Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

In 1994, the jury convicted Desmond and Jesse Rouse, their cousin Russell Hubbeling, and another cousin of sexually abusing five nieces. Defendants ultimately raised claims in Rule 60(b)(6) motions seeking relief from the dismissal of their initial 28 U.S.C. 2255 motions. The district court denied the Rule 60(b)(6) motions as successive section 2255 motions and granted certificates of appealability.The Eighth Circuit affirmed, concluding that newly discovered evidence in support of a claim previously denied and a subsequent change in substantive law justifying relief - fall squarely within the class of Rule 60(b) claims to which the Supreme Court has applied section 2244(b) restrictions. Furthermore, the motions were an improper attempt to circumvent the procedural requirements of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty (AEDPA). Assuming arguendo that petitioners' Rule 60(b)(6) motions were not unauthorized second or successive motions subject to section 2244(b)(3), the district court did not err in determining that the allegations, including claims of newly discovered victim recantations, medical evidence and claims of juror bias, did not meet the extraordinarily high burden of proving actual innocence, a complete miscarriage of justice, or are evidence that would produce an acquittal in a new trial. View "Rouse v. United States" on Justia Law

After child abuse investigators removed seven minor children from their home, plaintiffs filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging claims against the Governor, DHS, Garland County, and numerous employees of the State and Garland County in their official and individual capacities. The district court dismissed the official capacity claims and granted qualified immunity on all individual capacity claims but one. The district court subsequently granted Defendant Finnegan and Garland County's motions for summary judgment and dismissed all claims with prejudice.The Eighth Circuit affirmed and concluded that the district court properly applied the Heartland test and found that the existence of exigent circumstances justified the taking of the children. Moreover, the removal was ordered in executing a warrant issued by a magistrate who was advised removal was intended. Even if the Fourth Amendment applies in this situation, defendants are entitled to qualified immunity because it was not clearly established in the Eighth Circuit when the children were removed from their home. In regard to post removal proceedings, the court concluded that Finnegan was entitled to qualified immunity where plaintiffs introduced no evidence that Finnegan's find true determination and testimony in administrative and judicial proceedings were "fabricated" or came anywhere near this level of conscience-shocking behavior. View "Stanley v. Hutchinson" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, female truck drivers, filed suit against CRST alleging Title VII claims of retaliation and hostile work environment on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, as well as individual constructive discharge claims on behalf of themselves. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of CRST on the class and individual retaliation claims, as well as on the individual hostile work environment and constructive discharge claims.The Eighth Circuit concluded that CRST's removal policy does not constitute per se retaliation. With respect to the pre-2015 members of the class, the court concluded that the removal policy led to a net decrease in the women's pay; the removal policy was materially adverse; but there was no direct evidence that CRST had any motivative discriminatory bias. With respect to the post-2015 members of the class, the court concluded that these members were subject to adverse employment and the district court should address in the first instance the question whether direct or circumstantial evidence establishes that CRST took this adverse employment action in retaliation for the post-2015 class members' Title VII-protected activity.In regard to plaintiffs' individual hostile work environment claims, the court concluded that Plaintiff Fortune has not created a genuine factual dispute whether CRST's response was actionably deficient; plaintiffs have not established the existence of a genuine dispute of material fact whether CRST knew or should have known about ongoing coworker-on-coworker harassment and thereafter failed to take prompt remedial action that was reasonably calculated to end it; and plaintiffs have failed to show such discrimination on the part of CRST itself and therefore have failed to show that the employer created intolerable working conditions or took otherwise discriminatory action. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Sellars v. CRST Expedited, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the City of Bloomington, the Hennepin County Attorney, and two Bloomington police officers, seeking a declaration that a state harassment statute and a city ordinance are unconstitutional under the First Amendment, injunctive relief against enforcement of those laws, and nominal damages. Plaintiff's claims stemmed from her desire to produce photographs and video recordings of activities in a public park, where the images captured would include children.The Eighth Circuit dismissed as moot plaintiff's challenge to the harassment statute, which has been superseded by the state legislature; affirmed as to plaintiff's claims for damages against the police officers and the City based on alleged enforcement of the former harassment statute; and reversed and directed entry of judgment for plaintiff on her claim that the city ordinance forbidding photography and video recording in the public park is unconstitutional under the First Amendment as applied to her activity on which the claim is based. The court explained that, because the ordinance is significantly over-inclusive with respect to the City's asserted interest, it is not narrowly tailored and fails strict scrutiny as applied to plaintiff's proposed conduct. View "Ness v. City of Bloomington" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief to petitioner in an action where petitioner was found guilty of two first-degree murder counts. Although the Missouri Court of Appeals' conclusion that petitioner's counsel performed effectively relied on unreasonable determinations of fact, petitioner failed to show how the error was prejudicial. In this case, the trial court's ruling to deny severance was reasonable and did not amount to an abuse of discretion. Furthermore, even if petitioner could show a substantial probability of severance on appeal, he cannot show an overall reasonable probability of a different outcome in the case. In this case, the evidence against petitioner was convincingly incriminating on both murders and he has not met his burden of showing a reasonable probability of a different outcome in either case even if there was a severance of the cases. View "Donelson v. Steele" on Justia Law

After the school districts sought modification of existing desegregation consent decrees to allow their exemption from Arkansas's Public School Choice Act, Ark. Code. Ann. 6–18–1906, the district court granted the motions and modified the consent decrees to explicitly limit the transfer of students between school districts. The Department appealed, alleging that the modification imposed an impermissible interdistrict remedy.After a panel of the Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's modifications, the Department moved for rehearing, at which point the United States—for the first time—involved itself in the case and asked the court to reconsider its opinion. The court accepted the invitation, received supplemental briefing from the parties, and reversed the judgment of the district court.The court agreed with the Department that the district court abused its discretion by modifying the consent decrees because the 2017 amendments were not a significant change in circumstances supporting modification of the decrees and—even if they were—the district court did not impose a suitably tailored modification. Because no vestige of discrimination traces to interdistrict school transfers, the district court abused its discretion in expanding the consent decrees to prohibit such transfers. View "United States v. Arkansas Department of Education" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against North Homes, a private entity, under 42 U.S.C. 1983 after it confined her when she was 15 years old in a residential correctional unit where an employee sexually assaulted her for three days. The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's section 1983 claims. Construing the complaint in her favor, the court concluded that plaintiff plausibly alleged that North Homes's exercise of a public function (the state's authority to detain her) caused her involuntary detainment in a corrections unit. View "Doe v. North Homes, Inc." on Justia Law

After Justin A. Stufflebean died after allegedly being denied necessary medication while incarcerated at the Buchanan County Jail and the Western Reception Diagnostic and Correctional Center, his parents filed 42 U.S.C. 1983 and wrongful death claims against defendants. The district court denied defendants' motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment.The Eighth Circuit concluded that it has found no firmly rooted history of immunity for private medical services providers and the purposes of qualified immunity, on balance, do not favor extending immunity to these defendants because employees of large firms systematically organized to perform a major administrative task for profit are not entitled to assert the defense of qualified immunity. The court dismissed their appeal based on lack of jurisdiction. This holding similarly precludes immediate appellate review of ACH and Corizon's appeals. The court also concluded that Defendants Strong and Hovey, the supervisors of medical care, were not on notice of a pattern of constitutional violations and their failure to verify the accuracy of ACH's reporting is insufficient to create liability under section 1983; Defendant Gross was not deliberately indifferent to defendant and is entitled to qualified immunity; Gross was also entitled to official immunity on plaintiff's wrongful death claim; but the jail's booking officer, Defendant Nauman, was not entitled to official immunity where his inconclusive testimony on accessing defendant's prior records precludes summary judgment on this issue. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Davis v. Munger" on Justia Law

After Cameron Leftwich committed suicide in jail, his father filed suit alleging 42 U.S.C. 1983 claims against defendants for failure to provide adequate medical care and failure to train, as well as wrongful death claims under Minnesota law.The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendants, concluding that plaintiff failed to show that any of the individual defendants (or any other relevant official) was deliberately indifferent to and subjectively aware of the risk of suicide. Therefore, there was no underlying constitutional violation and the individual defendants, as well as the city and the county, are entitled to summary judgment on the section 1983 claims. The court also concluded that the district court did not err in determining Defendants Wegner and Swanson had public official immunity for plaintiff's Minnesota wrongful death claims because they were performing discretionary duties. Furthermore, the county is entitled to vicarious official immunity. The court further concluded that the county is entitled to public entity or statutory immunity because the county's decision to have a mental health exam performed within 72 hours of incarceration is a policy making and not an operational government decision. Finally, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its substantial discretion by denying plaintiff's motions to amend the scheduling order and file an amended complaint after the deadlines had passed. View "Leftwich v. County of Dakota" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment against plaintiff where a reasonable factfinder could believe that plaintiff fully exhausted her administrative remedies. The court remanded for a factfinder to determine which set of papers plaintiff filed first. View "Prowse v. Washington" on Justia Law