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

On remand from the Supreme Court, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment as reformed to reflect that defendant was convicted and sentenced under 8 U.S.C. 1326(b)(1).Defendant pleaded guilty of illegally reentering the United States after having been convicted of an aggravated felony, in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326(b)(2), and was sentenced to 36 months in prison. While his certiorari petition was pending, the Supreme Court decided Borden v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1817, 1821-22 (2021), which held that a crime capable of commission with a "less culpable mental state than purpose or knowledge," such as "recklessness," cannot qualify as a "violent felony" under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e). The Court then granted defendant's petition, vacated the Fifth Circuit's judgment, and remanded. On remand, the parties agree that, in light of Borden, defendant should not have been sentenced under section 1326(b)(2) because Texas family violence assault can be committed recklessly. Both parties agree that defendant's conviction falls within 8 U.S.C. 1326(b)(1), which covers illegal reentry after conviction on three or more qualifying misdemeanors or a nonaggravated felony. The Fifth Circuit agreed and concluded that reformation without remand is appropriate in this case. View "United States v. Olvera-Martinez" on Justia Law

After the en banc court held unlawful a Texas statute requiring voters to present photo ID in order to vote, the only issue in this appeal is whether plaintiffs are prevailing parties and thereby entitled to recover attorneys' fees under 42 U.S.C. 1988(b) and 52 U.S.C. 10310(e).The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's finding that plaintiffs are prevailing parties under Buckhannon Board and Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598, 604 (2001), and the district court's award of attorneys' fees. In this case, plaintiffs successfully challenged the Texas photo ID requirement before the en banc court, and used that victory to secure a court order permanently preventing its enforcement during the elections in 2016 and 2017. Furthermore, the court order substituted the photo ID requirement with a mere option—which of course defeats the whole purpose of a mandate, and the state cannot go back in time and re-run the 2016 and 2017 elections under a photo ID requirement. Finally, defendants' claims to the contrary under Sole v. Wyner, 551 U.S. 74, 82 (2007), and Dearmore v. City of Garland, 519 F.3d 517 (5th Cir. 2008), are unavailing. View "Veasey v. Abbott" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Twin City in an action brought by HMI, alleging that Twin City had breached its duty to indemnify. HMI provides various accounting and financial services for Greg and Kathy Geib. The district court interpreted the policy as not covering settlement payments made after limitations for the underlying negligent conduct had expired.The court concluded that the district court erred for two reasons: first, the district court did not account for the policy's definition of the term "claim," instead treating it as synonymous with "cause of action;" and second, the district court interpreted the phrase "legally liable to pay" to mean effectively that HMI actually lost or would have lost had the Geibs filed suit. With these two clarifications, the court concluded that HMI's settlement payment constitutes a loss because it is an amount that HMI is legally liable—through contract—to pay to the Geibs as a result of the demand letter. Furthermore, the fact that the Geibs never filed their threatened suit and that the limitations period had seemingly run does not change that. Finally, the court rejected Twin City's two alternative arguments. View "HM International, LLC v. Twin City Fire Insurance Co." on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal, based on lack of jurisdiction, of plaintiff's claims against the Department and the FAA based on his dissatisfaction with the FAA's response to several of his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Construing the complaint liberally, as the district court was bound to do, the court concluded that the district court should have determined that plaintiff sufficiently alleged that the agency had improperly withheld agency records. The court explained that this was sufficient to invoke the district court's subject matter jurisdiction. View "Rutila v. United States Department of Transportation" on Justia Law

Gutierrez was born and raised amid violence in Honduras. He resisted MS-13’s attempts to coerce him to join the gang or pay a “war tax” and the gang repeatedly brutalized him and his wife and threatened to kill them. The record contains gruesome photos of his wounds. Gutierrez entered the U.S. illegally and sought relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The immigration judge, finding Gutierrez credible and his account “detailed, plausible, and coherent,” found that “MS-13 is more likely than not to torture or kill him upon his return” but denied CAT relief and ordered Gutierrez removed, finding that any such torture would not occur with the “consent or acquiescence” of Honduran officials. The BIA dismissed Gutierrez’s appeal.The Fifth Circuit denied his petition for review. Gutierrez made a compelling humanitarian case for why removing him to Honduras will effectively abandon him to torture and death at the hands of MS-13 thugs but to make out a CAT claim, the law demands that this violence will likely occur “with the consent or acquiescence” of Honduran officials, 8 C.F.R. 1208.18(a)(1). The IJ and BIA found that Gutierrez had not established “consent or acquiescence.” The evidence does not compel a contrary conclusion. View "Gutierrez v. Garland" on Justia Law

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) established many global standards for 3G, 4G, and 5G cellular communications technology. ETSI members that own standard-essential patents must provide “an irrevocable undertaking in writing that [they are] prepared to grant irrevocable licenses on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND)” terms. Ericsson holds patents that are considered essential to the ETSI standards and agreed to grant licenses to other companies to use its standard-essential patents on FRAND terms. HTC produces mobile devices that implement those standards; to manufacture standard-compliant mobile devices, HTC has to obtain a license to use Ericsson’s patents. Ericsson and HTC have previously entered into three cross-license agreements for their respective patents. Negotiations to renew one of those agreements failed.HTC filed suit, alleging that Ericsson had breached its commitment to provide a license on FRAND terms and had failed to negotiate in good faith. The jury found in favor of the defendants. The district court entered a separate declaratory judgment that the defendants had affirmatively complied with their contractual obligations. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, rejecting challenges to the district court’s exclusion of HTC’s requested jury instructions, its declaratory judgment that Ericsson had complied with its obligation to provide HTC a license on FRAND terms, and the exclusion of certain expert testimonial evidence as hearsay. View "HTC Corp. v. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit vacated defendant's sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to a drug conspiracy charge. In this case, authorities discovered cocaine and other drugs in the back of defendant's tobacco shop, as well as $12,424 in cash, which the authorities treated as proceeds from cocaine transactions rather than legitimate tobacco sales or to any of the other various drugs found in the shop. This resulted in a higher recommended sentencing range than defendant would have otherwise received. Therefore, the court concluded that it was clear error to treat all of the cash as cocaine proceeds and the error was not harmless. The court explained that, although the district court sentenced defendant well below the Guidelines range calculated by Probation, it did not indicate that it would have imposed the same sentence even if it erred in treating all the seized cash as drug proceeds. The court remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Sandoval Martinez" on Justia Law

After defendant pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine, the district court sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment and a 5-year term of supervised release. The written judgment listed ten statutorily mandated conditions of supervised release, as well as seventeen conditions from a district-wide standing order that the district court did not mention at sentencing.The parties agree that the district court's judgment conflicts with the Fifth Circuit's decision in United States v. Diggles, 957 F.3d 551, 559 (5th Cir. 2020) (en banc). Diggles held that supervised-release conditions imposed by statute need not be pronounced orally at sentencing because any objection to them would be futile, but that discretionary conditions must be orally pronounced in the defendant’s presence at sentencing so that he has an opportunity to object. The court agreed with the parties that defendant did not have an opportunity to object to the seventeen conditions mentioned in the district court's standing order but unmentioned at sentencing. The court concluded that limited remand would be appropriate, granted the government's motion to do so, and denied as moot the government's alternative unopposed motion for extension to file its brief upon the denial of remand. View "United States v. Braddy" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against OSIC after OSIC denied their claim seeking coverage under plaintiffs' policy for damage caused by a hailstorm. The district court ultimately granted OSIC summary judgment.The Fifth Circuit certified the following questions to the Supreme Court of Texas: (1) Whether the concurrent cause doctrine applies where there is any non-covered damage, including "wear and tear" to an insured property, but such damage does not directly cause the particular loss eventually experienced by plaintiffs; (2) If so, whether plaintiffs alleging that their loss was entirely caused by a single, covered peril bear the burden of attributing losses between that peril and other, non-covered or excluded perils that plaintiffs contend did not cause the particular loss; and (3) If so, whether plaintiffs can meet that burden with evidence indicating that the covered peril caused the entirety of the loss (that is, by implicitly attributing one hundred percent of the loss to that peril). View "Frymire Home Services, Inc. v. Ohio Security Insurance Co." on Justia Law

Ward pled guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine. In February 2018, the district court sentenced Ward to 200 months of imprisonment. Ward unsuccessfully sought postconviction relief. In March 2020, through counsel, Ward sent a request for compassionate release to the warden, claiming that her kidney failure, other medical problems, and vulnerability to COVID-19 constituted an extraordinary and compelling reason for a sentence reduction. In May 2020, the Bureau of Prisons denied her request because Ward’s “medical condition has not been determined to be terminal within eighteen months nor end of life trajectory.”In July 2020, after exhausting her administrative remedies, Ward sought relief under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(1)(A), arguing that compassionate release would be consistent with Sentencing Guideline 1B1.13 and that the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors favor a reduction. Ward filed her medical records, and an expert’s report that her kidney disease put her “at higher risk for developing severe illness, kidney failure, or death if she becomes infected with the coronavirus.” The Fifth Circuit affirmed the denial of Ward’s motion. The district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Ward’s motion based on arguments not advanced by the government. Motions for compassionate release are inherently discretionary. The district court had the authority to consider Section 3553(a)'s sentencing factors. View "Ward v. United States" on Justia Law