Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Immigration officials initiated removal proceedings against Chaidez in 2009 upon learning that she had pleaded guilty to mail fraud in 2004. To avoid removal, she sought to overturn that conviction by filing a petition for a writ of coram nobis, contending that her former attorney’s failure to advise her of the guilty plea’s immigration consequences constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. While her petition was pending, the Supreme Court held, in Padilla v. Kentucky, that the Sixth Amendment requires defense attorneys to inform non-citizen clients of the deportation risks of guilty pleas. The district court vacated Chaidez’s conviction. The Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that Padilla had declared a new rule and should not apply in a challenge to a final conviction. The Supreme Court affirmed. Padilla does not apply retroactively to cases already final on direct review. A case does not announce a new rule if it merely applies a principle that governed a prior decision to a different set of facts. Padilla’s ruling answered an open question about the Sixth Amendment’s reach, in a way that altered the law of most jurisdictions, breaking new ground and imposing a new obligation. View "Chaidez v. United States" on Justia Law

Defendant, a citizen of Mexico, was indicted for possessing firearms while being illegally or unlawfully in the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(5). Defendant filed a motion to dismiss the charge, contending that section 922(g)(5) violated his rights under the Second and Fifth Amendments. The district court denied the motion, holding that section 922(g)(5) was constitutional. The court affirmed the judgment, concluding that the scope of the Second Amendment did not extend to provide protection to illegal aliens, because illegal aliens were not law-abiding members of the political community and aliens who have entered the United States unlawfully have no more rights under the Second Amendment than do aliens outside of the United States seeking admittance. On defendant's Fifth Amendment challenge, the court concluded that prohibiting aliens, as a class, from possessing firearms was rationally related to Congress' legitimate interest in public safety. View "United States v. Carpio-Leon" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs alleged that Davidson County Sheriff's officers arrested and wrongfully interrogated and detained them while officers investigated Plaintiffs' immigration status pursuant to the October 2009 Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) entered into between the Davidson County Sheriff's Office (DCSO) and the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The MOA authorized selected DCSO personnel to perform certain immigration officer duties after being trained and certified by ICE. The Supreme Court accepted certification to answer whether the MOA violated the Charter of Nashville and Davidson County. The Court held (1) the MOA did not violate the Charter or any other state law cited by Plaintiffs; and (2) the Sheriff of Davidson County had authority under the Charter to perform the duties enumerated in the MOA. View "Renteria-Villegas v. Metro. Gov't of Nashville & Davidson County " on Justia Law

These appeals arose from the ruling of the named defendant, the freedom of information commission (commission), that defendant Rashad El Badrawi was entitled, under the Freedom of Information Act (act), to the disclosure of a document that the plaintiff, the commissioner of correction (commissioner), obtained from a file in the National Crime Information Center, which is maintained by the FBI. The commissioner and the intervenor, the United States, appealed from the commission's ruling, claiming that the commission improperly ordered disclosure of the document because, among other reasons, disclosure was barred by a federal regulation, and therefore, the document was exempt from the act in accordance with Conn. Gen. Stat. 1-210(a). The trial court dismissed in part and sustained in part the appeals and ordered that a redacted version of the document be disclosed to El Badrawi. The commissioner and the United States appealed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the document fell within an exemption to the act set forth in section 1-210(a), and therefore, El Badrawi was not entitled to disclosure of the document. View "Comm'r of Corr. v. Freedom of Info. Comm'n " on Justia Law

Petitioner Shahid Iqbal appealed a district court's denial of his motion for attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). Petitioner is a native and citizen of Pakistan who acquired lawful permanent residency in the United States in 2002. On July 11, 2008, he filed an application for naturalization with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). On August 17, 2009, he successfully passed a naturalization examination, but the USCIS did not adjudicate his application due to an ongoing background check by the FBI. On June 18, 2010, still having received no decision on his application, Petitioner filed this action. On September 13, 2010, the USCIS denied Petitioner's naturalization application on the ground that he had not met the physical presence requirements for naturalization. Based on the denial, Defendants filed a motion to dismiss Petitioner's petition as moot. In the alternative, Defendants asked the district court to decline jurisdiction in deference to the agency’s expertise in adjudicating naturalization applications. The district court denied the motion to dismiss, concluding that once Petitioner filed his petition, the USCIS no longer had jurisdiction to adjudicate the naturalization application. On April 5, 2011, Petitioner filed his motion for an award of attorney fees and expenses under EAJA, arguing that he was a prevailing party because the district court denied the government’s motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction and remanded the case to the USCIS for a determination of the merits of his naturalization application. He also argued that the government’s delay on his application and its position on its motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction were not substantially justified. The district court denied the fee motion, concluding that Petitioner was not a prevailing party because he had obtained no judicial determination on the merits of his claims, the court had not ordered the USCIS or the FBI to act within a certain period of time, and the court had not retained jurisdiction after remanding the matter to the agency. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision to deny attorney's fees.

This appeal involved challenges to ten provisions of Alabama's House Bill 56, the "Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act" (H.B. 56). The stated purpose of the legislation was to discourage illegal immigration within the state and maximize enforcement of federal immigration laws through cooperation with federal authorities. The court found that the United States was likely to succeed on the merits of its challenges to sections 10, 11(a), 13(a), 16, 17, and 27 of H.B. 56. The court agreed with the United States that it was not likely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to section 12(a) or section 18 at this time. The court also found that the United States had not shown at this stage that it was likely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to section 30. Finally, the court dismissed the United States' appeal as to section 28 as moot, as the court's opinion in the private plaintiffs' companion case fully disposed of that issue.

Defendants appealed the district court's order granting plaintiffs' motion and preliminarily enjoined enforcement of sections 7 and 8 of House Bill 87, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011 (H.B. 87), on the ground that each was preempted by federal law. H.B. 87 was enacted to address the problem of illegal immigration within the state. The court held that section 7 could not be reconciled with the federal immigration scheme or the individual provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part the district court's order preliminarily enjoining enforcement of section 7. The court reversed in part the portion of that order enjoining section 8.

Plaintiffs challenged various provisions of Alabama's House Bill 56, the "Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act" (H.B. 56). Because the court found that the United States was likely to succeed on its claims that sections 10 and 27 of H.B. 56 were preempted, the court dismissed the HICA plaintiffs' appeal as to those sections as moot. The court vacated as moot the district court's injunction of section 8 and remanded for the dismissal of the challenge to that section, as the statutory amendment had removed the challenged language. In light of the court's decision on the substantive provisions of sections 10, 11, and 13, the court vacated as moot the district court's order insofar as it preliminarily enjoined the last sentence of sections 10(e), 11(e), and 13(h). The court found that at least one of the HICA plaintiffs had standing to challenge section 28 and that it violated the Equal Protection Clause. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's decision and remanded for the entry of a preliminary injunction. Finally, the court concluded, for reasons stated in the United State's companion cases, Nos. 11-14532, 11-14674, that the HICA plaintiffs could not succeed on the merits of their facial challenges to sections 12, 18, and 30 at this time.

VLiranzo was born in 1955 in the Dominican Republic. He entered the U.S. as a lawful permanent resident in 1965; in 1972 his mother became a naturalized citizen and he obtained derivative citizenship, 8 U.S.C. 1432(a)(3) Liranzo did not know he had become a citizen and continued to renew his "green card" through 2006.In 2006 Liranzo was released from incarceration in New York for possession of a controlled substance. Before his release, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement erroneously identified him as a permanent resident alien, subject to removal. He was transported to a detention center in Louisiana pending removal. During removal proceedings, it was discovered that Liranzo is a U.S. citizen, and he was released. He filed suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act, alleging that federal immigration officials had falsely arrested and imprisoned him. Following two years of discovery, the district court dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because there was no private analogue to the immigration detention suffered by plaintiff. The Second Circuit affirmed dismissal of a Fourth Amendment claim, but held that the court had jurisdiction over the FTCA claim, because there is a private analogue: false imprisonment.

Defendant was convicted of illegal re-entry. Defendant contended that the district court erred in considering his need for anger management courses in determining the length of his sentence. At issue in this case was whether, when the law at the time of trial or plea is unsettled, but becomes clear while the case is pending on appeal, review for the second prong of the plain error test properly considers the law as it stood during the district court proceedings or at the time of the appellate court's decision. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals joined the majority of other circuits in holding that where the law is unsettled at the time of trial but settled by the time of appeal, the plainness of the error should be judged by the law at the time of appeal. The Court then held that the district court's determination under the second prong of the plain error test was plain error, and the error affected Defendant's substantial rights. The Court vacated Defendant's sentence and remanded for resentencing in accordance with this opinion.