Justia U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine hydrochloride. The Government subsequently appealed the district court's sentence of defendant below the mandatory minimum sentence for his offense pursuant to the safety valve. The court concluded that the 2002 Edition of the Guidelines Manual was not ambiguous with respect to whether departures pursuant to section 4A1.3 were to be considered when evaluating safety valve eligibility. The court also concluded that the 2002 Edition of the Guidelines Manual did not permit district courts to consider departures pursuant to section 4A1.3 when evaluating a defendant's safety valve eligibility. As the applicable guidelines were ambiguous, the rule of lenity did not apply. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment, vacated the sentence, and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Solis" on Justia Law

This case arose when Mirant, an energy company, sought to expand its European operations by acquiring nine power islands from General Electric. When the power island deal fell through, Mirant made payments pursuant to a guaranty and soon thereafter sought bankruptcy protection. Mirant, as debtor-in-possession, sued Commerzbank and other lenders in bankruptcy court to avoid the guaranty and to recover the funds Mirant paid pursuant to the guaranty. After Mirant's bankruptcy plan was confirmed MCAR, plaintiff, substituted into the case for Mirant. Commerzbank and other lenders, defendants, filed a motion to dismiss based on Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). The district court subsequently denied defendants' motion to dismiss based on plaintiff's alleged lack of standing. Thereafter, the district court granted summary judgment for defendants. Both sides appealed. While the court agreed that the district court correctly determined that there was standing to bring the avoidance claim, the court vacated the judgment of dismissal because the district court erroneously applied Georgia state law rather than New York state law to the avoidance claim. View "MC Asset Recovery LLC v. Commerzbank A.G., et al." on Justia Law

Karen Cook was appointed receiver over the assets of a number of related corporations and individuals, who the SEC alleged violated multiple federal securities laws. Cook discovered that before the SEC filed its civil complaint, the corporate entities involved had made charitable contributions to the American Cancer Society (ACS). Cook moved to recover the donations on behalf of the receivership, arguing that they qualified as fraudulent transfers under Texas' Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (TUFTA), Tex. Bus. & Co. Code 24.005(a). The court held that the receiver's attempt to liken the scheme in question to a "Ponzi-like fraud," and therefore reduce her burden to proving "presumed intent to defraud," failed for lack of evidence. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the district court. View "The American Cancer Society v. Cook" on Justia Law

This consolidated appeal arose out of an alleged multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme perpetrated by R. Allen Stanford through his various corporate entities. These three cases dealt with the scope of the preclusion provision of the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act (SLUSA), 15 U.S.C. 78bb(f)(1)(A). All three cases sought to use state class-action devices to attempt to recover damages for losses resulting from the Ponzi scheme. Because the court found that the purchase or sale of securities (or representations about the purchase or sale of securities), was only tangentially related to the fraudulent scheme alleged by appellants, the court held that SLUSA did not preclude appellants from using state class actions to pursue their recovery and reversed the judgment. View "Roland, et al. v. Green, et al.; Troice, et al. v. Proskauer Rose, LLP, et al.; Troice, et al. v. Willis of Colorado Inc., et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted of capital murder in Texas state court and sentenced to death. Petitioner subsequently sought habeas corpus relief from his conviction and death sentence. The court concluded that the jury could not meaningfully consider relevant mitigating evidence presented by petitioner in determining whether a death sentence was appropriate. Therefore, the district court did not err in granting habeas relief on petitioner's Penry v. Lynaugh claim. Petitioner was not entitled to a certificate of appealability on the claims denied by the district court because he has abandoned all but three of those claims, which were themselves procedurally defaulted. Petitioner has also not demonstrated that the fundamental miscarriage of justice exception applied to allow federal habeas review of those claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "McGowen v. Thaler" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Mississippi state prisoner, appealed from the judgment in favor of defendants in his 42 U.S.C. 1983 suit. Plaintiff alleged that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated (1) by delay in holding a probable cause determination after his arrest and (2) by his warrantless arrest. The court held that the reasons for delay could be seen as extraordinary where only a brief time passed beyond 48 hours when police resolved the uncertainties about jurisdiction and the subsequent overnight delay was the result of the magistrate's unavailability. The court also rejected plaintiff's illegal arrest claims and several other claims he raised on appeal. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Brown v. Sudduth, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff was dismissed from the East Baton Rouge police training program after falling asleep in class and purportedly making inappropriate sexual comments. Plaintiff subsequently demanded a name-clearing hearing from the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff but was denied. Plaintiff then brought federal and state law claims against the Sheriff for his failure to grant the hearing and for potentially defamatory statements made regarding plaintiff's dismissal. Because plaintiff had failed to present competent summary judgment evidence, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Sheriff. View "Bellard v. Gautreaux, III" on Justia Law

In 2008, BEPCO sued Santa Fe in Louisiana state court, alleging claims for indemnity and contribution in an attempt to recover money it had paid out in a settlement. Santa Fe and a group of subsequently named defendants then filed cross-claims and third-party claims against a multitude of insurers and underwriters, including Lloyd's London. Among the Lloyd's London insurers named by defendants was ICAROM. In January 2011, ICAROM exercised its right to removal under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. 1441(d), 1447(c). After BEPCO objected to removal, the district court remanded the case to state court. ICAROM appealed the district court's remand order. The court held that BEPCO's timely motion to remand, combined with a remand order based on permissible section 1447(c) grounds, denied the court jurisdiction to review the district court's order on appeal or on petition for writ of mandamus. Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal for want of appellate jurisdiction.

Plaintiff filed an action under, inter alia, 42 U.S.C. 1983, claiming that defendants violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights to keep and bear arms, as incorporated in the Second Amendment, and to due process. The district court dismissed the action under Rule 12. The court held that plaintiff had not stated a violation of his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms because he had not alleged that defendants prevented his "retaining or acquiring other firearms." The right protected by the Second Amendment was not a property-like right to a specific firearm, but rather a right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. The court also held that plaintiff had not stated a due-process claim where his complaint did not allege that, under Louisiana law, he sought the proper remedy for seeking the return of seized property by filing a motion under La. Rev. Stat. 15:41. In the alternative, plaintiff did not allege that due process required defendants to notify him of the procedure. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

LULAC filed suit against the City alleging that the voting method adopted by the City Charter diluted minority voting strength, in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1973. The City and LULAC settled in December 1996, and the district court entered a consent decree in accordance with the parties' settlement. At issue on appeal was whether the district court properly granted a joint motion by the City and LULAC to modify temporarily the consent decree. Because the court concluded that the district court erred in approving the temporary modification without following the procedures mandated by an earlier panel, the court vacated the district court's order and remanded for further proceedings.