Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against Broward Deputy Sheriff Nick DeGiovanni, alleging claims of false arrest and excessive force. The district court granted summary judgment to the sheriff. The court concluded that the district judge correctly granted summary judgment to Deputy DeGiovanni on the false arrest claim where plaintiff's nolo contendere plea established probable cause for his arrest. The court concluded that the injuries plaintiff sustained during his arrest for failing to have a driver's license was not deminimis. Rather, the record demonstrated that plaintiff sustained medically documented severe, permanent injuries from Deputy DeGiovanni's unprovoked and completely unnecessary frontal-body blows to plaintiff's chest and throwing him against the car-door jamb in the course of arresting him. In this case, plaintiff was cooperating with officers and not resisting whatsoever, not even raising his voice. Applying the obvious-clarity method analysis, the court concluded that no particularized preexisting case law was necessary for it to be clearly established that what Deputy DeGiovanni did violated plaintiff's constitutional right to be free from the excessive use of force in his arrest. Therefore, the court vacated as to that claim and also vacated the district judge's dismissal without prejudice of plaintiff's state law assault and battery claim. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Stephens v. DeGiovanni" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an African-American, filed suit against defendants after her application to lease a space for her hair salon was denied. Plaintiff alleged that the denial infringed her right to freedom from racial discrimination in the making of a contract. The district court granted summary judgment for defendants. The court affirmed the district court's alternative conclusion that plaintiff failed to rebut the legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons defendants proffered for denying her lease application. Defendants' reasons included: odors emanating from the salon would disturb the residential tenants on the upper floors; plaintiff's business would not survive given the number of other salons in the area; a salon would not generate cross-shopping with other commercial tenants; plaintiff's credit score was too low; and defendants would not break even given the high cost of building out the unit. View "Flournoy v. CML-GA WB, LLC" on Justia Law

The Creamery filed suit against the State, contending that the State's refusal to allow it to call its product "skim milk" amounted to censorship in violation of the First Amendment. The district court granted summary judgment for the State, determining that the State's refusal to allow the Creamery to use the term "skim milk" withstood scrutiny under the threshold inquiry of the Central Hudson test for commercial speech regulations. The court held that the State's actions prohibiting the Creamery's truthful use of the term "skim milk" violated the First Amendment. Under the threshold question of Central Hudson, the court concluded that the speech at issue neither concerned unlawful activity nor was inherently misleading. Therefore, the speech merits First Amendment protection and the State's restriction was subject to intermediate scrutiny under Central Hudson. The court concluded that the State's mandate was clearly more extensive than necessary to serve its interest in preventing deception and ensuring adequate nutritional standards. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Ocheesee Creamery LLC v. Putnam" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of murdering a police officer and sentenced to death, suffered strokes in recent years resulting in significant cognitive and physical decline. Petitioner sought habeas relief, arguing that he was mentally incompetent to be executed under Ford v. Wainwright and Panetti v. Quarterman. The Alabama trial court decided that petitioner was competent to be executed. The court agreed with petitioner that the trial court's decision relied on an unreasonable determination of the facts and involved an unreasonable application of Panetti. The court explained that Panetti required courts to look at whether the prisoner was able to rationally understand the connection between the crime he committed and the punishment he was to receive. In this case, one of the experts testified that due to a mental disorder, petitioner was not able to make this connection, and another expert never addressed this question at all. The court concluded that this record was therefore wholly insufficient to support the trial court's decision. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's denial of habeas relief. View "Madison v. Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, petitioned for habeas relief, arguing that his earlier motion to vacate was inadequate to test his objection to his sentence enhancement because the court's caselaw about the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e), has changed. The court concluded that, because the motion to vacate gave petitioner an opportunity to challenge his sentence enhancement, his remedy was not inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his sentence, regardless of any later change in caselaw. The court joined the Tenth Circuit in applying the law as Congress wrote it and held that a change in caselaw does not make a motion to vacate a prisoner's sentence "inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention," 28 U.S.C. 2255(e). Accordingly, the court overruled the Wofford v. Scott test as applied in Bryant v. Warden, FCC Coleman-Medium and Mackey v. Warden, FCC Coleman-Medium, and affirmed the dismissal of the petition for habeas relief. View "McCarthan v. Director of Goodwill Industries-Suncoast" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against her employer, alleging that she was discriminated against because of her sexual orientation and gender non-conformity, and retaliated against after she lodged a complaint with her employer's human resources department. The district court dismissed her pro se complaint. The court held that discrimination based on failure to conform to a gender stereotype was sex-based discrimination. In this case, a gender non-conformity claim was not "just another way to claim discrimination based on sexual orientation," but instead constituted a separate, distinct avenue for relief under Title VII. Therefore, the court vacated the portion of the district court's order dismissing plaintiff's gender non-conformity claim with prejudice and remanded with instructions to grant plaintiff leave to amend such claim. The court concluded that binding precedent, Blum v. Gulf Oil Corp., foreclosed plaintiff's argument that she had stated a claim under Title VII by alleging that she endured workplace discrimination because of her sexual orientation. The Blum court held that discharge for homosexuality was not prohibited by Title VII. Therefore, the court affirmed the portion of the district court's order dismissing plaintiff's sexual orientation claim. Finally, the court considered any challenge to the district court's treatment of plaintiff's retaliation claim as waived. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. View "Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital" on Justia Law

Petitioner filed a petition for rehearing en banc, which also served under the court's rules as a petition for rehearing before the panel. The court granted the petition for rehearing to the panel to the extent that the court vacated its previous opinion and substituted in its place this one. Petitioner, convicted of battery and sexual battery of a five-year-old in Florida, appealed the dismissal of his habeas petition. The court granted him a certificate of appealability on the the issue of whether the district court improperly determined that his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition was time-barred, based on its finding that he was not entitled to equitable tolling. The court held that an attorney's negligence, even gross negligence, or misunderstanding about the law is not by itself a serious instance of attorney misconduct for equitable tolling purposes, even though it does violate the ABA model rules as all, or virtually all, attorney negligence does. Because petitioner showed, at most, that his failure to meet the filing deadline was the product of his attorney’s good faith but negligent or grossly negligent misunderstanding of the law, the district court properly dismissed the habeas petition as untimely. View "Cadet v. Florida Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Georgia state prisoner, filed suit alleging that the grooming policy enforced in Georgia state prisons violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc et seq. Specifically, plaintiff contends that the GDOC substantially burdened his exercise of a sincerely held religious belief that Islam requires him to grow an uncut beard. The district court granted summary judgment for the GDOC. The court concluded that the Supreme Court's opinion in Holt v. Hobbs rendered the district court's analysis inadequate. The court vacated and remanded for further consideration because the district court never analyzed the substantial burden, compelling interest, or least restrictive means of plaintiff's case, and because the GDOC has revised its grooming policy since the district court rendered its decision. View "Smith v. Owens" on Justia Law

This case concerns certain provisions of Florida's Firearms Owners' Privacy Act (FOPA), Fla. Stat. 790.338, 456.072, 395.1055, & 381.026. The district court held that FOPA's record-keeping, inquiry, anti-discrimination, and anti-harassment provisions violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and permanently enjoined their enforcement. Exercising plenary review and applying heightened scrutiny as articulated in Sorrell v. IMS Health, Inc., the court agreed with the district court that FOPA's content-based restrictions—the record-keeping, inquiry, and anti-harassment provisions—violate the First Amendment as it applies to the states. The court explained that, because these three provisions do not survive heightened scrutiny under Sorrell, the court need not address whether strict scrutiny should apply to them. The court concluded, however, that FOPA's anti-discrimination provision—as construed to apply to certain conduct by doctors and medical professionals—is not unconstitutional. Finally, the court concurred with the district court's assessment that the unconstitutional provisions of FOPA can be severed from the rest of the Act. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded so that the judgment and permanent injunction can be amended in accordance with this opinion. View "Wollschlaeger v. Governor of the State of Florida" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging excessive force, assault, and battery. The district court granted law enforcement officers summary judgment based on qualified and official immunity. Officer Deaton threw a diversionary device, known as a “flashbang,” into a dark room occupied by plaintiff and her boyfriend, who were asleep, without first visually inspecting the room. The court concluded that Deaton used excessive force, but he is entitled to qualified immunity because it was not clearly established that his conduct violated the Constitution. The court also concluded that Deaton is entitled to official immunity because plaintiff failed to prove that Deaton intended to injure plaintiff. Finally, Deaton's supervisor is also entitled to qualified immunity from the complaint against his subordinate. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Dukes v. Deaton" on Justia Law