Criminal Law Library Blog

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U.S. Supreme Court, June 19, 2008
Indiana v. Edwards, No. 07-208
In the context of the Sixth Amendment right for defendants to represent themselves, the Constitution permits states to insist upon representation by counsel for those competent enough to stand trial under applicable precedent but who suffer from severe mental illness to the point where they are not competent to conduct trial proceedings by themselves. .

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, June 19, 2008
Asociacion de Periodistas de Puerto Rico v. Mueller, No. 07-2196
In an action alleging the FBI's conduct against a group of journalists during the execution of a search warrant violated the First and Fourth Amendments, summary judgment for the government based on qualified immunity is affirmed on all First Amendment claims, but reversed as to individual plaintiffs' excessive force claims where: 1) plaintiffs failed to establish a violation of their First Amendment via governmental interference with their ability to gather news in an area inaccessible to the public at large; but 2) because protections under qualified immunity require individualized assessments of specific circumstances underlying the injuries sustained by each plaintiff, summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds was premature in light of an evidentiary gap. ..

U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, June 18, 2008
Ali v. Mukasey, No. 06-1469
An order terminating petitioner's grant of deferred removal under the CAT is vacated and remanded where the petitioner was deprived of his right to a fair hearing by the IJ's apparent bias against him and reliance on unfounded assumptions about homosexuals

U.S. Supreme Court, June 18, 2008
Boumediene v. Bush, No. 06-1195, 06-1196
In habeas proceedings brought by aliens detained at Guantanamo after being captured in Afghanistan or elsewhere abroad and designated enemy combatants by tribunals, the Court rules that petitioners have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus. The procedures for review of the detainees' status provided by the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 are not an adequate and effective substitute for habeas corpus, and consequently, section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), operates as an unconstitutional suspension of the writ.

U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, June 17, 2008
Lanman v. Hinson, No. 06-2263
In an action brought alleging violations of a decedent's constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C. section 1983, abuse or neglect in violation of Michigan law, and assault and battery arising after he stopped breathing as a result of defendants' attempt to restrain him at a psychiatric hospital, denial of defendant's motion for summary judgment is affirmed for certain defendants and reversed for others where: 1) the Fourteenth Amendment governed the claim since it allows for balancing an individual's liberty interest against the state's asserted reasons for restraining the individual's liberty while in its care; and 2) the district court failed to separately analyze the constitutionality of the individual actions of each defendant.

U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, June 19, 2008
Gabbard v. FAA, No. 07-3977
Petition for review of an order by the FAA which revoked petitioner's airman and medical certificates after he failed a drug test and after the FAA concluded that he had piloted a jet with a prohibited drug in his system is denied where: 1) the evidence presented by the FAA to an ALJ was enough for a reasonable mind to find that petitioner piloted a chartered jet with cocaine metabolites in his system; 2) petitioner failed to properly raise the issue that the Board failed to treat inadvertent ingestion of cocaine as a legitimate medical explanation for the test results; and 3) there was no violation of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.

U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, June 18, 2008
Taake v. County of Monroe, No. 07-2620
In a suit brought under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 to attempt to force defendant-county to sell plaintiff a piece of land that he argued the county contractually agreed to sell him, summary judgment for defendant is vacated and remanded with instructions to dismiss the case without prejudice as there was no basis for federal jurisdiction where: 1) no substantive constitutional property interest arises simply because a state actor breaks a contract with a state citizen; and 2) plaintiff was not asking for a procedural due process remedy since he was interested in specific performance of the land sale, and not notice and a hearing on the decision not to sell him the land.

U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, June 16, 2008
Kutten v. Bank of America, N.A., No. 07-3565
Dismissal of plaintiff's class action claims as preempted by the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 is affirmed where: 1) plaintiffs alleged the same injuries as claimed by parties in a prior Eighth Circuit case, wherein the issue of preemption had already been ruled upon; and 2) plaintiffs failed to distinguish their case from the previous case.

U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, June 20, 2008
Duluth, Winnipeg, and Pac. Railway Co. v. City of Orr, No. 07-2689
In an action seeking a declaratory judgment that the Federal Railway Safety Act preempts a state law which limited the speed of trains passing through parts of the state, judgment finding that the special law fell within the savings clause of the federal preemption statute is reversed where there was no evidence of local conditions amounting to an essentially local safety hazard that could not be adequately encompassed within a national uniform standard. .

U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, June 20, 2008
Nelson v. Nat'l Aeronautics & Space Admin., No. 07-56424
In an action brought by scientists, engineers, and administrative support personnel at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) challenging NASA's recently adopted requirement that "low risk" contract employees like themselves submit to in-depth background investigations, denial of plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction is reversed and remanded where they raised serious questions as to the merits of their informational privacy claim, and the balance of hardships tipped sharply in their favor. (Substituted opinion)

U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, June 18, 2008
Johnston v. Tampa Sports Auth., No. 06-14666
In an action brought by a plaintiff claiming that pat-down searches performed on him before he entered a football stadium to attend NFL games violated his rights under the constitutions of Florida and United States, judgment in favor of plaintiff is reversed and remanded where: 1) the record is replete with evidence that plaintiff had advance notice of the stadium entry search policy to support his valid consent of the search; and 2) the district court erred in concluding that unconstitutional condition doctrine invalidated plaintiff's consent, as the government had no role in formulating or mandating a pat-down search policy required by a private entity such as the NFL.

U.S. D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, June 20, 2008
Johnson v. Dist. of Columbia, No. 06-7136, 06-7180
In a suit brought under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 for use of excessive force in an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment, as well as common law claims of police brutality, assault and battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress when a police officer was mistaken for a criminal when he unwittingly landed in the middle of a drug bust, summary judgment in favor of defendant is reversed as to section 1983 claims and affirmed as to the common law claims where: 1) defendant was not entitled to qualified immunity against the section 1983 claims because of conflicting deposition testimony, which gave rise to genuine issues of fact material to both the section 1983 claim and the qualified immunity defense; and 2) the Police and Firefighters Retirement and Disability Act barred plaintiff's common law claims

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