Articles Posted in Court Decisions

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May 3-7, 2010
U.S. Supreme Court, May 03, 2010 Renico v. Lett, No. 09–338 In a murder prosecution, a grant of petitioner’s habeas petition is reversed where it was reasonable for the Michigan Supreme Court to determine that the trial judge had exercised sound discretion in declaring a mistrial, and thus the state court’s decision was not an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law under a proper application of the AEDPA’s deferential standard of review. .

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, May 03, 2010 US v. Guzman, No. 08-1693 Conviction and life sentence of defendant for his role in an arson that killed a mother and her infant daughter are affirmed where: 1) there was no error in the denial of defendant’s motion to suppress statements made to ATF agents; 2) there was no error in the court’s exclusion of hearsay statements offered by defendant and limits on cross-examination; 3) district court correctly found a jurisdictional nexus with interstate commerce; and 4) defendant was properly sentenced as the district court’s failure to explain the sentence was not plain error, correctly applied the sentencing guidelines and the life sentence was substantively reasonable.

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, May 03, 2010 US v. Aranjo , No. 08-2307 Convictions of a former CEO of a federal credit union and her husband for conspiracy to embezzle and to make false entries, and other related crimes, are affirmed where: 1) the defendants’ Batson claims are rejected as district judge did not clearly err in accepting the proffered reasons with respect to the government’s peremptory challenge of an African-American juror; and 2) the husband’s remaining claims are rejected as sufficient evidence supported his convictions.
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May 3-7, 2010
U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, May 04, 2010 Estate of Oliva v. Dep’t of Law & Pub. Safety , No. 09-2082 In an action by the estate of a now deceased state trooper who committed suicide, claiming harassment by numerous individuals connected with the State Police for his objections to what he believed was a State Police practice to profile motorists when making traffic stops, a grant of summary judgment to defendants and denial of plaintiff’s leave to amend his complaint is affirmed as plaintiff is not entitled to relief as he has failed to establish that his section 1981, 1985(3) and other various statutory causes of action can be sustained according to their requirements or establish that the district court abused its discretion in denying him leave to amend his complaint. …

U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, May 06, 2010 Dique v. New Jersey State Police, No. 05-1159 In plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment claim for selective-enforcement, arising from his 1990 traffic stop that led to his conviction for drug related offenses which was vacated in 2002 on the ground that colorable issues of racial profiling existed at the time of the arrest, district court’s dismissal of the claim as time barred is affirmed where: 1) under Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384 (2007), in a case of selective-enforcement, it will no longer be required that the complainant have been convicted and have had that conviction reversed, expunged or invalidated, and the statute of limitations begins to run at the time the claimant becomes detained pursuant to legal process; and 2) plaintiff asserted his selective-enforcement claim over two years after July 2001, when his attorney became aware of the extensive documents describing the State’s pervasive selective enforcement practices, that plaintiff discovered, or by exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered that h! e might have a basis for an actionable claim. .

U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, May 06, 2010 Flanory v. Bonn , No. 09-1161 In a pro se prisoner’s section 1983 suit against various prison officials and others claiming violation of his Eighth Amendment right, dismissal of the complaint for failure to state a claim is reversed and remanded as plaintiff has made allegations which satisfy the objective and subjective components required for an Eighth Amendment violation as he has alleged that he was completely denied certain hygiene items and that he specifically was without toothpaste for a period of 337 days, and he also alleged that defendants were aware that he was without toothpaste and were deliberately indifferent to his hygiene needs.
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April 12 -16, 2010:

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, April 15, 2010 Foley v. Kiely , No. 09-1250 In plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C. section 1983 claim against Massachusetts State Troopers and a police sergeant, claiming the troopers unconstitutionally seized and arrested him, district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants is affirmed, as the troopers did not violate plaintiff’s constitutional rights in detaining and subsequently arresting him.

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April 12 -16, 2010:

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, April 14, 2010 US v. Cintron-Echautegui, No. 08-1800 In a conviction of defendant for conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, district court’s imposition of 292-months’ imprisonment is affirmed as the court did not clearly err in making its drug quantity determination. .

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, April 14, 2010 US v. Mardirosian, No. 09-1144 Conviction of defendant for possessing, concealing or storing six stolen paintings, including a rare Cezanne valued at $29 million, is affirmed where: 1) the 1999 Agreement had no bearing on the “stolen” character of the paintings as the agreement was void ab initio as a contract for an illegal purpose; 2) the jury’s finding that defendant knew the paintings were stolen at some point after taking possession of them was sufficient to satisfy 18 U.S.C. section 2315’s mens rea requirement; 3) district court did not err in instructing the jury that the Agreement did not provide defendant with viable mens rea defense to the charge; and 4) district court’s use of Cezanne’s 1999 auction price in its calculation of loss was not clearly erroneous.

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, April 15, 2010 US. v. Ellison , No. 09-1234 In a conviction of defendant for robbery and related offenses, district court’s denial of defendant’s motion to suppress statements made to the police while being held at a county jail charged with another crime is affirmed, as there is nothing in the facts of this case that would be likely create the atmosphere of coercion subject to Miranda concern. .
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The following is presented as a service of the ABA Criminal Justice Section http://www.abanet.org/crimjust

The ABA Section of Criminal Justice is pleased to provide Professor Rory Little’s Perspective, a Case Brief in U.S. v. Stevens which includes the Holding, Facts, and Analysis in the case.

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In City of Ontario California et. al. v. Jeff Quon et. al. the U.S. Supreme Court is wrestling with the issue of whether public employees are entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy in text messages transmitted on their workplace pages or similar devices without such messages being subject to review from recipients public employer. The city of Ontario, California is asking the justices to overturn a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, holding that it violated the Fourth Amendment privacy rights of Mr. Quon, a member of the Ontario police department SWAT team, when it reviewed transcripts of his and another offiicer’s text messages on their department pagers. Below are links to the argument transcipts and other docuemts related to this case:

Argument: City of Ontario California, et. al. v. Jeff Quon, et. al. 08-1332

The Scotus Wiki contains links to other useful documents related to this case.

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April 5 – April 9, 2010:.

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, April 01, 2010 Chamberlin v. Town of Stoughton, No. 08-1289 In plaintiff-officers’ 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit against a town, its officials and police chiefs involving various workplace discrimination and harassment claims, district court’s grant of a directed verdict in favor of one of the two police chiefs is affirmed as any error in granting the directed verdict was harmless because of the rejection of plaintiffs’ claims against the other police chief by a different jury in a second trial.

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, April 06, 2010 US v. Flores-Rivera, No. 09-1131 In defendant’s action seeking return of seized property without notice arising from his drug arrest and conviction in 1991, district court’s ruling that his property should be returned but simultaneously ordering that the funds be applied to defendant’s criminal fine is vacated and remanded with instructions to promptly conduct a hearing, follow the applicable statutory procedures, and otherwise provide defendant with the long-delayed process to which he is entitled.

U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, April 06, 2010 US v. Sed, No. 09-1489 In a prosecution of defendant for conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute drugs and other related crimes, defendant’s conviction and sentence is affirmed where: 1) the seizure of defendant by Pennsylvania State Police in Ohio was not unreasonable and the district court did not err in denying his motion to suppress; and 2) the district court did not err when it failed to grant defendant a downward departure or an additional downward variance as the record amply supports the district court’s conclusion that defendant perjured himself and that the Pennsylvania State Police did not act improperly in conducting their sting operation.
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April 5 – April 9, 2010:.

U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, April 01, 2010 Chamberlin v. Town of Stoughton, No. 08-1289 In plaintiff-officers’ 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit against a town, its officials and police chiefs involving various workplace discrimination and harassment claims, district court’s grant of a directed verdict in favor of one of the two police chiefs is affirmed as any error in granting the directed verdict was harmless because of the rejection of plaintiffs’ claims against the other police chief by a different jury in a second trial.

U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, April 09, 2010 Educational Media Co. v. Swecker, No. 08-1798 In an action brought by college newspapers alleging that two of Virginia’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board’s regulations restricting alcohol advertisements violate their First Amendment rights, summary judgment declaring both provisions facially unconstitutional and permanently enjoining their enforcement is reversed and remanded where, on its face, the Board’s ban on alcoholic advertisements in college student publications passes muster under Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of New York, 447 U.S. 557 (1980). .

U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, April 07, 2010 Jennings v. Owens, No. 09-50047 In an action claiming that officials from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice committed procedural due process violations after the Board of Pardons and Paroles imposed sex offender special conditions on plaintiff’s parole, summary judgment for plaintiff is reversed where, because plaintiff was indeed a sex offender, he failed to show that he had a liberty interest that was infringed when the parole board imposed sex offender special conditions on his parole.
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In a unanimous 3-0 Decision last Tuesday April 6 the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the Federal Communication Commission did not have the authority to order Comcast in 2008 to cease and desist interfering with the traffic of Bit Torrent a P2P file sharing service. At the time Comcast ostensibly accepted the order, but ended up appealing the ruling in the courts. The April 6 opinion is the result of that appeal.

As can be expected, reactions have been quick in coming and are quite varied, depending on the perspective and interests of those responding. Some have emphasized the supposedly narrow scope of the ruling attempting to play down its overall importance. Others see it has quite significant, even ground breaking in its scope. For example, will the ruling set a prescedent that allows internet providers to control broadband service as they see fit since it clearly undercuts the FCC’s claim to authority to regulate the internet? What about the FCC’s recently released National Broadband Plan supported by the Obama administration? Many of my fellow libraraians have been looking forward to both participating in and benefiting from this program which contains some provisions related to libraries.? And what about the overarching issues relating to equal treatment for all who use the internet? That not only refers to the “information poor” who often have difficulty getting access under the best of conditions; is could also impact those at the opposite end of this spectrum, eg. Google’s You Tube and Microsoft’s MSN.com?

So many questions, which indicates that this decision really is important with far reaching consequences. Some think this ruling will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court but we will need to wait and see. Meanwhile, the FCC has been handed some significant regulatory issues it will need to try to work around. Can they do it. It appears from a statement issued after the ruling that they are prepared to try.

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