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

Plaintiff, on behalf of her son, sued District Attorney, Sheriffs, and Clay County under Section 1983 alleging that Defendants violated her son’s Fourteenth Amendment due process rights by unlawfully detaining him for years. The complaint also contends that, at one point, the Sheriff held Defendant down and forced him to take unwanted medication. As to Clay County, Plaintiff argued that Sheriffs were final policymakers, making the county liable under Monell. Defendants sought summary judgment; Plaintiff responded with a motion for partial summary judgment.   After summary judgment, the following claims remained: the detention claim against the Sheriffs and Clay County; the forced medication claim against Clay County alone. The Sheriffs and Clay County appealed. The Fifth Circuit, in treating the petition for rehearing en banc as a petition for panel rehearing, granted the petition for panel rehearing. The court dismissed Clay County’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction and affirmed the district court’s denial of summary judgment as to the Sheriffs.   The court explained that this is not a case about jailers following court orders that turned out to be unconstitutional. These Sheriffs held Plaintiff’s son in violation of a court order that followed Jackson’s commit-or-release rule. The court wrote that it cannot be that the initial detention order in a case overrides subsequent release orders and allows jailers to indefinitely hold defendants without consequence. Thus, taking the evidence in Plaintiff’s favor, the Sheriffs violated Plaintiff’s due process right by detaining him for six years in violation of the commit-or-release rule and qualified immunity thus does not protect the Sheriffs. View "Harris v. Clay County, MS" on Justia Law

Defendant was found guilty of three counts of making false statements to a federally licensed firearms dealer in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 922(a)(6) and two counts of possession in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 922(g)(4). Relevant on appeal is whether his convictions were supported by sufficient evidence.   The Fifth Circuit held they were not and reversed Defendant’s convictions and vacated his sentence. The court held that the district court reversibly erred because no rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements beyond a reasonable doubt. The court explained that no reasonable degree of deference could overcome the fact that Defendant never underwent an “adjudication” in the sense contemplated by Section 922(g)(4), and the record lacks anything that resembles judicial process. View "USA v. Tucker" on Justia Law

Defendant was indicted under 18 U.S.C. Section 666 for two counts of “bribery concerning a local government receiving federal benefits,” plus a conspiracy count under Section 371. The question here was whether federal-programs bribery under Section 666 requires a quid pro quo.   The Fifth Circuit concluded that it does, thus, vacating Defendant’s convictions and remanding. The court explained that because Section 666 requires a quo, there is a problem with the district court’s instructions to the jury. In its view, Section 666 did “not require quid pro quo bribery,” and because the statute does not explicitly distinguish between bribery and mere gratuities, the court did not instruct the jury that a quid pro quo was required. Defendant properly objected to this at that time, arguing that such an instruction was necessary under Section 666(a).   The district court gave no instruction as to the meaning of “intent to influence or reward,” or that it requires a quid pro quo and its definition of “corruptly” said nothing about a formal this-for-that. The lack of such a quid pro quo instruction rendered the jury instructions unclear, as the jurors were permitted to convict on an illegal gratuity theory that does not exist in Section 666.4 The court found that is enough to justify vacating Defendant’s conviction. View "USA v. Hamilton" on Justia Law

State troopers arrested Defendant after finding drugs in his car during a traffic stop. Morton also had three cell phones in the car. A state judge later signed warrants authorizing searches of the phones for evidence of drug crime. The warrants allowed law enforcement to look at photos on the phones. When doing so, troopers discovered photos that appeared to be child pornography. This discovery led to a second set of search warrants. The ensuing forensic examination of the phones revealed almost 20,000 images of child pornography. This federal prosecution for receipt of child pornography followed. Defendant argues the evidence discovered during those searches should be suppressed. Defendant principally tries to defeat good faith by invoking the third exception, which involves what are commonly known as “bare bones” affidavits.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision. The court held that law enforcement is usually entitled to rely on warrants and none of the exceptions that undermine good-faith reliance on a judge’s authorization applies. The court wrote that the affidavits used to search Defendant’s phones are not of this genre. Each is over three pages and fully details the facts surrounding Defendant’s arrest and the discovery of drugs and his phones. They explain where the marijuana and glass pipe was discovered, the number (16) and location of the ecstasy pills, and the affiant’s knowledge that cellphones are used for receipt and delivery of illegal narcotics. The court explained that it decides only that the officers acted in good faith when relying on the judge’s decision to issue the warrants. View "USA v. Morton" on Justia Law

A grand jury charged Defendant and co-Defendant with three offenses: conspiracy to deal methamphetamine; possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine; and conspiracy to deal marijuana. Defendant filed a motion seeking an acquittal or, in the alternative, a new trial. The district court granted the second request, however, the order did not divulge the grounds for the new trial. The government had timely appealed the new trial grant. A divided panel of the Fifth Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting a new trial.   The Fifth Circuit reversed the order granting a new trial, reinstated as to Count Two and the jury’s verdict on that count (possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine). The court further remanded for sentencing on that conviction. The court explained this is not one of the “exceptional cases” in which a judge had the discretion to vacate the jury’s verdict by ordering a new trial. Far from being a case in which the evidence weighs heavily against the verdict, the great weight of the evidence supports this one. The court wrote, that the district court set aside the verdict because, in its view, little evidence showed that Defendant knowingly possessed an illegal substance. But a trinity of evidence supported the knowledge element. The court explained that it is true that the “district judge, unlike us, was there throughout the trial.” But because the jury’s verdict was not against the great weight of evidence, it was an abuse of discretion to erase it. View "USA v. Crittenden" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of illegally possessing an unregistered firearm, specifically a “destructive device,” under the National Firearms Act (“NFA”). Appealing his conviction, Defendant argues that the NFA is unconstitutionally vague as applied to his case and that the evidence is insufficient to support conviction.   The determinative issue on appeal was whether an explosive-containing device falls within the NFA when it is susceptible of both innocent and destructive uses and not clearly designed as a weapon. The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment of conviction. The court explained that in this case, the government’s only evidence challenging Defendant’s testimony that his bamboo stick device was used to scare beavers and destroy their dams (and wasn’t very good even at that) was the conclusion testimony of an ATF expert. Thus, the court wrote, in light of the government’s wholly conclusory case that the bamboo device was designed as a weapon or that it had no benign or social value, the conviction cannot stand. The evidence was insufficient to prove that the bamboo stick was an illegal explosive device “designed” as a weapon. View "USA v. Harbarger" on Justia Law

In exchange for Defendant’s guilty plea on the superseding indictment’s principal drug-dealing charge (“Count 1”), the Government dismissed all other charges. The parties stipulated to a recommended prison sentence of 240 months. The district court followed the parties’ sentencing recommendation and dismissed all remaining counts in the superseding indictment “on the motion of the United States. Some months later, the Government discovered the procedural snag at the heart of this case: the superseding indictment to which Defendant pleaded guilty had been returned by a grand jury whose term had expired. At a plea hearing in which Defendant indicated satisfaction with his trial counsel’s performance and familiarity with the “grand jury mess-up[]” that had occurred in his initial case, Defendant pleaded guilty in accordance with the new plea agreement. The district court then imposed the 144-month sentence the parties agreed to and noted for the record the key terms of the provision quoted above.   Without conducting a hearing, the district court accepted a magistrate’s recommendation that Defendant’s Section 2255 motion be denied. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that the expired grand jury’s untimely superseding indictment in Defendant’s first criminal case was null and void when jeopardy would have otherwise attached at Defendant’s jury trial and, accordingly, could not have placed Defendant in actual legal jeopardy within the meaning of the Double Jeopardy Clause. Because the failure of Defendant’s trial counsel to advise Defendant of a meritless double jeopardy argument was neither deficient nor prejudicial, the district court was correct to deny Defendant’s habeas corpus petition. View "USA v. Slape" on Justia Law

Defendant the owner of a home health agency was convicted of Medicare fraud. On appeal, she complained that her Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel had been violated. Turns out, Defendant’s pretrial counsel was also representing one of the Government’s star witnesses. The Fifth Circuit remanded for an evidentiary hearing on whether Defendant’s lawyer’s conflict of interest—a conflict the Government knew about— adversely affected his representation, and the district court answered: yes.The Fifth Circuit vacated Defendant’s convictions and remanded for a new trial. The court explained that as the Government admits, it never offered Defendant a plea deal while she was represented by her conflicted pretrial counsel, or after. So there is no rejected plea deal to measure Defendant’s harm against. The court explained the constitutional right to counsel is “perhaps the central feature of our adversarial system,” as it “helps make real the Constitution’s other criminal procedure promises. The court wrote that the Government’s proposed remedy— to keep the convictions intact but remand for new plea negotiations— wouldn’t neutralize the taint of the constitutional violation. View "USA v. Sheperd" on Justia Law

The jury convicted Petitioner and sentenced him to death. After a decade of federal proceedings, including extensive discovery and an evidentiary hearing, the district court issued Petitioner a writ of habeas corpus and granted him a new trial.The Fifth Circuit vacated the district court’s ruling granting Petitioner a writ of habeas corpus and denied him a new trial. The court explained Petitioner “possessed, or by reasonable means could have obtained, a sufficient basis to allege [the ring-of-informants Brady] claim[s] in the first petition and pursue the matter through the [state] habeas process.”. Contrary to the district court’s view, Petitioner did not rebut the state court’s findings on this point at all, much less by clear and convincing evidence as required by the federal habeas statute. See 28 U.S.C. Section 2254(e)(1). Petitioner, therefore, has not shown cause to excuse the default of these claims. And because he has not shown cause, the court wrote, it need not consider prejudice. View "Prible v. Lumpkin" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. Section 2254 pursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). Following a state trial court’s Judgment of Conviction based on guilty pleas and a much later Order of Sentence (collectively the judgment), Petitioner, under state law, could not take a direct appeal to a state court. Nor did he seek direct review by the Supreme Court of the United States.   He contends the judgment did not become final until the 90-day period expired because Mississippi law prohibited his seeking direct state-court review of his guilty-plea convictions and sentence and, therefore, he instead could have pursued direct review by the Supreme Court of the United States (finality issue).   The Fifth Circuit granted Petitioner a certificate of appealability (COA) on this finality issue, Petitioner did not assert in district court, or in his pro se motion to our court for the COA, that the judgment became final only upon the 90-day period’s expiration. The threshold question before the Fifth Circuit considering this finality issue is whether Petitioner preserved it.   The court held Petitioner’s judgment became final upon the 90-day period’s expiration; and, therefore, his petition was filed timely. Accordingly, it is not necessary to consider Petitioner’s alternative equitable tolling issue, including whether to expand the COA.   In regards to whether Petitioner’s habeas petition was timely. The court explained that the first three steps of plain-error review are satisfied, thus the district court’s error requires reversal because it seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. View "Wallace v. State of Mississippi" on Justia Law