View "Poss v. Alarie" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the district court ordering Respondent's continued hospitalization following his court-ordered psychiatric treatment, holding that respondents in proceedings brought under Iowa Code chapter 229 do not have a federal constitutional right to represent themselves and forego the legal representation required by the statute.Respondent, who had a history of self-harm, suicide threats, and refusal to take his medications, was ordered to be involuntarily hospitalized under chapter 229. A series of subsequent court orders left Respondent's commitment in place for the next two years. Thereafter, Respondent moved to terminate his commitment and asked to proceed pro se. The district court denied Respondent's motion to proceed pro se and ordered his continued hospitalization. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the Sixth Amendment right to counsel and right to self-representation in criminal cases do not apply to Chapter 229 proceedings; and (2) the district court's factual findings were supported by substantial evidence and binding on appeal. View "In re V.H." on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with and convicted of (1) producing child pornography, (2) committing that offense while being required to register as a sex offender, (3) possessing child pornography, and (4) sex trafficking of a child. All four charges involved his conduct with “Minor Victim-1” or “the Minor.” Defendant appealed his conviction for Count 4, sex trafficking of a child. He maintains that in light of Bond v. United States, 572 U.S. 844 (2014), 18 U.S.C. Section 1591 should not be interpreted to reach his conduct, which he terms a “purely local sex offense.”   The Fifth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that overturning Defendant’s conviction under Bond requires him to show three things: (1) that allowing his conviction would “significantly change the federal-state balance,” (2) that Congress has not included a clear indication that they meant to reach “purely local crimes,” and (3) that his is a purely local crime. The court explained without expressing any view on (1) or (3), it determines that Defendant failed to demonstrate (2). Congress included a clear indication that Section 1591 is meant to reach “purely local crimes.” The court explained that it is not alone in adopting a broader interpretation of Section 1591 despite Bond. Because Congress included a clear indication that Section 1591 is meant to reach “purely local crimes,” Defendant’s argument under Bond fails. View "USA v. Renteria" on Justia Law

Appellant appealed his conviction, by jury, of the attempted willful, premeditated, and deliberate murder and fleeing a pursuing peace officer’s motor vehicle while driving recklessly. It acquitted Appellant of a second count of attempted murder on the same victim. The trial court sentenced Appellant to life in prison plus a 20-year enhancement term for the firearm use and a concurrent term of 27 months on the evading conviction. Appellant contends that numerous evidentiary, procedural, and instructional errors occurred at his trial. Further, the court noted that a primary issue is the contention that the prosecutor violated the RJA, section 745 and that his counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the issue at the sentencing hearing.   The Second Appellate District reversed. The court concluded that the Legislature acted within its law-making authority when it declared in the RJA that the use of racially discriminatory language in a criminal trial constitutes a miscarriage of justice, that the prosecutor violated the statute when she referred to Appellant’s complexion and “ambiguous ethnic presentation” as reasons to doubt his credibility, and that his counsel was ineffective for failing to bring this statutory violation to the attention of the trial court at the earliest possible opportunity. The court found that because Appellant’s trial counsel failed to raise the violation at the sentencing hearing, the trial court has not yet had the opportunity to exercise its discretion to select which of the enumerated remedies it would impose. Consequently, the court remanded the matter to the trial court so it may exercise its discretion in this regard. View "P. v. Simmons" on Justia Law

Lumar caused a disturbance at a Chicago clinic. Called to the scene, police discovered that Lumar was wanted on an arrest warrant and took him into custody. About 19 hours later he committed suicide. His estate’s suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 argued that Lumar should have been released without a bond hearing, and, had he been released swiftly, Lumar would not have killed himself.The Seventh Circuit affirmed the rejection of the suit. While the warrant set bond at an amount Lumar could have posted, it had been issued in Lee County, so a local order required a local bond hearing. Even if the order is inconsistent with state law, in denying arrestees the right to waive local bond hearings, a violation of state law does not permit an award under section 1983. Federal law does not prohibit presenting the arrestee to a local judge, within a reasonable time not to exceed 48 hours. The time Lumar spent in custody, including six hours in a hospital to address breathing problems, and the discovery of 12 rocks of crack cocaine in his cell and ensuing return to the Police Department, was reasonable under the standard set by the Supreme Court. Lumar was screened for suicide risk shortly after his arrest and again at the hospital. Illinois law offers a remedy for suicide during custody only if the jailers do something that makes suicide foreseeable. View "Alcorn v. City of Chicago" on Justia Law

In 2016, Schumaker pleaded guilty as a felon in possession of a firearm. Schumaker had 14 prior convictions for Tennessee aggravated burglary, involving separate structures, occurring on 13 different dates. In 2017, the Sixth Circuit held that Tennessee aggravated burglary was not a violent felony and did not qualify as an Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e) predicate offense. The district court sentenced Schumaker to 54 months’ imprisonment in 2020. While the government’s appeal was pending, the Supreme Court held that Tennessee aggravated burglary qualified as an ACCA predicate offense. Schumaker then argued that his prior offenses “did not occur on separate occasions” under ACCA. The Sixth Circuit rejected his argument after considering the charging documents.On remand, Schumaker cited the Supreme Court’s 2022 grant of certiorari in “Wooden” and unsuccessfully argued that, in conducting the occasions-different inquiry, the Fifth and Sixth Amendments prohibited the court from relying on the dates and locations of the aggravated-burglary offenses found in the judgments associated with those convictions because the dates and locations are non-elemental facts that the government had to prove to a jury. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The limited remand required the district court to sentence Schumaker under the ACCA. Circuit precedent bars Schumaker’s argument that the non-elemental facts in Shepard documents must be charged in an indictment and found by a jury before a court may rely on those facts in the occasions-different inquiry. View "United States v. Schumaker" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, then an Assistant Athletic Director at Louisiana State University (“LSU”)— internally reported Head Football Coach Les Miles for sexually harassing students. LSU retained outside counsel—Taylor, Porter, Brooks & Phillips LLP (“Taylor Porter”)—to investigate the matter, culminating in a formal report dated May 15, 2013 (the “Taylor Porter Report”). Matters were privately settled, and Miles stayed on as head coach until 2016. Lewis alleges that Defendants, members of LSU’s Board of Supervisors (the “Board”), leadership, and athletics department, along with lawyers at Taylor Porter (“Taylor Porter Defendants” and, collectively, “Defendants”), engaged in a concerted effort to illegally conceal the Taylor Porter Report and Miles’s wrong-doings. Plaintiff also alleged workplace retaliation for having reported Miles. She brings both employment and civil RICO claims. The district court dismissed Plaintiff’s RICO-related allegations as time-barred and inadequately pleaded as to causation.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed. The court considered when Plaintiff was first made aware of her injuries. It matters not when she discovered Defendants’ “enterprise racketeering scheme”—she alleges that this happened in March 2021 with the release of the Husch Blackwell Report. Plaintiff’s allegations make clear that she was made aware of her injuries much earlier. She was subject to overt retaliation after “Miles was cleared of any wrongdoing” by the Taylor Porter Report in 2013. Plaintiff alleged numerous harmful workplace interactions from that point forward. Given that Plaintiff filed her original complaint on April 8, 2021, her claims for injuries that were discovered—or that should have been discovered—before April 8, 2017, are time-barred. View "Lewis v. Danos" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was arrested and charged with interfering with the duties of a public servant. Eight hundred fifty-six days later, she brought suit under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 against Harris County and a number of law enforcement officials, asserting a series of alleged constitutional rights violations. The district court found the applicable statute of limitations barred all claims and granted all Defendants’ respective motions to dismiss. On appeal, Plaintiff challenged the dismissal of her claims of false arrest, false imprisonment, and failure to train, supervise, and discipline. She also asserted the district court erred in denying leave to amend her complaint. Finally, Plaintiff requested reassignment to a different district judge.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that a false arrest claim accrues when charges are filed. Similarly, because a Section 1983 claim for false imprisonment is “based upon ‘detention without legal process,’” limitations run once “legal process [is] initiated.” Limitations had long lapsed by the time Plaintiff sued. The false arrest and false imprisonment claims are time-barred, and she concedes that no basis for tolling applies. Further, the court explained that Plaintiff’s proposed amendment includes twenty-three examples of arrests conducted by Precinct Seven officers that resulted in criminal charges later dismissed for lack of probable cause. They are of no use. All twenty-three lack critical factual detail. That, in turn, precludes Plaintiff from showing that the pattern of examples is sufficiently similar to her incident. Consequently, Plaintiff’s complaint—even as amended—would not survive a motion to dismiss. View "Johnson v. Harris County" on Justia Law