Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

The Fifth Circuit, en banc, vacated the district court's permanent injunction declaring Senate Bill 8 (SB8), which prohibits a particular type of dilation and evacuation (D&E) abortion method, facially unconstitutional.The district court held that SB8 imposes an undue burden on a large fraction of women, primarily because it determined that SB8 amounted to a ban on all D&E abortions. However, viewing SB8 through a binary framework—that either D&Es can be done only by live dismemberment or else women cannot receive abortions in the second trimester—is to accept a false dichotomy. Rather, the en banc court concluded that the record shows that doctors can safely perform D&Es and comply with SB8 using methods that are already in widespread use. The en banc court also concluded that the district court, in permanently enjoining SB8, committed numerous, reversible legal and factual errors: applying the wrong test to assess SB8, disregarding and misreading the Supreme Court's precedents in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey and Gonzales v. Carhart, and bungling the large-fraction analysis. Because remanding to the district court would be futile as the record permits only one conclusion, the en banc court concluded that plaintiffs have failed to carry their heavy burden of proving that SB8 would impose an undue burden on a large fraction of women. View "Whole Woman's Health v. Paxton" on Justia Law

In 2016, Wisconsin charged Carter with drug and firearm offenses. Mid-trial, Carter pleaded guilty to heroin and firearm charges; the state agreed to recommend a six-year sentence. The prosecutor backtracked at sentencing. The court sentenced Carter to nine years’ imprisonment in July 2017. Carter sought to appeal his sentence, contending that the prosecutor breached the plea agreement at sentencing and that the court imposed the sentence based on inaccurate information. In Wisconsin, a defendant must file, within 20 days of sentencing, a notice of intent to pursue post-conviction relief. Carter filed such a notice five days after sentencing. The public defender’s office assigned him counsel but the clerk and court reporter took 10 months to locate and share the trial transcripts, a step that should have been completed within 60 days. Carter’s counsel successfully filed a new extension request on each day the prior request was due to expire. Over four years Carter had three different public defenders and 14 extension requests by counsel and the court without a ruling on the merits.Carter filed a pro se 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition. The Seventh Circuit reversed the dismissal of the petition. The “extreme and tragic” delay experienced by Carter excuses him from otherwise applicable statutory exhaustion requirements and shows that Wisconsin’s appellate process, at least with respect to Carter, is ineffective to protect rights secured by the U.S. Constitution. View "Carter v. Buesgen" on Justia Law

Smith reportedly left a fight and returned with a gun. After a citizen complained, two Milwaukee police officers on patrol came upon Smith and saw that he matched the description relayed by dispatch. When the officers approached Smith, he fled. The officers followed, believing Smith was armed. Smith was found hiding on a rooftop one block away. When the pursuing officers discovered him, an intense and dangerous standoff took place. After Smith refused numerous orders to cooperate, two other officers (defendants) approached Smith, and believing he was armed, drew their guns. The officers thought Smith was reaching behind an air conditioning unit for a gun; Smith said he was responding to an earlier command to get down on the ground. The defendants shot Smith three times. He survived with serious injuries. Video from the officers’ body cameras captured these events.Smith sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court denied the officers’ motion, seeking summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The Seventh Circuit dismissed an appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Some of the circumstances weighed in favor of the police using deadly force to seize Smith, but in the short time frame before and when the officers shot Smith, factual disputes exist about how much of a threat Smith posed and how actively he was resisting. The qualified immunity decision cannot be separated from those factual disputes. View "Smith v. Finkley" on Justia Law

Chicago requires its police officers to seize, inventory, and store property belonging to an arrested person if that property is not permitted in the Cook County Jail. After 30 days, any property unclaimed by the owner or her authorized representative is deemed abandoned and is sold or destroyed. The plaintiffs brought a purported class action under 42 U.S.C. 1983. Chicago’s right to seize and inventory the property upon arrest is not at issue and the plaintiffs do not contend that municipalities are not permitted to manage the seized property. The plaintiffs alleged that the notice Chicago furnished was not adequate to alert them to the fact that the police would destroy their personal property if they did not claim it within 30 days.The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. Chicago did not seize the plaintiffs’ property with an intent to keep it permanently; its motive for the seizures related to safety at the jail, not punishment, The 30-day limit reflected the practical constraints on storage capacity. The detainee knows exactly what has been taken from him and when that confiscation occurred and is told both how to get his property back and how quickly he must do so. The plaintiffs did not show that they were unable to find out the details of the property-recovery process that were disclosed on the police webpage. View "Conyers v. City of Chicago" on Justia Law

In October 2018, the University of Louisville notified Dr. Kaplan, a tenured professor and the Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences (DOVS), that it was reviewing some of his actions as Chair and considering removing him from that position. These included his signing an unauthorized lease on behalf of DOVS and meeting with private equity firms interested in buying or financing DOVS. One month into the investigation, with no more warning, the University placed him on paid administrative leave and prohibited him from coming to university grounds and communicating with his colleagues. The university also advised Kaplan that he could lose his tenured position.When the investigation ended, Kaplan lost his Chair, and the dean of the medical school recommended termination of his tenure, identifying six grounds for dismissal. On appeal, a faculty committee gave Kaplan a two-day hearing, at which he introduced documents and witnesses supporting his defense. The committee upheld four grounds for dismissal, including Kaplan’s unauthorized lease and his perceived attempt to sell DOVS’s clinical practice to private investors. The University’s Board of Trustees terminated Kaplan’s tenure. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a suit in which Kaplan claimed that the University terminated him from both positions without due process, violated his Fourteenth Amendment liberty interests in his reputation, and violated his First Amendment right to academic freedom. View "Kaplan v. University of Louisville" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal based on failure to exhaust administrative remedies of plaintiffs' action under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Plaintiffs claim that the district court is failing its responsibilities to students under the IDEA by not timely identifying and evaluating students with disabilities, and, after identifying them, by providing them with insufficiently individualized, "cookie-cutter" accommodations and services. Although plaintiffs argue that exhaustion was not required because they are challenging district-wide policies that only a court can remedy, plaintiffs are unable to identify such policies. The panel agreed with the district court that plaintiffs have not satisfied any of the limited exceptions recognized by caselaw to the exhaustion requirement contained in 20 U.S.C. 1415(l). In this case, plaintiffs challenged what amounted to failures in practice by the school district, rather than policies or practices of general applicability. View "Student A v. San Francisco Unified School District" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment against plaintiff where a reasonable factfinder could believe that plaintiff fully exhausted her administrative remedies. The court remanded for a factfinder to determine which set of papers plaintiff filed first. View "Prowse v. Washington" on Justia Law

Petitioner filed a habeas action alleging that he received ineffective assistance of sentencing counsel when his lawyer failed to investigate potential impeachment evidence of his own expert witness, and that his death sentence was unconstitutional due to flaws in the jury instructions. The district court agreed and vacated petitioner's death sentence.The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's judgment vacating petitioner's death sentence, concluding that counsel was not deficient by reasonably relying on the professional community to vet an expert. Furthermore, petitioner cannot show that, under the circumstances, no competent lawyer could have made the choice to trust the legal community's appraisal of the witness. Even if further investigation was more prudent, it is not clear that the investigation should have covered the witness's falsified lab reports. Therefore, petitioner did not overcome the presumption that counsel performed reasonably by not investigating the witness's credentials.The court also concluded that there was no substantial likelihood that the calling of an alternative psychiatric witness would have led to a different result; the state habeas court did not err in finding that petitioner was not prejudiced by sentencing counsel's failure to call a psychiatrist, and post-conviction counsel was not ineffective by failing to raise the issue; and the district court erred in concluding that the sentencing instructions violated Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367 (1988), and that Missouri's capital sentencing system violates Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002). View "McLaughlin v. Precythe" on Justia Law

An organization that is not directly regulated or affected by a challenged law or regulation cannot establish injury-in-fact for purposes of organizational standing absent a showing that it suffered an involuntary and material burden on its established core activities.CTPU filed suit alleging that Connecticut's standards regarding the racial composition of its interdistrict magnet schools violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint, concluding that CTPU has not established an injury-in-fact for purposes of demonstrating organizational standing. In this case, CTPU is an organization that is not directly regulated or affected by the challenged standards and CTPU has failed to show that it suffered an involuntary, material burden on its core activities. View "Connecticut Parents Union v. Russell-Tucker" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed Defendant's convictions for felony driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs (DUI) and misdemeanor obstructing a peace officer, holding that Defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel and that Defendant was prejudiced by his counsel's deficient performance.At issue was whether Defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel when his counsel failed to object to an incorrect jury instruction, which lowered the State's burden of proof on the offense of obstructing a peace officer. The Supreme Court held that Defendant did receive ineffective assistance of counsel when his attorneys neither objected to the incorrect instruction nor proposed the correct one themselves and that a new trial was warranted. View "State v. Secrease" on Justia Law