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

After King, a Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) inmate, participated in a class-action lawsuit challenging personal property policies at MDOC facilities (Cain litigation), prison officials transferred him to a prison with a higher security classification and more restrictive conditions. King filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The Sixth Circuit held that prison officials were liable for retaliating against King for his First Amendment-protected conduct, participating in the Cain litigation and assisting other petitioners to file grievances. On remand, the district court granted compensatory damages and awarded attorney fees, but denied punitive damages and injunctive relief. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of injunctive relief and the award of punitive damages, but otherwise vacated and remanded, first holding that 42 U.S.C. 1997e(e), the Prison Litigation Reform Act, does not foreclose claims that allege violations of First Amendment-protected rights as injuries, even if those violations did not cause physical harm. The district court properly applied the PLRA to calculate the appropriate award of attorney fees, but abused its discretion in denying punitive damages and misapplied the PLRA’s attorney fees provision when it failed to charge a portion of the attorney fees against King’s judgment. View "King v. Zamiara" on Justia Law

Lichtenberger lived with Holmes, his girlfriend, at her mother’s home. Friends told Holmes that Lichtenberger had been convicted of child pornography offenses. Holmes requested that the police escort Lichtenberger off the property. Officer Huston determined that Lichtenberger had an active arrest warrant for failing to register as a sex offender and arrested him. Later, Holmes went into their shared bedroom and retrieved his laptop. She later testified that he “would never let me use it or be near him when he was using it and I wanted to know why.” Holmes hacked the laptop, changed the password, and found images of adults engaging in sexual acts with minors. Huston returned. Holmes showed Huston those images and gave him Lichtenberger’s cell phone, flash drive, and marijuana. Lichtenberger was indicted for receipt, possession, and distribution of child pornography, 18 U.S.C. 2252(a)(2), (a)(4)(B), and (b). The district court granted a motion to suppress, finding that when Huston directed Holmes to show him what she had found, Holmes was acting as a government agent. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, stating that there are extensive privacy interests at stake in laptop searches and Huston had far less than “virtual certainty” regarding what he was going to see when Holmes showed him what she had found. View "United States v. Lichtenberger" on Justia Law

Shawn and Denise were walking with their daughter, grandson, and dog. Shawn carried a cell phone, holstered on his hip, next to a semiautomatic handgun. A motorcyclist, Rose, stopped to complain about Shawn’s visible firearm. After a heated exchange, Rose called 911. The dispatcher stated that the weapon was legal with a concealed-carry weapon permit. Rose stated: “I’m not going to call a crew out if it’s legal.” The department nonetheless dispatched Officer Bright, who claims that Shawn pulled out his cell phone, then “moved his hands back toward his weapon.” Bright told Shawn to put his hands over his head. Rather than comply, Shawn asked why Bright was there. Bright took possession of Shawn’s firearm. Shawn claims that Bright walked up, “his hand on his firearm,” announced that if Shawn “go[es] for the weapon, he’s going to shoot,” and refused to answer questions. Bright demanded Shawn’s driver’s license and concealed-carry permit. Shawn gave Bright his license, but Denise told Bright to look up the permit. Bright threatened to arrest Shawn for inducing panic and placed Shawn in handcuffs. Bright discovered that Shawn had a permit and released Shawn with a citation for “failure to disclose personal information,” a charge later dropped. In a suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, the district court granted Bright partial summary judgment, rejecting First and Second Amendment claims, but permitted Fourth Amendment and state-law claims to go to trial. The Sixth Circuit affirmed; Bright could not reasonably suspect that Northrup needed to be disarmed. View "Northrup v. City of Toledo Police Dep't" on Justia Law

Wade was tried for rape, kidnapping, aggravated robbery, and firearm specifications, stemming from his attack on a woman in her apartment. The conviction was overturned. Wade was retried for rape and kidnapping. Over defense objections, the state reintroduced testimony suggesting that Wade possessed a firearm during the attack. The court denied Wade’s request for a limiting instruction. Wade was again convicted of rape and kidnapping. The Ohio Court of Appeals upheld the kidnapping conviction because Wade only requested a limiting instruction regarding the element of force for rape and it could not say that the outcome of Wade’s kidnapping conviction clearly would have been different had there been a limiting instruction. The district court denied a habeas petition, rejecting arguments that Double Jeopardy Clause principles of collateral estoppel barred prosecutors in the second trial from reintroducing the firearm evidence that did not convince the first jury, and that, even if that evidence were otherwise admissible, the absence of a limiting instruction on the kidnapping count resulted in a fundamentally unfair trial. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that the firearm evidence was not an issue of ultimate fact in Wade’s second trial such that collateral estoppel required its exclusion. The lack of a limiting instruction did not “so infec[t] the entire trial that the resulting conviction violates due process.” View "Wade v. Timmerman-Cooper" on Justia Law

Ushery sold crack cocaine to a confidential informant. When police attempted to arrest Ushery, he escaped in his car, ran red lights, crashed his car, then fled on foot. The pursuing officer retired due to an injury incurred during the chase. Ushery was in possession of small amounts of heroin, crack cocaine, and marijuana. Ushery admitted to swallowing bags of heroin during the pursuit; threatened to kill the arresting officer; and called his girlfriend and asked her to retrieve money from a storage unit. The call was recorded. After obtaining a warrant, the police seized $8,781 in cash, guns, ammunition, and a digital scale. The government filed notice that Ushery had three felony drug convictions. Ushery pleaded not guilty; at rearraignment he again declined to plead guilty, despite his counsel informing the court that Ushery had stated that he would do so. Ushery expressed frustration with his counsel. Instead of adjourning, the court oversaw negotiations. After the government offered to strike the appeal-waiver provision, Ushery pled guilty. The court sentenced him to 252 months, an upward variance of 17 months from the Guidelines range. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting arguments based on FRCP 11(c)(1)’s ban against judicial participation in plea discussions, that Ushery’s exclusion from a pretrial teleconference violated his right to be present at every critical stage of proceedings, and that his sentence was substantively unreasonable. View "United States v. Ushery" on Justia Law

In 2011, Widmer pled guilty to receipt of child pornography (18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(2) and (b)(1)) for downloading seven still images and 134 videos depicting “identifiable child victims, prepubescent children in sexual contact with adults and other children, and sadistic and masochistic conduct.” The court sentenced Widmer to 97 months of imprisonment and five years of supervised release. His supervised release included special conditions, including sex offender mental-health treatment, a post-release psychosexual evaluation, probation-officer compliance searches, restrictions on his use of computers, and restrictions on his association with minors. The Sixth Circuit affirmed Widmer’s sentence, and vacated and remanded the special conditions of his supervised release “for a fuller explanation of its reasons for imposing” the special conditions of supervised release. On remand, the district court received additional briefing and Widmer was given an opportunity to allocute. The court imposed most of the same conditions of supervised release. Widmer challenged only the condition limiting his ability to associate with minors, including his daughter. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, finding that the district court adequately explained its reasoning, particularly with respect to Widmer’s daughter. View "United States v. Widmer" on Justia Law

Ohio law required criminal defendants to submit a DNA sample after a felony conviction, Ohio Rev. Code 2901.07(B); new law, applicable July 1, 2011, requires county sheriffs to collect DNA after a felony arrest. Crabbs was initially arrested before July 1, 2011, but rearrested after that date. Crabbs sued the Franklin County Sheriff under the Fourth Amendment for requiring him to submit to a DNA cheek swab after a jury acquitted him of voluntary manslaughter. The sheriff responded that Ohio’s sovereign immunity insulated him from the lawsuit because state law required him to take the sample. The district court and the Sixth Circuit rejected that argument, finding that the statute does not require a DNA sample for a felony defendant rearrested after the effective date for violating bond and does not require a sample after an acquittal if the sheriff was unable to collect one during the intake process. Sovereign immunity does not bar Crabbs’ civil rights action. View "Crabbs v. Scott" on Justia Law

Russell brought suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the Kentucky Secretary of State, Attorney General, and other state and local officials, alleging that Kentucky Revised Statute 117.235(3), which creates a 300-foot no-political-speech buffer zone around polling locations on election day, violated Russell’s free-speech rights. Russell’s business property is 150 feet from a polling location, with a four-lane highway and guardrails between. Citing the statute, Sheriff’s deputies have removed political signs from his property on previous election days, and the statute’s language prohibits Russell from, on his own property, waving signs and offering campaign literature to passersby. The district court declared the statute unconstitutional, and permanently enjoined its enforcement. The Sixth Circuit granted a partial stay of that injunction, which was issued only days before the 2014 general election, and expedited an appeal. The court then affirmed, holding that it had jurisdiction over the case, that the Eleventh Amendment does not bar suit against any of the remaining defendants, and that the statute facially violates the First Amendment because Kentucky failed to carry its burden of showing why it required a no-political-speech zone vastly larger than the Supreme Court has previously upheld. View "Russell v. Lundergan-Grimes" on Justia Law

On Christmas night 2011, Coil and Starcher were walking home in Brilliant, Ohio. They stopped to rest along the road. Officer Kamerer approached in his cruiser and asked if anything was wrong. According to Starcher, the two stated that nothing was wrong. Kamerer asked for their names, but Coil got up and walked away. That caused Kamerer to “go[] off on [them] like a crazy person.” The parties disagree about the details, but ultimately both Coil and Kamerer were struck by a car. The crash caused Coil severe traumatic brain injury, requiring around-the-clock care. Kamerer broke his shoulder and leg and spent 30 days in a hospital. Coil’s legal guardian filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action. The district court denied Kamerer’s motion for qualified immunity, stating that a reasonable jury could find that Kamerer seized Coil without reasonable suspicion and was deliberately indifferent to Coil’s safety, based on Starcher’s account and the length of time Kamerer left Coil handcuffed, face-down in the road. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Although Kamerer exposed himself to danger when he raced into the road to try to save Coil from the approaching car, it is possible that he behaved recklessly, rather than negligently, in handcuffing Coil in the street. That is a jury question. View "Family Serv. Ass'n v. Wells Twp" on Justia Law

The Wenks have a 17-year-old daughter, M, who has an IQ of 70 or below, and requires special education services. M attended high school in Grandview Heights, under an Individualized Education Program (IEP), as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1400. In 2011, teachers expressed “concerns” about M’s father’s treatment of M. An administrator’s report to Franklin County Children Services (FCCS) included statements and behaviors by M that were thought to indicate sexual abuse and many comments about father’s physical appearance and demeanor. FCCS concluded that the allegations were unsubstantiated; the police department dropped its criminal investigation. In a suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, the Wenks claimed that the report was filed in retaliation for their advocacy to change M’s educational plan, in violation of their First Amendment rights. The district court denied the school administrator qualified immunity. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, but denied the Wenks‘s motion for fees and costs for defending the appeal. The right to be free from retaliation for exercising First Amendment rights was clearly established at the time of the report and a reasonable official would have understood that filing a child abuse report in bad faith violated those rights. View "Wenk v. O'Reilly" on Justia Law