Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Williams was a key facilitator in a years-long cocaine trafficking scheme. In 2001, he was convicted of federal drug and conspiracy charges, 18 U.S.C. 841(a)(1), 846 and given life sentences. Williams appealed the denial of his 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(1)(A) motion for a reduced sentence, arguing that the district court erred in holding that it was not permitted to consider whether Williams’s unconstitutionally imposed mandatory life sentence contributed to “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for the reduction of his sentence.The Seventh Circuit affirmed, declining to reconsider its 2021 "Thacker" decision, stating it would make no difference to Williams’s case. The district court held in the alternative that even if Williams was eligible for a reduction in his sentence, this relief was not warranted in light of 18 U.S.C. 3553(a)'s factors. The court acknowledged different approaches among the circuits regarding the bounds of court discretion to find extraordinary and compelling reasons for early release— specifically, whether the two-step process employed by the Seventh Circuit is correct or if a more holistic approach is called for. The court noted that the U.S. Sentencing Commission is in the process of studying the issue, and recently has proposed defining “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to include circumstances in which “[t]he defendant is serving a sentence that is inequitable in light of changes in the law.” View "United States v. Williams" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant's conviction of first-degree murder and sentence of death, holding that Defendant was not entitled to relief on any of his claims of error.Defendant pleaded guilty to first degree murder. After a penalty-phase trial, the court concluded that the aggravating circumstances far outweighed the mitigating circumstances, warranting a sentence of death. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to grant Defendant's motion to continue; (2) the trial court did not err in rejecting two statutory mitigating circumstances; (3) Defendant failed to establish a constitutional defect with Florida's death-penalty statute; (4) Defendant's guilty plea was knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily given; and (5) Defendant's remaining arguments were without merit. View "Wells v. State" on Justia Law

Louisiana passed the Truth in Labeling of Food Products Act (the “Act”) to “protect consumers from misleading and false labeling of food products that are edible by humans.” The Act bars, among other things, the intentional “misbranding or misrepresenting of any food product as an agricultural product” through several different labeling practices. Turtle Island Foods, S.P.C. (d/b/a Tofurky), markets and sells its products in Louisiana. Tofurky believes it operates under a constant threat of enforcement. Tofurky sued Louisiana’s Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, and the district court sided with Tofurky. It held that Tofurky had standing to challenge the Act and that the statute was an unconstitutional restriction on Tofurky’s right to free speech. The State appealed.   The Fifth Circuit reversed. The court explained that nothing in the statute’s language requires the State to enforce its punitive provisions on a company that sells its products in a way that just so happens to confuse a consumer. The State’s construction limits the Act’s scope to representations by companies that actually intend consumers to be misled about whether a product is an “agricultural product” when it is not. This interpretation is not contradictory to the Act, and the court thus accepted it for the present purposes of evaluating Tofurky’s facial challenge. The district court erred in ignoring the State’s limiting construction and in implementing its own interpretation of the Act. View "Turtle Island Foods v. Strain" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a former pretrial detainee in the custody of the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department, filed an action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 claiming that Defendants acted with deliberate indifference to Plaintiff’s serious medical needs by denying him prescription medication. Defendants moved for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The district court denied the motion.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that Plaintiff has sufficiently demonstrated that Defendants were subjectively aware of but disregarded a serious medical need. The facts construed in the light most favorable to Plaintiff show that the “defendants, who are not medical personnel, substituted their controlled substance ‘policy’ and their schedule for administering or failing to administer medication for that of a treating physician.” Further, Defendants failed to administer or misadministered the medication to Plaintiff despite knowing a doctor prescribed them and despite Plaintiff’s repeated requests for his medication. Construing the facts in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, his “right to adequate treatment was clearly established, and the district court properly denied Defendants qualified immunity. View "Tracy Presson v. Darrin Reed" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed from the district court’s judgment dismissing all claims against Defendants-Newburgh Enlarged City School District, Superintendent, and Assistant Superintendent. Plaintiff, an African American woman of West Indian descent who served as principal of South Middle School, asserts claims of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.   The Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the Title VII claim to the extent the claim is based on alleged adverse employment actions in May 2019 and vacated the district court’s judgment to the extent it dismissed the Section 1983 claim and the remainder of the Title VII claim. The court remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings, including a determination as to whether Plaintiff should be provided with an extension of time to effectuate proper service as to the Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent. The court explained that taking the allegations in the FAC as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in Plaintiff’s favor, the FAC meets that pleading standard with respect to the denial of the position for RISE administrator, the denial of her application to administer the summer-school program, and the termination of her position as SMS principal. Accordingly, the court explained that Plaintiff has stated plausible discrimination claims under Title VII and Section 1983, and the district court erred in dismissing them. Therefore, Plaintiff may proceed with her Section 1983 claim as to all three alleged adverse employment actions and with her Title VII claim against the School District. View "Buon v. Spindler, et al." on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court denying Appellant's challenge to his sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255, holding that Appellant did not meet his burden of showing that his counsel's performance during the underlying criminal trial was deficient.Appellant pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to distribute a substance containing cocaine base and one count of malicious damage or destruction of property by fire. At sentencing, the trial court determined that Appellant was a career offender in part because his prior Maine state court conviction for unlawful trafficking in scheduled drugs qualified as a "controlled substance offense" under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. In this collateral challenge to his sentence, Appellant argued that he received constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel during his sentencing hearing based on his counsel's failure to object to the use of the Maine drug conviction as a predicate offense for the career offender enhancement. The First Circuit denied relief, holding that Appellant's ineffective assistance claim failed. View "Thompson v. United States" on Justia Law

The Lemasters run a Lawrence County, Kentucky towing business, which was on the county’s “rotation list” of companies to call when it needed to order a tow. Both as fire chief and in his towing business, Lemaster sparred with Carter, Lawrence County’s “judge-executive,” the elected head of its executive branch. Lemaster criticized Carter on Facebook. Five days later, the 911 Center sent an email to dispatchers; its subject identified Lemaster Towing and the Cherryville Fire Department. Its body stated in all caps: “Per Judge Carter do not tone them out on any fire calls[;] use nearest department[;] . . . Lemaster Towing is no longer on the rotation list[.]”The Lemasters sued Carter and Lawrence County under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and state law, alleging that Carter violated the First Amendment by removing Lemaster Towing from the rotation list in retaliation for Lemaster’s criticisms. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment. The Sixth Circuit affirmed as to the Monell claims against the county; Lemaster did not tie the actions to any county policy. The court reversed as to Carter. Carter conceded that his communications with dispatch employees could constitute an adverse action. The record would allow a rational jury to find that Lemaster’s Facebook post motivated Carter’s decision to remove Lemaster Towing from the rotation list. View "Lemaster v. Lawrence County, Kentucky" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court convicting Defendant of employing a minor in an obscene performance in violation of Conn. Gen. Stat. 53a-196a, sexual assault in the first degree, and other offenses, holding that Defendant was not entitled to relief on his claims of error.Specifically, the Supreme Court held (1) the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Defendant's motion to sever the sexual offenses with the nonsexual offenses and in joining the informations for trial; (2) the obscene performance statute was not unconstitutionally vague as applied to Defendant's conduct, and the First Amendment did not require the Court to undertake an independent appellate review of that conviction; (3) the trial court's potentially incorrect rulings, including those relating to the excludion from evidence video recordings of forensic interviews of the victim, were harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt; and (4) the evidence was sufficient to support Defendant's convictions of assault in the third degree, criminal violation of a protective order, and stalking in the first degree. View "State v. Michael R." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court answered a certified question of law concerning the applicability of Conn. Gen. Stat. 53-37 to this case, concluding that section 53-37 did not apply because Plaintiff's complaint did not allege any speech constituting an "advertisement."Plaintiff brought this reenforcement action challenging 53-37, which provides that "[a]ny person who, by his advertisement, ridicules or holds up to contempt any person or class of persons, on account of the creed, religion, color, denomination, nationality or race of such person or class of persons, shall be guilty of a class D misdemeanor." Plaintiff alleged that the statue violated his right to free speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and sought declaratory and injunctive relief seeking permanently to enjoin the enforcement of the statute. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, arguing that Plaintiff lacked standing to bring the action because he had failed to allege an injury in fact. The Supreme Court answered a certified question regarding the issue by answering that the uncontroverted evidence demonstrated that section 53-37 was not intended to encompass the type of personal, noncommercial speech alleged in Plaintiff's complaint. View "Cerame v. Lamont" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit under: 42 U.S.C. § 1983; the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-68; and Oklahoma state law, challenging an allegedly unconstitutional scheme to collect “court debts” from impoverished Oklahoma citizens. The Second Amended Class Action Complaint (“SACAC”) named numerous “Defendants,” which fell into three broad categories: (1) individual Oklahoma sheriffs, the Oklahoma Sheriff’s Association (“OSA”), and officials of Tulsa and Rodgers Counties (collectively, “Sheriffs”); (2) state court judges (collectively, “Judges”); and (3) Aberdeen Enterprises, II, Inc. and its principal officers (collectively, “Aberdeen”). Plaintiffs alleged Aberdeen, a debt-collection company, acting in concert with other Defendants, used actual or threatened incarceration to coerce indigent Oklahomans into paying court debts, without any inquiry into ability to pay. The district court dismissed the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, broadly holding that three independent doctrines prevented Plaintiffs from proceeding on any claim against any Defendant. Plaintiffs appealed to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, asserting that none of the doctrines identified by the district court deprived federal courts of the ability to reach the merits of the claims listed in the complaint. To this, the Tenth Circuit agrees the district court erred in dismissing the SACAC. Accordingly, the judgment of dismissal was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "Graff, et al. v. Aberdeen Enterprizes, II, et al." on Justia Law