Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

This appeal arose out of the Government's indictment of Defendant for frauds Defendant committed while serving as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army in Iraq. At issue on appeal was the applicability of 18 U.S.C. 3287. Better known as the Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act, section 3284 suspends the running of the statute of limitations for certain crimes when the United States is at war. Defendant moved to dismiss the indictment based on the expiration of the statute of limitations, which the district court denied based on the applicability of section 3287. Defendant entered a conditional guilty plea and appealed, arguing that the termination clause in the Act prevented the Government's indictment of Defendant. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that since neither Congress nor the president met the formal requirements for terminating the Act's suspension of limitations as of the date of when the last of Defendant's criminal conduct occurred, section 3287 applies to Defendant, and accordingly, the Government's indictment in this case was valid.

Jose Marquez pleaded guilty to a two-count indictment charging him with participation in drug and money laundering conspiracies. After conducting a hearing, the district court sentenced Marquez to life in prison on count one and to 240 months on count two. In imposing its sentence, the district court applied firearm and leadership enhancements. Additionally, a subsequently entered written judgment of conviction ordered Marquez to forfeit $2,000,000. Marquez challenged the sentencing enhancements and the forfeiture order on appeal. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the district court's decision to apply the sentencing enhancements was not clearly erroneous; and (2) although certain deficiencies in the district court's handling of the forfeiture were plainly erroneous, because Marquez did not demonstrate that his substantial rights were affected by the district court's errors, he was not entitled to relief.

Defendant pled guilty to using a communication facility in committing conspiracy to possess cocaine hydrochloride with the intent to distribute it. Defendant was sentenced to three years of probation. Two years later, the probation office successfully petitioned the district court to issue a warrant for Defendant based on a violent incident that resulted in his arrest. The district court subsequently revoked Defendant's probation and sentenced him to four years of imprisonment with no term of supervised release. The court also ordered Defendant not to have contact with his daughter. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the sentence the district court imposed upon revoking Defendant's probation, holding that because Defendant did now show the court committed a procedural error or that his sentence was substantively unreasonable, he did not show that his sentence was plainly unreasonable.

After a jury trial, Defendant Ryan Mudd was convicted of a single count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and sentenced to seventy-seven months' imprisonment and three years' supervised release. Mudd appealed. The Fifth Circuit (1) affirmed Mudd's conviction, holding that there was sufficient evidence to support to the conviction, as the evidence created a plausible inference of Mudd's guilty knowledge, an element of the crime; and (2) vacated Mudd's sentence in part, finding that a conflict existed between the district court's oral pronouncement at sentencing and written judgment. Remanded with instructions to conform the written judgment to the oral pronouncement at sentencing.

Plaintiff, a Texas prisoner, filed a pro se civil rights complaint against the chaplain of the Preston Smith Unit and other defendants, alleging that he was denied religious devotional items that the chaplain had given him permission to order. After reviewing plaintiff's pro se appeal, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants because there was no genuine dispute as to any material facts.

Appellant, a journalist, appealed from the district court's entry of an order barring communication with the media and its denial of his motion to intervene in a case involving charges of terrorism. The government indicted defendant for attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and the day that the indictment was filed, the district court entered an order barring the parties, their representatives, and their attorneys of record from communicating with the news media about the case. On appeal, appellant argued that the district court wrongly found that he had no right to intervene and that the district court's gag order violated his First and Fifth Amendment rights. The court concluded that FRCP 4(a) controlled this appeal and that notice was timely; that the gag order affected appellant's right to gather news and therefore, he had standing to challenge it; but, on the merits, appellant had not shown that the gag order violated the First Amendment where the gag order was not overly broad on its face and the gag order did not violate the Fifth Amendment because the denial of his motion to intervene did not limit his right to earn a living through news gathering in violation of his due process rights. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

PLN, a non-profit corporation, brought a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action against the TDCJ and three individual TDCJ officials (collectively, defendants) for alleged First Amendment and due process violations with TDCJ's censorship of five books PLN wished to distribute to inmates in the Texas prison system. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants. The court concluded that PLN had not presented sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment on its First Amendment claims where PLN had, at most, demonstrated that reasonable minds might differ on whether to permit certain books into a general prison population, which was very different from demonstrating that TDCJ's practices and exclusions had no reasonable relation to valid penological objectives. The court also rejected PLN's due process claim, concluding that TDCJ's procedures were reasonable. Because TDCJ had not violated PLN's due process rights, the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Plaintiffs filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for claims arising out of their son's death. The district court granted summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity against their claims that law enforcement personnel used excessive force in restraining him. Plaintiffs appealed and argued that the use of a four-point restraint in this case was excessive force and defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity. The court held that the treatment of plaintiffs' son did not violate a clearly established right and consequently, defendants were protected by qualified immunity even if their conduct constituted excessive force.

Plaintiff sued defendants, the City and the Zoning Board, for violations of the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause and for denying her procedural due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Board had decided to revoke the permits it had given her to operate her Sno Cone hut at a certain intersection. The court held that the district court was justified in dismissing plaintiff's equal protection claim where plaintiff failed to state a viable equal protection claim. The court held, however, that the district court erred in dismissing plaintiff's procedural due process claim where plaintiff's property right in the business permits the Board granted to her merited the protection of procedural due process before the Board revoked it.

A Texas jury found that a corporate staffing company violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq., when it refused to allow a deaf woman to apply for a warehouse job, awarding her back pay, compensatory, and punitive damages. On appeal the company raised several issues. The court held that the district court had subject matter jurisdiction over the dispute; the district court's finding - that the company's failure to account for its delay was dispositive, outweighing the other three factors for assessing good cause - was well supported and squarely within its sound discretion; the court rejected the company's claim that because the EEOC failed to provide computations for compensatory and punitive damages, the EEOC should have been precluded from seeking any damages whatsoever; the district court's analysis of punitive damages was considered, fair, and in no way an abuse of discretion; and the court rejected the company's challenges to the district court's imposition of injunctive relief. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.