Justia U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Following a guilty plea to charges arising out of a 1999 armed robbery, the Ohio court sentenced the petitioner to an agreed-upon statutorily mandated term of imprisonment of at least 18 years for murder, with a firearm specification, and felonious assault. State courts declined to consider an appeal, filed six years after the conviction, challenging the voluntariness of the plea. The federal district court rejected a habeas corpus petition. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that the delay in filing the state appeal amounted to procedural default. Although the state courts have wide discretion with respect to timeliness, failure to comply with a state procedural rule can bar federal habeas corpus review. In this case, the petitioner gave no reason for the six-year delay.

The government sought an injunction under the child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 29 U.S.C. 201-219, based on the boarding school's use of uncompensated minors in its kitchen and housekeeping departments, agricultural operations, auto repair shop, Sanitarium, and other operations. The district court concluded that the students are not employees and, therefore, not subject to the Act. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The court rejected the school's claim that students in a vocational program can never be considered employees and the government's argument that the test of whether "trainees" are employees should apply, and applied a "primary benefit" test. The school staff is sufficient to perform the work even if the students did not work and the school is not at competitive advantage with respect to the work; the students benefit from hands-on training in an accredited program that is run consistently with their parents' religious beliefs.

The defendant, owner of a home and garden store, was convicted of selling more than 3,000 gallons of iodine âknowing, or having reasonable cause to believe,â that it would be used to manufacture methamphetamine. 21 U.S.C. 841. The Sixth Circuit vacated two conspiracy convictions and 19 convictions for possessing iodine (on Double Jeopardy grounds) and remanded for sentencing based on the 19 convictions for iodine distribution. Because the crime âinvolved unlawfully manufacturing a controlled substance,â and there was an enhancement for obstruction of justice, the district court again imposed a 360-month sentence. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. It does not matter that the defendant was not convicted of manufacture; the evidence established that he had a âcriminal plan, scheme, endeavor, or enterpriseâ with several methamphetamine cooks, that it was âreasonably foreseeableâ that those customers would manufacture methamphetamine and that the sale of iodine was âin furtherance of the jointly undertaken criminal activity.â The below-guidelines sentence was reasonable.

The owner of a mortgage company was sentenced to 96 months for fraud and money laundering. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that the conviction was supported by substantial evidence. Evidence of a government witness's prior inconsistent statements that referred to a conviction more than 10 years prior was properly excluded; the trial judge gave the defense proper latitude to impeach the witness. The sentence was properly enhanced for attempting to obstruct the investigation, use of "sophisticated means," and acting as the organizer or leader.

The district court granted a conditional writ of habeas corpus to an inmate serving 18 years to life for complicity in a drug-related murder. The Sixth Circuit reversed. The Ohio court's determination that the inmate was not denied effective assistance of counsel during plea negotiations was not contrary to clearly established federal law. The inmate exhausted state remedies as required by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, 28 U.S.C. 2254, and did not default her claim by failing to present it in a separate post-conviction proceeding in the trial court, as the Ohio Court of Appeals advised her to do. The court made a determination on the merits of the ineffective assistance claim, regardless of its procedural suggestion. It was not unreasonable for the court to hold that the evidence did not establish a reasonable probability that the inmate would have accepted a plea offer if her counsel had told her that she could be convicted of complicity.

The representative of the estate of a deceased individual filed a civil rights suit (42 U.S.C. 1983). The court denied the motion of another (Gresham) for joinder, amendment of the complaint to include Gresham's claims, and class action certification. The Sixth Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction to consider an appeal. Gresham was not a party to the case, in which there has been no entry of a final or appealable order disposing of all issues. The court declined to treat the filing as a petition for mandamus.

Petitioner, serving 387 months for drugs and weapons offenses, filed a pro se action he characterized as habeas corpus (28 U.S.C. 2241). The district court characterized the suit as a civil rights action and dismissed for failure to pay the filing fee. The petitioner has a long history of abusive litigation and may not proceed in forma pauperis, under the "three strikes" rule, 28 U.S.C. 1915(g). The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The district court properly characterized the claim, which stated that it was asserting a âcivil tort action for civil rightâs violation,â alleged violations of the First Amendment, and sought monetary damages. The district court effectively warned the petitioner about the consequences of recharacterization in a 2002 order, stating that he âshall not be permitted to file any further actions in forma pauperis without first obtaining leave."

The defendant was found not guilty by reason of insanity after being charged with 2002 bank robbery and remanded to a federal facility under 18 U.S.C. 4243. Previous conditional releases have been revoked for noncompliance with conditions relating to substance abuse. The district court refused to grant unconditional release and the Sixth Circuit affirmed. The defendant would be entitled to discharge if he established by clear and convincing evidence that he has recovered his sanity or is no longer dangerous. He has been diagnosed with several conditions over the years and argued that the current diagnosis, antisocial personality disorder, did not qualify as a mental disease or defect under the statute. Considering his history, the court held that the defendant had not met his burden of proof.

The defendant was sentenced to death for murder. The district court denied a petition for habeas corpus. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that Ohio state courts reasonably rejected constitutional claims. The Eighth Amendment does not preclude a defendant waiving his right to present mitigating evidence in a death penalty case or require that such a waiver be knowing and voluntary, although the Ohio court found that the defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived the right. The record supported the decision not to hold a competency hearing. A recorded re-enactment of dog-tracking between the victim's house and the defendant's home did not deny the defendant fundamental fairness. Decisions made by defense counsel were not objectively unreasonable and the defendant did not show that he was prejudiced by those decisions.

The plaintiff and her four-year-old daughter, Muslim U.S. citizens, were returning from Canada in 2006 when a Customs and Border Protection computer mistakenly identified them as armed and dangerous. She was handcuffed and questioned for several hours; her car was searched and damaged. The district court dismissed plaintiff's suit to obtain unredacted Treasury Enforcement Communications System and Automated Targeting System (ATS) documents from DHS and for failure to maintain accurate records under the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. 552a. The Sixth Circuit vacated in part and remanded. Noting a split in the circuits, the court held that an agency may exempt a system of records from civil remedies provisions of the Act only if the underlying substantive duties fall within the Act's general exemption provision. Claims concerning improper disclosure and records of First Amendment activity do not fall within the general exemption, but DHS properly exempted the records from other provisions of the Act. The court further noted that the effort to exempt the all of the records may have been ambiguous and procedurally inadequate. A challenge to exemption of documents from the ATS was properly rejected for failure to claim "adverse effect" as a result of alleged procedural deficiencies.