Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

In 2010, Gibbs (then 16) and Henderson, robbed a Flint, Michigan store. Henderson struck the owner in the head with a gun, severing part of his ear. Gibbs was not armed but took property. Before jury selection began, the trial judge commented in open court, "get the jury to come upstairs now and so we’re going to have an order of sequestration for witnesses only. And if any spectators would like to come in they’re welcome but they do have to sit over here by the law clerk, not in the middle of the pool." Three of Gibbs’s relatives supplied sworn affidavits that they and others were prevented from entering the courtroom during jury selection. Gibbs did not object to the closure of the courtroom during voir dire. He represents that he did not learn that his family was excluded from voir dire until after trial.The Michigan Court of Appeals remanded for an evidentiary hearing; the trial court did not hold such a hearing but denied any relief. The Michigan Court of Appeals then found the claim defaulted because Gibbs did not contemporaneously object to the courtroom closure. The Sixth Circuit reversed the denial of his petition for federal habeas relief. The application of the ordinarily adequate contemporaneous-objection rule would, in these unique circumstances, be an inadequate bar to federal review. View "Gibbs v. Huss" on Justia Law

In 1992, Hunter, a 23-year-old hitman for a Detroit drug enterprise, escaped from a parole camp and killed 23-year-old Johnson, to prevent her from testifying. Hunter was convicted of intentionally killing Johnson in furtherance of a continuing criminal enterprise, 21 U.S.C. 848(e)(1)(A), and using or carrying a firearm in relation to that killing, 18 U.S.C. 924(c). Hunter, acquitted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, four other intentional killings, and three related firearm counts, was sentenced to life in prison plus five years, the minimum under the Sentencing Guidelines then in existence. Hunter unsuccessfully sought to vacate his conviction in federal habeas proceedings and unsuccessfully sought to reduce his sentence under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2), based upon retroactive Guidelines changes. After serving 21 years in prison, Hunter sought “compassionate release,” citing “extraordinary and compelling reasons” under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(1)(A)(i). The court found that the risk from COVID-19 and Hunter’s asserted health conditions were not “extraordinary and compelling” because Hunter refused the vaccine but concluded that other factors together amounted to “extraordinary and compelling circumstances”: Hunter was sentenced before the Guidelines changed from mandatory to advisory; Hunter’s “relative youth”; sentencing disparities between Hunter and co-defendants who cooperated; and Hunter’s rehabilitation. The district court weighed the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors, noting Hunter’s “difficult childhood,” and letters submitted by Hunter’s family and friends, and discounted Hunter’s prison discipline record. The court reduced Hunter’s sentence to time served. The Sixth Circuit granted a stay pending appeal and reversed, finding that the district court abused its discretion. View "United States v. Hunter" on Justia Law

Twyford was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to death in 1993. Twyford filed a federal habeas petition and sought transport for neurological imaging. Twyford noted that he may have neurological problems due to childhood physical abuse, alcohol and drug use, and a gunshot wound to his head from a suicide attempt at age 13, which cost him an eye and left shrapnel in his head. Dr. Scharre, a neurologist and the director of the Cognitive Neurology Division at The Ohio State University, had evaluated Twyford, reviewed his medical records, and concluded that a CT scan and an FDG-PET scan were necessary for him to evaluate Twyford fully. The Chillicothe Correctional Institution, where Twyford is incarcerated, does not have the equipment to perform this imaging. Twyford alleged that the results could be relevant to his claims concerning ineffective assistance of counsel, coerced statements, competency, and mitigation evidence. The warden contended that the district court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 2241 to bring a prisoner to the court in a 2254 action, but not to require that the state transport a prisoner to an outside medical facility and that Twyford was seeking new information that he did not present to the state courts.The Sixth Circuit affirmed an order granting Twyford’s motion. The court had jurisdiction under the All Writs Act to order the warden to transport Twyford for neurological imaging because the results “may aide this Court in the exercise of its congressionally mandated habeas review.” View "Twyford v. Shoop" on Justia Law

Taylor received several parking tickets from Saginaw for leaving her car in its downtown area beyond the time allowed by an ordinance. Each time, Hoskins chalked the tire of Taylor’s vehicle several hours before issuing the ticket. Every ticket noted the time Taylor’s vehicle was first “marked” with chalk in the regulated area. Hoskins also documented the ticket with one or more photographs of the offending vehicle. Taylor filed a putative 42 U.S.C. 1983 class action, alleging that the tire chalking violated her Fourth Amendment rights as construed by the Supreme Court in “Jones,” (2012). The district court held that tire chalking fell within the automobile and/or community caretaking exceptions and did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The Sixth Circuit reversed in 2019. On remand, the district court granted the defendants summary judgment and denied a class-certification motion as moot.The Sixth Circuit reversed in part. Suspicionless tire chalking does not constitute a valid administrative search but the alleged unconstitutionality of suspicionless tire chalking was not clearly established, so parking officer Hoskins is entitled to qualified immunity. View "Taylor v. City of Saginaw" on Justia Law

For more than 50 years, the Trust has owned contiguous parcels on Garfield Road, Mentor, Ohio, comprising 16.15 acres near the terminus of Norton Parkway, a road completed in 2006 that connects Garfield Road to Center Street, which connects to I-90 via an interchange completed in 2005. According to the Trust, the interchange “has dramatically changed the character of the area" from rural residential to mixed-use, with industrial, office, commercial, medical, senior living and various residential uses. The Trust sought rezoning from “Single Family R-4” to “Village Green – RVG,” hoping to develop 40 single-family residences with five acres of open space. Without the rezoning, the Trust could develop 13 single-family residences. According to the Trust, its Echo Hill Subdivision plan is materially identical to a plan that the city approved for rezoning in 2017, the “Woodlands.” The Planning Commission recommended denial; the City Council adopted that recommendation. According to the Trust, this is the first time that the city has denied an application for rezoning to RVG since 2004.The Sixth Circuit reinstated certain claims. The Trust’s ownership of 16 acres is a sufficient property interest to support its takings claim. The Trust does not need to plead facts negating every possible explanation for the differential treatment between the Trust’s property and the Woodlands for its class-of-one equal-protection claim to survive a motion for judgment on the pleadings. View "Andrews v. City of Mentor" on Justia Law

While incarcerated and working as a laundry porter at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility, Rhodes suffered a severe skull fracture and other injuries when an industrial laundry cart—weighing about 400 pounds—fell from a truck and struck her. Rhodes sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging violations of the Eighth Amendment and substantive due process. The court granted summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity to Jones, an MDOC employee who was driving the laundry truck, and McPherson, an officer who was operating the truck’s hydraulic lift gate when the incident occurred.The Sixth Circuit reversed summary judgment in favor of Jones and McPherson on Rhodes’s Eighth Amendment claim but affirmed the summary judgment rejection of Rhodes’s substantive due process claim. Precedent clearly established Rhodes’s asserted Eighth Amendment right before the incident. Although no case precisely dealt with factual scenarios where a prison official flung a 300–400-pound laundry cart at an unprepared prison worker, out-of-circuit cases uniformly held liable prison officials exhibiting deliberate indifference to a known risk in various prison workplaces, sufficient to put a reasonable prison official on notice that recklessly disregarding a known risk to a prison worker’s safety would violate that person’s right to be free from “unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain” under the Eighth Amendment. With respect to the substantive due process claim, the court held that the state-created-danger doctrine does not apply where a state actor directly causes the plaintiff’s asserted injury. View "Rhodes v. Michigan" on Justia Law

To control the spread of COVID-19, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) required that all persons five years of age and older wear a mask in indoor public settings, including while attending public and private K–12 schools. A Lansing Catholic elementary school and parents with children enrolled at the school, challenged the mask requirement as a violation of their free exercise of religion, equal protection, and substantive due process rights. Since they filed suit, MDHHS has rescinded almost all COVID-19 pandemic emergency orders, including the challenged mask requirement.The Sixth Circuit held that the challenge to the mask requirement is not moot, and affirmed the denial of the Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction on the merits. Given the very real possibility that MDHHS may be faced again with escalating COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, Defendants have not met their “heavy burden” of showing that it is “absolutely clear” that they will not reimpose impose a mask requirement, including for children in grades K–5 receiving in-person instruction. Because the requirement to wear a facial covering applied to students in grades K–5 at both religious and non-religious schools, it was neutral and of general applicability. The MDHHS Orders satisfy rational-basis review. View "Resurrection School v. Hertel" on Justia Law

McNeill was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to death in Ohio state court for aggravated murder. Seeking federal habeas relief, McNeil argued that the prosecution failed to turn over material under Brady v. Maryland and created a false impression in violation of Napue v. Illinois. The alleged Brady material included two police reports, one summarizing an interview with the prosecution’s primary witness, Rushinsky, who initially failed to—but ultimately did—identify McNeill as the killer, and the other detailing a potential suspect who was quickly dismissed as a suspect. It also included three audio recordings, one of the same Rushinsky interview addressed in the report, a second Rushinsky interview, and an interview with a potential alibi witness.The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of relief. None of the evidence was material under Brady. The only favorable, undisclosed evidence was the Rushinsky report, which would have given McNeill more material with which to impeach Rushinsky. The wealth of other evidence on which the jury could have relied, plus the fact that Rushinsky did actually identify a photo of McNeill before trial, indicates that there is no reasonable probability that the outcome of McNeill’s trial would have been different if the prosecution had turned over the report. The prosecution did not create a false impression by playing the audio recording of Rushinsky identifying McNeill without clarifying that Rushinsky initially failed to identify McNeill. View "McNeill v. Bagley" on Justia Law

Hill’s death penalty sentence was imposed in 1986. Hill brought a habeas petition, arguing that he may not be executed because he is “intellectually disabled,” as defined in subsequent Supreme Court cases. In 2002 the Sixth Circuit remanded for consideration of the Supreme Court’s opinions on the subject. In 2018, the Sixth Circuit concluded that the Ohio courts unreasonably applied the Supreme Court’s three-part standard. The Supreme Court vacated.On remand, the panel again granted Hill relief on his “Atkins” claim, but, following en banc review, affirmed the denial of habeas relief. Applying the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. the state court decision was not “contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court” nor “based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding,” 28 U.S.C. 2254(d). The Ohio court considered evidence of Hill’s past abilities including Hill’s medical history, public school records, and prior standardized test results, and evaluated criteria mentioned in Atkins such as intellectual functioning, adaptive skills, and the onset age of disability. In light of the evidence presented, it was not unreasonable for the Ohio court to rely on the reasoned judgment of two experts over another. Hill’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim fails on its merits. View "Hill v. Shoop" on Justia Law

In October 2018, the University of Louisville notified Dr. Kaplan, a tenured professor and the Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences (DOVS), that it was reviewing some of his actions as Chair and considering removing him from that position. These included his signing an unauthorized lease on behalf of DOVS and meeting with private equity firms interested in buying or financing DOVS. One month into the investigation, with no more warning, the University placed him on paid administrative leave and prohibited him from coming to university grounds and communicating with his colleagues. The university also advised Kaplan that he could lose his tenured position.When the investigation ended, Kaplan lost his Chair, and the dean of the medical school recommended termination of his tenure, identifying six grounds for dismissal. On appeal, a faculty committee gave Kaplan a two-day hearing, at which he introduced documents and witnesses supporting his defense. The committee upheld four grounds for dismissal, including Kaplan’s unauthorized lease and his perceived attempt to sell DOVS’s clinical practice to private investors. The University’s Board of Trustees terminated Kaplan’s tenure. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a suit in which Kaplan claimed that the University terminated him from both positions without due process, violated his Fourteenth Amendment liberty interests in his reputation, and violated his First Amendment right to academic freedom. View "Kaplan v. University of Louisville" on Justia Law