Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the judgment of a single justice of the court denying Petitioner's petition pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 211, 3, holding that the single justice did not err or abuse her discretion in denying relief.Petitioner was convicted of several crimes, including armed assault with intent to murder. The firearm leading to the charges was recovered during a motor vehicle search that led to charges in a separate case against a different individual, Danilo Depina, who successfully moved to suppress the firearm on the basis that it had been illegally seized. Petitioner later filed the underlying petition, which the county court treated as a petition pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 211, 3, arguing that he had stand to petition the district attorney's office that had prosecuted Petitioner to produce evidence related to the firearm. A single justice denied the petition. The Supreme Judicial Court appealed, holding that there was no abuse of discretion in the denial of the appeal. View "Pina v. Commonwealth" on Justia Law

Cruz, convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death, argued that under the Supreme Court’s “Simmons” decision, he should have been allowed to inform the jury that a life sentence in Arizona would be without parole. The Arizona Supreme Court held that Arizona’s capital sentencing scheme did not trigger Simmons. The Supreme Court subsequently held ("Lynch" (2016)), that it was fundamental error to conclude that Simmons “did not apply” in Arizona.Cruz sought to raise the Simmons issue under Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.1(g), which permits a successive post-conviction petition if “there has been a significant change in the law that, if applicable ... would probably overturn the defendant’s judgment or sentence.” The Arizona Supreme Court denied relief, reasoning that a significant change in the application of a law is not a significant change in the law itself, focusing on whether Lynch was a significant change in federal law.The U.S. Supreme Court vacated. A state procedural ruling that is “firmly established and regularly followed” ordinarily forecloses review of a federal claim but the Arizona ruling rests on such a novel and unforeseeable interpretation of a state-court procedural rule that it is not adequate to foreclose review of the federal claim. Although Lynch did not change the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Simmons, it did change the operation of Simmons by Arizona courts in a way that matters for Rule 32.1(g). The analytic focus of Arizona courts applying Rule 32.1(g) has always been on the impact on Arizona law. View "Cruz v. Arizona" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the district court dismissing this lawsuit brought by Appellants seeking a declaration "that individuals are restored to civil rights and possess the fundamental right to vote guaranteed by [Minn. Const. art. VII] by virtue of being released or excused from incarceration following a felony," holding that there was no error.At issue before the Supreme Court was (1) whether Minn. Const. art. VII, 1 requires that a person convicted of a felony be restored to the right to vote upon being released or excused from incarceration; and (2) whether Minn. Stat. 609.165 is contrary to the fundamental right to vote or to equal protection protections under the state Constitution. The Supreme Court held (1) under article VII, section 1, a person convicted of a felony cannot vote in Minnesota unless his or her right to vote is restored in accordance with an affirmative act or governmental mechanism restoring the person's right to vote; and (2) section 609.165 does not violate the fundamental right to vote, and there was insufficient evidence to prove that the statute violates the Minnesota Constitution's equal protection principle. View "Schroeder v. Simon" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals affirming Defendant's conviction for first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree sexual assault, and false imprisonment, holding that Defendant was not entitled to relief on his allegations of error.The Supreme Court accepted for review the issues of (1) whether Defendant's confession of sexual assault was corroborated by a significant fact; and (2) whether the cross-examination of Defendant's expert witness through the use of a Wisconsin Crime Lab report that was not entered into evidence and whose author did not testify violated Defendant's constitutional right to confrontation. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the State sufficiently corroborated Defendant's confession of sexual assault; and (2) the State improperly used the report's content for its truth during closing arguments, but the circuit court's error in permitting this argument was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. View "State v. Thomas" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Roxanne Torres appealed the grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendants Janice Madrid and Richard Williamson, agents of the New Mexico State Police Investigations Bureau. The encounter between Torres and Defendants lasted only 14 seconds: Torres was sitting in her vehicle, backed into a spot in front of a suspect’s apartment and cars parked on either side. The vehicle’s engine was running and the doors were locked. Defendants approached Torres’s vehicle and Agent Williamson attempted to open the driver’s door. Defendants shouted commands at Torres to open her door, but they did not announce themselves as police officers. Torres stepped on the gas and headed forward across the parking lot. Both Defendants fired at Torres. Neither Defendant was struck as Torres drove past. Five bullets were fired at the rear of Torres’s vehicle, one of them striking her in the back. Torres ultimately entered a no-contest plea to: (1) aggravated flight from a law- enforcement officer; and (2) assault upon a peace officer. Torres filed a civil-rights suit against Defendants alleging they used excessive force. The district court dismissed the suit, holding that because Torres had successfully fled the scene, she was not seized. The Tenth Circuit affirmed, but the Supreme Court reversed. After remand from the Supreme Court the district court again granted Defendants summary judgment, finding: (1) Torres’s claims were barred because her claims against Defendants were inconsistent with her no-contest pleas to charges of aggravated flight from a law-enforcement officer and assault upon a peace officer; and (2) Torres’s claims were barred on the ground that Defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. The Tenth Circuit reversed, finding: (1) Torres' pleas were not inconsistent with her claims that the officers used excessive force by firing at her after she had driven past them and no longer posed a threat; and (2) because Defendants did not know Torres would escape when they shot at her, and facts unknown to officers at the moment they use force were not relevant to the qualified-immunity analysis. The Court remanded for further proceedings on the remaining issues raised by Defendant's arguments on appeal. View "Torres v. Madrid, et al." on Justia Law

During a pat-down search of Brown, Chicago officers recovered a loaded handgun from his pocket and packets of a suspected narcotic from the driver’s seat of his car. Brown was charged with being an armed habitual criminal and possessing a controlled substance. Two attorneys appeared on Brown’s behalf. The court questioned the venire members in panels and conferred with the attorneys at a sidebar to discuss objections. The court held eight sidebars off the record before announcing that a jury had been selected. The judge then went back on the record, outside the presence of the jury, and explained the challenges for cause and for peremptory challenges. The jury found Brown guilty of being an armed habitual criminal. In his motion for a new trial, Brown did not challenge the sidebars. On appeal, Brown argued that he was deprived of his constitutional right to be present at a critical stage of the proceeding and asserted that his defense counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the process where jurors were challenged at sidebars without Brown himself being present.The appellate court and Illinois Supreme Court affirmed his conviction. Brown did not establish prejudice; he failed to show that he was not tried by an impartial jury. Brown was present in the courtroom for all the questioning of the venire members; the record is silent as to whether Brown talked with counsel about venire members before the sidebars. Without any evidence that counsel failed to represent Brown’s interests at the sidebars, there is no basis to conclude that counsell rendered deficient performance by failing to object to the procedure. View "People v. Brown" on Justia Law

Waide encountered the Lexington police after a shed fire occurred on the property next to his. Although no one suspected Waide of being involved with the fire and there was no evidence of arson, the fire investigator noticed surveillance cameras attached to Waide’s duplex residence and asked Waide to turn over his DVR. When Waide declined, the investigator obtained a warrant to enter Waide’s apartment and retrieve the DVR. When six officers arrived at Waide’s duplex to execute that warrant, their threatened entry and questions about whether Waide had drugs on the premises caused Waide to admit that his apartment contained a small amount of marijuana. This confession led to the issuance of two subsequent warrants to search both units of Waide’s duplex for narcotics–the other unit was occupied by Waide’s mother. The searches yielded a firearm plus large quantities of drugs and money.After the district court denied Waide’s motions to suppress evidence, he entered into a conditional guilty plea to the offense of possessing cocaine and heroin with the intent to distribute the drugs and to possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. The Sixth Circuit reversed. The affidavit in support of the DVR warrant lacked reliable evidence to establish probable cause to believe that the shed fire was due to arson or any other criminal activity. The incriminating evidence should be suppressed because it stemmed from the exploitation of the unlawful DVR warrant. View "United States v. Waide" on Justia Law

Banks posted a Snapchat video of himself barbequing on his porch with a gun on the grill’s shelf. Springfield police officer Redding saw the post and knew Banks to be a convicted felon. Within minutes, Redding and other officers headed to Banks’s home and saw Banks on his porch, next to the grill. The officers struggled with Banks, eventually arresting him inside the house. A pat down revealed a loaded semi-automatic pistol in Banks’s pocket. The officers also saw a box of ammunition. They did not have a warrant to enter Banks’s porch or to search his home.At a suppression hearing, Redding stated that he did not believe he needed a warrant to enter the porch because the police had reasonable suspicion that Banks, as a convicted felon, was committing a crime by possessing a gun nor did he believe he had enough time to obtain a warrant. The district court denied Banks’s motion to suppress. Banks entered a conditional guilty plea. The Seventh Circuit reversed. Because Banks was a convicted felon, the officers needed nothing more than the video to request a warrant to arrest him. A front porch—part of a home’s “curtilage”—receives the same protection as the home itself, so the officers’ entry was illegal without a warrant. No exception to the warrant requirement applied. View "United States v. Banks" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the opinion of the court of appeals affirming the decision of the district court to allow a witness to testify using live, two-way remote view technology during a jury trial in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, holding that Defendant's right to confrontation was not violated in the proceedings below.During Defendant's jury trial on a third-degree sale of a controlled substance charge, the district court allowed one of the State's witness to testify via Zoom because she had been exposed to COVID-19 and was forced to quarantine. Defendant appealed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the two-part test set forth in Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836 (1990), is the appropriate test to assess whether a Confrontation Clause violation under the federal or state constitutions; and (2) Defendant's right to confrontation under the federal and state constitutions when the district court permitted the witness to testify using remote view technology under the circumstances of this case. View "State v. Tate" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed Defendant's conviction for two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a minor and two counts of risk of injury to a child, holding that the trial court improperly failed to order that certain material be turned over to the defense and that the error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.On appeal, Defendant argued, among other things, that the trial court violated his Sixth Amendment right to confrontation by not ordering disclosure of the victims' psychiatric records to the defense. The Supreme Court agreed, holding that the trial court (1) committed harmful error by failing to order that exculpatory and relevant impeachment material contained in the victims' psychiatric records be turned over to the defense; (2) improperly precluded cross-examination of the mothers of the victims concerning their U visa applications; and (3) improperly instructed the jury. View "State v. Juan A. G.-P." on Justia Law