Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Baltimore filed suit against the Government, alleging that HHS's Final Rule, prohibiting physicians and other providers in Title X programs from referring patients for an abortion, even if that is the patient's wish, violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The Final Rule, instead, requires them to refer the patient for prenatal care. Furthermore, the Final Rule requires entities receiving Title X funds, but offering abortion-related services pursuant to another source of funds, to physically separate their abortion-related services from the Title X services. After the district court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the Government from implementing or enforcing the Final Rule because the Final Rule is likely not in accordance with law, the Government appealed. While the appeal of the preliminary injunction was pending and after discovery, the district court issued a permanent injunction on different grounds.The Fourth Circuit consolidated the appeals and a majority of the full court voted to hear both cases en banc. The court upheld the district court's grant of the permanent injunction on two grounds: first, the Final Rule was promulgated in an arbitrary and capricious manner because it failed to recognize and address the ethical concerns of literally every major medical organization in the country, and it arbitrarily estimated the cost of the physical separation of abortion services; and second, the Final Rule contravenes statutory provisions requiring nondirective counseling in Title X programs and prohibiting interference with physician/patient communications. Accordingly, because the court affirmed the permanent injunction in Case No. 20-1215, the appeal of the preliminary injunction in Case No. 19-1614 is moot and the court dismissed it. View "Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Azar" on Justia Law

MSI, a non-profit organization dedicated to gun owner rights, individuals, and Atlantic, a family-owned, federally licensed firearms dealer that operates Maryland commercial gun stores, challenged Maryland Senate Bill 707 banning "rapid-fire trigger activators," which when attached to a firearm, increase its rate of fire or trigger activation, citing the Takings Clause and alleging that the statute was void for vagueness. The Fourth Circuit initially affirmed the dismissal of the complaint for lack of standing.In an amended opinion, the court reversed in part. Atlantic has standing to pursue the Second Amendment claim. Uncontroverted testimony plus Maryland State Police records and Atlantic's year-over-year sales records are sufficient to establish an injury in fact for purposes of Article III standing. The extent of Atlantic's economic injury—including its ability to identify lost customers as well as the scope of the purported decline in handguns sold and lost revenue— are material issues of fact to be resolved in the Second Amendment analysis on the merits. Atlantic also has third-party standing to challenge the handgun qualification license requirement on behalf of potential customers like the individual plaintiffs and other similarly situated persons. The court otherwise affirmed the dismissal. MSI lacked organizational standing; it failed to prove the law hindered its ability to pursue its mission. The individual plaintiffs had not sought licenses. View "Maryland Shall Issue, Inc. v. Hogan" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of petitioner's 28 U.S.C. 2241 habeas application, rejecting his claim that he is entitled to habeas relief based on United States v. Chamberlain, 868 F.3d 290, 295 (4th Cir. 2017) (en banc), and the Sixth Amendment. In Chamberlain, the court held that the criminal forfeiture statute permits freezing only those assets traceable to the charged offense.The court held that petitioner failed to show that section 2255 would be "inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention." In this case, the court's existing "savings clause" jurisprudence makes abundantly clear that a section 2255 motion is fully adequate to address alleged Sixth Amendment violations. Furthermore, petitioner's statutory claim still fails the court's "savings clause" tests. Therefore, the district court properly dismissed the section 2241 application for lack of jurisdiction. View "Farkas v. Warden" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's 28 U.S.C. 2254 motion for habeas relief, raising Sixth Amendment claims. Petitioner was convicted of beating, shooting, and robbing a prostitute in a hotel room.The court held that the state court's adjudication of petitioner's claims on the merits was neither unreasonable nor inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent. In this case, petitioner alleged that his lawyer should have sought forensic testing of various items in the hotel room to bolster his story. The court held that the state court reasonably determined that counsel's performance was not deficient as to the items found in the hotel room, and the state court reasonably determined that the failure to test petitioner's sock did not cause prejudice. View "Valentino v. Clarke" on Justia Law

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 can protect transgender students from school bathroom policies that prohibit them from affirming their gender.Plaintiff, a transgender male, filed suit alleging that the school board's bathroom policy, which excluded him from the boys bathrooms, violated the Equal Protection Clause and constituted discrimination on the basis of sex in violation of Title IX. Plaintiff subsequently amended his complaint to add that the school board's refusal to amend his school records similarly violates both equal protection and Title IX.After rejecting the school board's threshold challenges, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of plaintiff. The court held that the school board's restroom policy constitutes sex-based discrimination and, independently, that transgender persons constitute a quasi-suspect class. Applying heightened scrutiny, the court held that the school board's policy is not substantially related to its important interest in protecting students' privacy. The court also held that the school board's continued refusal to update plaintiff's school records similarly violates his equal protection rights where the school board's decision is not substantially related to its important interest in maintaining accurate records because his legal gender in the state of Virginia is male, not female. In regard to the Title IX claims, the court held that the bathroom policy discriminated against plaintiff on the basis of sex and that plaintiff suffered legally cognizable harm based on the unlawful discrimination. Likewise, the school board's failure to amend plaintiff's school records violated Title IX.Finally, the court noted that the proudest moments of the federal judiciary have been when it affirms the burgeoning values of our bright youth, rather than preserves the prejudices of the past. View "Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board" on Justia Law

Defendants conditionally pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States with the substantive offense being a violation of the Anti-Riot Act. Defendants' charges arose from their violent participation in three white supremacist rallies during 2017.The Fourth Circuit held that, while the category of speech that lies at the core of the Anti-Riot Act's prohibition, called "incitement," has never enjoyed First Amendment protection, the statute sweeps up a substantial amount of speech that remains protected advocacy under the modern incitement test of Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) (per curiam), insofar as it encompasses speech tending to "encourage" or "promote" a riot under 18 U.S.C. 2101(a)(2), as well as speech "urging" others to riot or "involving" mere advocacy of violence under section 2102(b).However, the court held that, in all other respects, the statute comports with the First Amendment. Because the discrete instances of overbreadth are severable from the remainder of the statute, the court held that the appropriate remedy is to invalidate the statute only to the extent that it reaches too far, while leaving the remainder intact. Finally, the court held that defendants' convictions stand because the factual basis of defendants' guilty pleas conclusively establish that their own substantive offense conduct—which involves no First Amendment activity—falls under the Anti-Riot Act's surviving applications. View "United States v. Miselis" on Justia Law

Petitioner has been in prison for 44 years for a rape and burglary that he consistently maintained that he did not commit, claiming that police deliberately suppressed exculpatory evidence. The district court dismissed his petition for federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254, concluding that the MAR (Motion for Appropriate Relief) Court's decision did not involve an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. The MAR Court concluded that the cumulative effect of the withheld Brady evidence would have had no impact on petitioner's trial.The Fourth Circuit held that the MAR Court's analysis subjected petitioner to an enhanced burden, unreasonably applied Supreme Court law, and was objectively unreasonable. In this case, considering both the exculpatory and impeachment effects of the suppressed evidence, together with the shortfalls in the victim's identification and consistent testimony from alibi witnesses, the withheld evidence "could reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict." Therefore, the court vacated the district court's dismissal of the petition. Because the district court failed to address the issue of whether the petition can survive the threshold requirements pursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the court remanded for the district court to consider the issue in the first instance and to permit further discovery requested by petitioner. View "Long v. Hooks" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) attorneys' analysis of South Carolina law was erroneous and violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments by prolonging his detention. In this case, the SCDC attorneys concluded that the law required plaintiff to serve at least eighty-five percent of his drug-distribution sentence before he could be released. The South Carolina Administrative Law Court agreed, but the South Carolina Court of Appeals did not.The Fourth Circuit held that qualified immunity shields the government attorneys from plaintiff's claims. Assuming that plaintiff's continued detention falls within the ambit of the Eighth Amendment, the court held that the SCDC lawyers were not deliberately indifferent to his plight. In this case, Defendant Florian acted reasonably in interpreting the law and, even if Florian did not, Defendant Tatarsky did not act with deliberate indifference when he approved Florian's memorandum. Therefore, plaintiff failed to make out a constitutional violation and the court dismissed his action. View "Campbell v. Florian" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court's order denying Proposed Intervenors' renewed motion to intervene in an action brought by the NAACP challenging the validity of Senate Bill 824. S.B. 824 established, inter alia, photographic voter identification requirements for elections in North Carolina.After determining that it has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1291, the court held that the Proposed Intervenors have Article III standing to intervene for the purposes of intervention before the district court based on N.C. Gen Stat. 1-72.2 and Supreme Court precedent. The court rejected the arguments of the NAACP and the State Defendants that section 1-72.2 infringes on the powers of the Executive Branch in violation of the North Carolina Constitution's separation of powers provisions.In regard to intervention as a matter of right, the court held that the district court erred in determining that the Proposed Intervenors lacked a sufficient interest in the S.B. 824 litigation without careful consideration of section 1-72.2(a). Therefore, the court remanded for the district court to more fully consider the North Carolina statute in the analysis of the Proposed Intervenors' interest in the litigation. Because the Proposed Intervenors may have interests which may be practically impaired if not permitted to intervene in the action before the district court, the court remanded as to this issue as well. The court further stated that, although it was appropriate for the district court to apply the Westinghouse presumption since the Proposed Intervenors and the State Defendants appear to seek the same ultimate objective, the district court erred in demanding that the Proposed Intervenors overcome that presumption by the heightened standard of a "strong showing." In regard to permissive intervention, the court held that the district court failed to address sections 1-72.2(a) and (b) and 120-32.6. Given the import of those statutes, the court remanded for consideration of the permissive intervention request. View "North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v. Berger" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a former Deputy Commonwealth Attorney for Carroll County, Virginia, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that her former employer violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause by terminating her in retaliation for reporting alleged sex discrimination.In line with Fourth Circuit precedent and the majority of courts to consider the question, the court held that a pure retaliation claim is not cognizable under the Equal Protection Clause. The court explained that, to the extent a public employee contends she suffered adverse consequences for expressing complaints or reporting discrimination to her employer, her claim arises under the First Amendment. Furthermore, to the extent a public employee links an alleged retaliatory action to her gender, that allegation would constitute part of an equal protection discrimination claim, not a freestanding retaliation claim. In this case, plaintiff has not made such an allegation, nor has she pleaded a First Amendment action. Rather, the right to be free from retaliation for protesting sexual harassment and sex discrimination upon which plaintiff solely relies is a right created by Title VII, not the equal protection clause. The court noted that these existing legal avenues challenging public employer retaliation remain open to employees, but declined to create a new one under the auspices of the Fourteenth Amendment. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's retaliation claim under the Equal Protection Clause. View "Wilcox v. Lyons" on Justia Law