Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment that petitioner's Rule 60(b) motion was a successive habeas petition. The court held that when a court order disposes of a habeas claim on procedural and, in the alternative, substantive grounds, a Rule 60(b) motion contesting this order inherently presents a successive habeas petition. In this case, petitioner's Rule 60(b) motion—facially challenging a procedural ruling and implicitly challenging a merits determination—presents a habeas claim. Therefore, the district court correctly held that it lacked jurisdiction to consider the motion under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.The court also affirmed the denial of petitioner's inherent-prejudice claim where petitioner identifies no clearly established law that the CCA misapplied, nor any unreasonable factual determinations on which that court based its holding. View "Will v. Lumpkin" on Justia Law

Plaintiff challenged the district court's summary judgment dismissal of her action for intentional discrimination under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as retaliation under Louisiana's Whistleblower Statute (LWS).The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's discrimination claims, rejecting plaintiff's claim of intentional discrimination rooted in Christwood's failure to timely list her with the state as a director, claim of discriminatory pay, claim of discriminatory demotion, and claim of constructive discharge. The court reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's whistleblower claim, holding that Christwood was plaintiff's employer. Because the district court concluded that Christwood was not an employer, it failed to address the remainder of plaintiff's LWS claim. Therefore, the court vacated the dismissal of the LWS claim and remanded for further consideration. View "Sanders v. Christwood" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Wal-Mart for retaliation and wrongful termination and an assistant manager at Wal-Mart for tortious interference with an employment contract. Plaintiff alleged that she was fired after she reported her supervisor for sexually harassing other Wal-Mart employees. Wal-Mart alleged that plaintiff was terminated because she violated Wal-Mart’s Investigation and Detention of Shoplifters Policy.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendants, holding that plaintiff has met her prima facie burden of causation by showing close enough timing between the protected activity and the adverse employment action. However, the temporal proximity between plaintiff's protected activity and her termination is relevant to, but not alone sufficient to demonstrate, pretext. The court also held that a reasonable jury could not find that the supervisor's actions were the but-for cause of Wal-Mart's termination of plaintiff based on the record. View "Brown v. Wal-Mart Stores East, LP" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the Government, alleging that the male-only military draft unlawfully discriminates based on sex. The Military Selective Service Act requires essentially all male citizens and immigrants between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six to register with the Selective Service System. The district court granted plaintiffs declaratory judgment and held that requiring only men to register for the draft violated their Fifth Amendment rights.The Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that the district court's judgment directly contradicts the Supreme Court's holding in Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57, 78–79 (1981). In Rostker, the Supreme Court held that the male-only Selective Service registration requirement did not offend due process where women at the time were barred from combat. The court explained that here, as in State Oil Co. v. Khan, 522 U.S. 3, 22 (1997), the factual underpinning of the controlling Supreme Court decision has changed, but that does not grant a court of appeals license to disregard or overrule that precedent. Accordingly, the court dismissed the case. View "National Coalition for Men v. Selective Service System" on Justia Law

After the Supreme Court ruled in Ramos v. Louisiana, 140 S. Ct. 1390, 1394, 1397 (2020), that the Sixth Amendment, as incorporated against the states in the Fourteenth Amendment, requires a unanimous verdict to convict a defendant of a serious offense, movant moved for the Fifth Circuit's authorization to file a second or successive federal habeas petition.The court denied the motion for authorization to file a successive habeas corpus petition and held that, even if the court assumed that movant's current claim is different from the one he raised twelve years ago, it remains barred by 28 U.S.C. 2244(b)(2). The court explained that, even if it further assumed that Ramos constitutes a "new rule of constitutional law," the Supreme Court plainly has not made it retroactive to cases on collateral review. View "In Re: Larry Sharp" on Justia Law

In a prior criminal action, the state court agreed with the plaintiff in this case that Defendant Chapman, a Medical Board investigator, used illegally-obtained files to fabricate evidence and to indict plaintiff on trumped-up charges of running a pill mill. Here, plaintiff filed a civil suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against Chapman and another government agent for violating his constitutional rights by using instanter subpoenas to illegally search his clinic, resulting in the illegal seizure of property and patient records.The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's judgment and held that Chapman was not entitled to absolute immunity as an investigator and, because Chapman fulfilled the fact-finding role generally filled by law enforcement, she is only entitled to the level of immunity available to law enforcement -- qualified immunity. The court also held that malicious prosecution and abuse of process are not viable theories of constitutional injury. The court agreed with defendants that malicious prosecution and abuse of process are torts, not constitutional violations. However, the court remanded for the district court to decide whether plaintiff has waived his Fourth Amendment claims and whether he should be allowed to amend his complaint a third time to add a due process claim. View "Morgan v. Chapman" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254(d) based on a Confrontation Clause violation. Petitioner was convicted by a jury of armed robbery and aggravated battery.The court first held that the state intentionally waived its defense of procedural default. The court also held that the state district court's decision that no Confrontation Clause violation occurred through the handling of a detective's testimony constitutes an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent, and the state waived harmlessness. In this case, the detective testified that a nontestifying witness implicated petitioner and the prosecution likewise referenced that testimony in its closing argument. Therefore, such testimony violates the Confrontation Clause. The court remanded for the district court to grant habeas relief. View "Atkins v. Hooper" on Justia Law

After petitioner filed a second-in-time habeas petition raising Brady and actual innocence claims, the district court concluded that the petition was successive and transferred it to the Fifth Circuit. Petitioner was convicted and sentenced to death for the capital murder of a police officer.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's transfer order, holding that the petition is second or successive under 28 U.S.C. 2244. The court explained that, even though petitioner did not know of the State's alleged Brady violation at the time he filed his first habeas petition, it is still subject to the statutory requirements for filing a successive petition under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, and the district court did not err in transferring the habeas petition to this court.The court granted the motion for authorization, holding that petitioner made a prima facie showing that the factual predicate for his Brady claim could not have been previously discovered through due diligence. The court also held that petitioner has made a prima facie showing, by clear and convincing evidence, that no reasonable factfinder would find him guilty. In this case, petitioner has demonstrated that it is reasonably likely that, after hearing the Hit Document and the Schifani Report, every reasonable juror would have some level of reasonable doubt. View "Will v. Davis" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief to petitioner under 28 U.S.C. 2254(d). Petitioner alleged claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel (IAAC) based on state appellate counsel's failure to raise a Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), claim on direct appeal.The court held that the district court did not commit reversible error in failing to explicitly review the merits of the IAAC claim. The court also held that the magistrate judge's conclusion that no Batson violation occurred establishes that appellate counsel's failure to raise the Batson challenge on direct appeal did not prejudice petitioner. Therefore, petitioner failed to satisfy the elements of his IAAC claim. View "Moore v. Vannoy" on Justia Law

TSRA filed suit seeking to enjoin demolitions under the city's new ordinance, DALL. CITY CODE 51A-4.501(i), which streamlined the city's procedure for demolishing dilapidated historical homes smaller than 3,000 feet. The district court dismissed TSRA's claims.The Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that TSRA does not have standing to assert its claims under the Fair Housing Act (FHA) or its 42 U.S.C.1982 and 1983 claims. In regard to the FHA claim, the court held that TSRA failed to prove that its injuries are traceable to the city's alleged misconduct and that its injuries are redressable by judgment in its favor. In this case, TSRA did not put forth any separate theories of standing for its sections 1982 and 1983 claims. Therefore, even assuming that TSRA established a constitutional injury-in-fact for purposes of sections 1982 and 1983, the court held that these claims would likewise suffer the same traceability and redressability defects as its FHA claims. View "Tenth Street Residential Ass'n v. City of Dallas" on Justia Law