Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Officers attempted to stop Austin, an African-American, for speeding through a construction zone. Austin fled and a high-speed chase ensued. When Austin’s car was blocked in a dead-end, he exited his vehicle and approached the officers with his palms open. Officer Paul’s canine attacked Austin, Officer Riley fired a Taser and Austin fell back to his car. The parties dispute what was said and other aspects of the incident. Austin filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the police department and officers Riley, Paull, and Morgan, alleging defendants used excessive force and engaged in ethnic intimidation in violation of Michigan law. The district court granted Riley summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds with respect to his initial deployment of a Taser, but denied summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds with respect to Riley’s subsequent use of the Taser, Paull’s use of the police dog, and Morgan’s use of the Taser. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. There was no evidence or allegation that Austin was belligerent, threatening or assaulting officers, or attempting to escape. Use of non-lethal, temporarily incapacitating force on a handcuffed suspect who no longer poses a safety threat, flight risk, and is not resisting arrest constitutes excessive force.

State Attorney-General and county-prosecutor candidates may not accept campaign contributions from Medicaid providers or any person with an ownership interest in a Medicaid provider, Ohio Rev. Code 3599.45. The plaintiff physicians are Medicaid providers who attempted to contribute to Cordray’s 2010 campaign for reelection as Ohio Attorney General. When the campaign learned that the plaintiffs were Medicaid providers, however, it refused to accept their contributions. The plaintiffs challenged the statute. The district court upheld the law as supported by a general interest in “preventing corruption,” stating that the court should not “second guess” the Ohio Legislature’s means of furthering that interest. The Sixth Circuit reversed. The contribution ban is not closely drawn to “avoid unnecessary abridgement of associational freedoms.” A claim that the law prevents corruption, is “dubious at best.”

Judge DeWeese sentenced Griffeth to prison for sexual battery and later oversaw his supervised release. Mayer supervised the agency responsible for monitoring Griffeth and suspected that his wife, Leech, was having an affair with Griffeth. Plaintiffs alleged that Mayer conspired with other officers and DeWeese to harass Griffeth. Mayer’s marriage ended. Plaintiffs allege that Mayer, who had been drinking, saw Griffeth and Leech in a car, pursued them, and called police to have Griffeth arrested for violating curfew. Mayer’s supervisor ordered that Mayer have no further involvement in Griffeth’s case. Plaintiffs allege that Mayer met with DeWeese and arranged to transfer Griffeth’s case to Mayer’s friend. DeWeese imposed a condition prohibiting Griffeth from contact with Leech or with her minor daughter. Griffeth was accused of associating with Leech and lying about it. Judge DeWeese refused to recuse himself, sentenced Griffeth to six months in community control, and ordered Leech removed from Griffeth’s home. The district court held that DeWeese had not established absolute judicial immunity to a claim concerning removing non-party Leech from her home. The Sixth Circuit reversed. DeWeese’s order requiring compliance with the no-contact condition of supervised release by removing Leech from the house fell within DeWeese’s subject matter jurisdiction over supervised release.

Plaintiffs, members of a religious group that believes that homosexuality is forbidden by God, attempted to challenge the constitutionality of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, 18 U.S.C. 249(a)(2). That Act makes it a crime to batter a person because of the person’s religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. Plaintiffs claimed that expression and practice of their religious beliefs would lead to federal investigation and prosecution under the Act, in violation of their First Amendment rights. The district court dismissed for lack of standing. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, stating that plaintiffs’ underlying complaint is with the government’s heightened protection of homosexuals from criminal violence and that the lawsuit is really a political statement against the Hate Crimes Act. Plaintiffs have not demonstrated intent to violate the Hate Crimes Act or offered evidence that they will nonetheless face adverse law enforcement action.

After a private citizen placed a creche on a sixty-foot-wide median at Christmas time. Macomb County ordered the creche removed. The Thomas More Law Center applied for a formal permit to display the creche. The County denied the permit, stating that it violated the Establishment Cause of the First Amendment. The citizen filed suit, claiming the denial of the permit violated his free-speech rights, the Establishment Clause, and his equal-protection rights. During litigation, the County changed its explanation for denying the citizen's permit, claiming that safety was the reason for its decision. The district court granted summary judgment for the County. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the grant of summary judgment on the citizen's Establishment Clause claim but reversed on all other grounds, holding that the district court erred by granting summary judgment to the County on the citizen's free-speech and equal-protection claims.

In 2005 Jones pleaded guilty to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) and 924(e)(1). He was classified as an armed career criminal based on three prior felony convictions and sentenced to a term of 188 months of imprisonment. One of those prior convictions was for reckless homicide under Kentucky law. His pro se motion to vacate his sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255 on the basis of Begay v. United States, 553 U.S. 137 (2008) was denied. Holding that Jones qualified for equitable tolling of the limitations period, the Sixth Circuit remanded for resentencing. The conviction for reckless homicide cannot be counted under the ACCA.

Bruederle had a severe seizure two days after being booked into the Louisville Metro Corrections jail on assault charges that were eventually dropped. The seizure was likely caused by withdrawal from the many powerful prescription drugs Bruederle was taking at the time to control his back pain. Because police arrested him after business hours on Friday, and he did not manifest an imminent danger of suffering withdrawal symptoms, Bruederle's request for these drugs could not be reviewed until the Monday after his arrest. Bruederle brought a “deliberate indifference” claim under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, agreeing that no reasonable juror could find that the defendants violated the Due Process Clause. There is no per se constitutional objection to reasonable policies that regulate the access of prisoners to controlled substances, including prescription drugs.

Jackson was convicted by an Ohio jury of two murders committed in 2002. The court sentenced him to two separate death sentences. The Supreme Court of Ohio on direct appeal vacated the death sentence for one of the murders based on the trial judge’s errors in limiting the voir dire, but it affirmed the other death sentence. The federal district court denied a habeas corpus petition. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, noting the “difficulty” of Jackson’s claim that the trial court violated his right to due process of law when, after denying his counsel the right to question the jury concerning pretrial publicity, it denied his motion for a change of venue premised on the extraordinary pretrial publicity present in Lima, Ohio, the small community in which he was tried. There was no clearly established law governing the issue of what questions defense counsel is entitled to ask in order to examine jurors concerning non-racial bias against defendants accused of murdering a child. The court also rejected ineffective assistance claims.

Foster was convicted of second-degree murder in connection with a shooting death. After trial, the Michigan trial court conducted a Ginther hearing and concluded that Foster’s trial counsel was ineffective for failing to raise an alibi defense, stemming primarily from the testimony of a witness who said that Foster was with him at the time of the killing. The Michigan Court of Appeals, however, concluded that the failure to raise the alibi defense was an exercise of sound trial strategy by Foster’s trial counsel. On habeas review, the district court held that Foster’s trial attorney was deficient for failing to raise the alibi defense, but that the deficiency did not prejudice Foster. The Sixth Circuit affirmed with respect to the deficient performance finding, but reversed with respect to the prejudice determination, and granted a conditional writ of habeas corpus giving the state 180 days to retry Foster or to release him. The relative weakness in the state's case and strength of the potential alibi defense created a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's errors, the result would have been different.

In 2001, a Tennessee jury convicted Rayner of five counts of rape of a child (his daughter) and five counts of aggravated sexual battery. He was sentenced to an effective term of 51 years: 21 years for each rape conviction, and nine years for each aggravated sexual battery conviction, with two rape counts and one sexual battery count to run consecutively, and the remainder to run concurrently. He exhausted state direct and collateral review. The district court denied a petition for habeas corpus. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel that had not been raised in state court. At trial, the prosecution presented medical proof that the victim suffered from trichomoniasis, a sexually transmitted disease. No evidence was presented that Rayner had trichomoniasis. On cross-examination, defense counsel pointed out that trichomoniasis could be transmitted in ways not involving sexual contact. Defense strategy focused on the theory that the victim was lying about the abuse.