The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant's conviction of simple assault and kidnapping, holding that the trial court did not err in the proceedings below and that Defendant's sentence was not unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Specifically, the Court held (1) the circuit court did not err when it denied Defendant's motion for a mistrial for an alleged Brady violation; (2) the circuit court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Defendant's motion for a mistrial; (3) Defendant was not denied a fair trial due to cumulative errors; and (4) Defendant's sentence was not grossly disproportionate or excessive. View "State v. Delehoy" on Justia Law

The First Circuit denied Petitioner's petition for review of an administrative order of removal, holding that Petitioner's arguments challenges to the removal order were unavailing. Petitioner was an Irish citizen who entered the United States as a child and had been living here for more than seven years when he was apprehended by immigration officials. The government charged him with having been admitted to the United States via the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) and having stayed here beyond the ninety-day period permitted by the visa that he secured through the VWP. The government then issued a final order of removal. The First Circuit denied Petitioner's petition for review, holding (1) the government presented sufficient evidence of Petitioner's removability; and (2) Petitioner's procedural due process challenge to the removal order failed. View "O'Riordan v. Barr" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the intermediate court of appeals and vacated Defendant's conviction of promoting a dangerous drug in the third degree and unlawful use of drug paraphernalia, holding that Defendant's motion to suppress should have been granted because he was seized longer than was necessary for the police to conduct an investigation confirming the absence of a required tax decal. The pat-down of Defendant occurred after a police officer noticed Defendant riding a bicycle lacking a tax decal, which is required by law on all bicycles with wheels twenty inches or more in diameter. After the time necessary for the police to conduct the investigation confirming the officer's reasonable suspicion that the tax decal was missing and to issue a citation for the missing decal, a warrant check came back from dispatch indicating that Defendant had an outstanding warrant. Defendant was arrested based on the outstanding warrant, and a search incident to arrest revealed drugs and drug paraphernalia. The Supreme Court held (1) Defendant's arrest was illegal because the warrant check came back after the span of time necessary for the police to write and issue the citation; and (2) therefore, the evidence obtained as a result of the arrest was fruit of the poisonous tree. View "State v. Iona" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court denying Defendant's motion to suppress evidence obtained from Defendant's computer pursuant to a search warrant, holding that Tenn. Code Ann. 39-17-1007 does not require search warrants to be applied for by the office of the district attorney general. A police officer applied for and obtained the search warrant, by which pornographic images of minors were recovered from Defendant's computer. In his motion to suppress, Defendant argued that suppression was warranted because the search warrant was not applied for by the district attorney general. The trial court denied the motion to suppress. Defendant subsequently pled guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the search warrant and supporting affidavit were not required to comply with Tenn. Code Ann. 39-17-1007. View "State v. Miller" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of a petition for habeas relief. The district court granted petitioner a certificate of appealability (COA) on whether he is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for the death penalty under Atkins v. Virginia, and the court granted petitioner's request to expand the COA to include a Batson challenge. The court held that the Supreme Court's recent holding in Moore v. Texas did not apply retroactively to petitioner's intellectual disability claim, and that the state court's denial of his intellectual disability claim was not an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. In this case, the state court considered petitioner's ability to conceal his crime, ability to take care of his mother, and his scores on certain mathematics and reading tests as adaptive strengths that outweighed his apparent deficits. The court held that this approach was acceptable at the time. The court also held that the state court's denial of petitioner's claims that the prosecutor at his state trial struck jurors on the basis of gender and national origin in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments was not contrary to Batson v. Kentucky and its progeny, an unreasonable application of Batson, or an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented to the state courts. View "Smith v. Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

In a third amended complaint, plaintiff-appellant Luis Shalabi sued defendants-respondents Fontana City Police Officer Jason Perniciaro and others for a deprivation of civil rights (42 U.S.C. 1983). Shalabi alleged that on May 14, 2011, Perniciaro wrongfully shot and killed Muhanad Shalabi, who was Shalabi’s father. Shalabi filed his original complaint on December 3, 2013. The trial court dismissed Shalabi’s lawsuit due to it being filed one day beyond the statute of limitations. Shalabi contends the trial court erred by dismissing his lawsuit. The Court of Appeal determined The California statute for calculating the last day of the statute of limitations provided, “The time in which any act provided by law is to be done is computed by excluding the first day, and including the last, unless the last day is a holiday, and then it is also excluded.” Shalabi’s 18th birthday was the triggering event because that was the first day he could file his lawsuit. Shalabi’s 18th birthday was on December 3, 2011. Excluding that day, the Court found the last day for Shalabi to file his complaint was December 3, 2013. Shalabi filed his complaint on December 3, 2013. Therefore, Shalabi’s complaint was timely. The Court reversed the trial court's judgment. View "Shalabi v. City of Fontana" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit filed an order withdrawing the opinion and concurring opinion filed on February 9, 2018, and issued a new opinion and dissenting opinion. The panel affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendants in an action brought by a former probationary police officer alleging claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The panel held that the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiff's claim of violation of her rights to privacy and intimate association, because it was not clearly established that a probationary officer's constitutional rights to privacy and intimate association are violated if a police department terminates her due to her participation in an ongoing extramarital relationship with a married officer with whom she worked, where an internal affairs investigation found that the probationary officer engaged in inappropriate personal cell phone use in connection with the relationship while she was on duty, resulting in a written reprimand for violating department policy. Circuit precedent also did not clearly establish that there was a legally sufficient temporal nexus between the individual defendants' allegedly stigmatizing statements and plaintiff's termination. Therefore, the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiff's claim that the lack of a name-clearing hearing violated her due process rights. Finally, plaintiff conceded that her sex discrimination claims were not actually based on her gender. View "Perez v. City of Roseville" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, former correctional officers that had separated from service in good standing, sought to invoke the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (LEOSA) so that they could be able to carry concealed firearms as "qualified retired law enforcement officers." Plaintiffs filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to require the District to recognize them as "qualified retired law enforcement officers" for purposes of the Act. In DuBerry I, the DC Circuit found that the Act's plain text, purpose, and context show that Congress intended to create a concrete, individual right to benefit individuals like plaintiffs and that is within the competence of the judiciary to enforce. Therefore, the court held that plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged that the federal right they seek to enjoy has been unlawfully deprived by the District of Columbia to be remediable under section 1983. On remand, the district court granted summary judgment for plaintiffs. The court affirmed the district court's judgment on remand and held that the law of the case doctrine controls the disposition of the District's principle argument that plaintiffs lacked the proper identification and thus have no enforceable right that is remediable under section 1983. Rather, the court held that the Act creates an individual right to carry that is remediable under section 1983. The court also held that the District's causation argument was meritless. View "DuBerry v. District of Columbia" on Justia Law

The LNC filed suit alleging that the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), which imposes limits on both donors and recipients of political contributions, violates its First Amendment rights. This case stemmed from a dispute regarding how the LNC can spend the $235,000 Joseph Shaber left to it when he passed away. The LNC argued that FECA violates its First Amendment rights in two ways: first, by imposing any limits on the LNC's ability to accept Shaber's contribution, given that he is dead; and second, by permitting donors to triple the size of their contributions, but only if the recipient party spends the money on specified categories of expenses. The DC Circuit held that the current version of FECA—both its application of contribution limits to Shaber's bequest and its use of a two-tiered contribution limit—has achieved a constitutionally permissible balance. Although the court denied the Commission's motion to dismiss for lack of standing, the court rejected LNC's constitutional challenges on the merits. View "Libertarian National Committee v. FEC" on Justia Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court summarily dismissing Appellant's petition for post-conviction review alleging ineffective assistance of counsel in his probation revocation matter but that Appellant may file a motion for a new probation revocation hearing in the trial court within thirty-five days of the issuance of this mandate. The trial court concluded that Appellant's remedy for any claim of error arising from the revocation was to seek a discretionary appeal, as Appellant had already done. The Supreme Judicial Court held (1) in a probation revocation hearing, a defendant has a right to the effective assistance of counsel; (2) Appellant's motion was properly dismissed, but Appellant was deprived of an opportunity to obtain meaningful review on his claim; and (3) a defendant who seeks to raise a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel after a probation revocation hearing may do so by filing a motion under Rule 33 of the Maine Rules of Unified Criminal Procedure for a new trial, which must be filed thirty-five days after the entry of judgment, and the judge who issued the revocation judgment will, if the defendant has made out a prima facie claim of ineffective assistance, will hold an evidentiary hearing or dismiss the motion. View "Petgrave v. State" on Justia Law