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

Miller was convicted in Michigan of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. The evidence included email and instant-message conversations between Miller and her lover, Cassaday, in which Miller lied to Cassaday that she was pregnant with his children but that her husband abused her, causing her to miscarry; convinced Cassaday that her husband was involved in organized crime and that her life was in danger; and plotted her husband’s murder. Cassaday told his brother Mike that he was leaving town and that, if he did not return, Mike should look for a briefcase under Cassaday’s bed. Bruce Miller was murdered on November 9, 1999. Miller promptly ended her relationship with Cassaday and started dating someone else. Cassaday committed suicide. Mike found the briefcase and notes, which he opened in the presence of an attorney. The case contained copies of the emails and IM conversations. Its contents were admitted into evidence with evidence linking the communications to Miller’s and Cassaday’s AOL accounts. Cassaday’s suicide note was also admitted. Miller claimed that admission of the note violated her clearly established Sixth Amendment right to confront her accuser and sought habeas corpus. Following a remand, after the Supreme Court vacated an earlier decision, the Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that the Michigan Court of Appeals decision upholding the note’s admission did not violate clearly established law. View "Miller v. Stovall" on Justia Law

Reed, who suffers from seizures as the result of a motorcycle accident, filed suit based on two incidents. In the first, inside Reed’s cell at the Franklin County Corrections Center, deputies were unable to handcuff Reed for transport to a hospital following a seizure, due to his resistance. They twice used a Taser to subdue him. The incident was captured on videotape. Later that day at the hospital emergency room, a deputy used a Taser on Reed after Reed lunged at the deputy. Reed argued that the deputies used excessive force and that the county failed to train the deputies on the proper use of Tasers, creating a policy and practice of abuse. Finding that “no rational fact finder could conclude that the defendant deputies acted with conscience-shocking malice or sadism” toward Reed during either incident, the district court granted the defendants summary judgment. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, stating that it would not put the onus on the deputies to assess the seriousness of Reed’s seizure in order to determine whether it warranted immediate medical treatment. The decision to use a Taser to subdue Reed to take him to the hospital “might have been unwise, but it was not unconstitutional.” View "Shreve v. Franklin Cnty." on Justia Law

Responding to a report of underage drinking in a home, officers found a group celebrating eighth grade graduation. Police asked the teens to step outside individually for breathalyzer testing. Seven tested positive for alcohol. Police arrested them and notified their parents. In the morning, a juvenile worker arrived at the police station, and, after speaking with a judge, indicated that the children were to be detained for a court appearance the next day. At the regional juvenile detention center, the minors underwent routine fingerprinting, mug shots, and metal-detection screening. During a hygiene inspection and health screening, they were required to disrobe completely for visual inspection to detect “injuries, physical abnormalities, scars and body markings, ectoparasites, and general physical condition.” A same-sex youth worker observed the juveniles for several minutes from a distance of one to two feet, recording findings for review by an R.N. The minors were required to shower with delousing shampoo. They were released the following day. The charges were dropped. In a suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, the district court granted partial summary judgment in favor of the juveniles, based on a “clearly established right for both adults and juveniles to be free from strip searches absent individualized suspicion” that negated a qualified immunity defense. The Sixth Circuit reversed, stating that no clearly established principle of constitutional law forbids a juvenile detention center from implementing a generally applicable, suspicionless strip-search policy upon intake into the facility.View "T. S. v. Doe" on Justia Law

The dismembered remains of Abby’s friend were found in plastic bags on a lawn in Buena Vista. Technicians found Abby’s fingerprints on the bag and bits of the victim’s flesh on a saw that Abby had borrowed. The police charged Abby with murder. Abby retained attorney Gust. Gust entered his appearance on Abby’s behalf. Abby retained another attorney, Piazza, weeks later. Both appeared on Abby’s behalf, sometimes separately and sometimes together. Only Gust was present when Abby’s trial began. After jury selection, Abby objected to proceeding without Piazza. The court indicated that it was inclined to proceed without Piazza. The next morning, both Gust and Piazza appeared. Piazza indicated that Gust was “lead counsel” but that “Abby is on a different plane with that.” The prosecutor rejected a proposal that he lead with less significant witnesses to accommodate Piazza’s schedule. Abby’s conviction was affirmed. The district court rejected a habeas petition in which Abby argued that he was deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel of choice and that Gust was ineffective. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court has not held that a defendant’s right to counsel of choice is necessarily violated when his secondary retained counsel has a scheduling conflict precluding attendance at trial. Abby was not prejudices by Gust’s performance. View "Abby v. Howe" on Justia Law

Officers Hampton and Lyons received a radio communication of a report of an ongoing breaking-and-entering. The caller, Mays, was home and people were attempting to break through her front window. The officers arrived about 10 minutes later, parked their marked cruiser a few houses away, and approached on foot. They noticed McMullin standing close to the caller’s home, then walking toward the officers. Hampton advised McMullin to stop and show his hands. McMullin complied, stating that he was “here for [his] people.” Concerned for their safety and believing that McMullin might be a suspect, the officers frisked McMullin. Mays and her boyfriend, testified that they attempted to tell the officers before the search that McMullin was not the perpetrator. Officer Hampton testified that he had no contact with them before searching McMullin. During the search, Hampton felt a gun in McMullin’s waistband and recovered a revolver. McMullin admitted that he did not have a gun permit and was arrested. Lyons then approached the home and that Mays believed that the perpetrator was her landlord. McMullin was not charged with breaking-and-entering, but was charged as a felon in possession of a firearm, under 28 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). After the district court denied his motion to suppress, McMullin conditionally pleaded guilty. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The officers’ reasonable suspicion that McMullin was involved in the crime justified their stop and frisk. View "United States v. McMullin" on Justia Law

Kentucky law prohibits businesses that sell substantial amounts of staple groceries or gasoline from applying for a license to sell wine and liquor, Ky. Rev. Stat. 243.230(7). A regulation applies the prohibition to retailers that sell those items at a rate of at least 10% of gross monthly sales. A group of grocers sued the Kentucky Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, alleging that the law irrationally discriminated against them in violation of state and federal equal-protection rights; that it violated state separation-of-powers principles by granting the administrative board unfettered discretion to define the law; and that it violated state and federal due process rights by vaguely defining its terms. A liquor store intervened as a defendant. The district court granted summary judgment to the grocers on the federal equal-protection claim but rejected the other claims. The Sixth Circuit reversed in part, upholding the statute. Applying the rational basis test, the court reasoned that the statute conceivably seeks to reduce access to high-alcohol products, and offends neither separation of powers nor due process principles. View "Maxwell's Pic-Pac, Inc. v. Dehner" on Justia Law

Plaintiff’s neighbor, Yassine called the Dearborn police and reported that plaintiff was standing in the yard, staring into his window, and appeared to be intoxicated. Sergeant Peer arrived, interviewed Yassine, and approached plaintiff’s home. Plaintiff claims that he had chased his dog into the yard, then returned to his porch, where officers attacked him without warning. Plaintiff did not identify which officers took specific actions. Another neighbor testified that she saw two officers strike plaintiff and that the officers then departed and plaintiff got up and walked away. The officers and Yassine testified that plaintiff lunged at Officer Peer and that other officers took him down, arrested him, and drove directly to the police station. A video showed that plaintiff hit his head against the cage of the patrol car several times, contradicting plaintiff’s account. Medical examinations showed symptoms “suggestive of impaired consciousness.” Younes sued the officers and the city under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court granted summary judgment on state law claims of gross negligence as to the officers and battery as to Peer, but denied summary judgment on other claims, finding that issues of material fact remained concerning immunity. The Sixth Circuit dismissed, reasoning that the officers did not concede the most favorable view of the facts to plaintiff. View "Younes v. Pellerito" on Justia Law

Youngstown police attempted to pull over a stolen Cadillac believed to be involved in an earlier robbery. The driver attempted to flee and hit an unmarked police car that had its lights on as it drove toward the Cadillac. As the pursuit, which involved nine officers, continued, passengers in the Cadillac (driven by Christian) shot rifles at the pursuing police cars. Christian’s first state court trial ended in verdicts of not guilty on nine counts of felonious assault and in a hung jury on the remaining seven counts of complicity to felonious assault. The state sought to retry Christian on the seven complicity counts. Christian filed a habeas petition, claiming violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause. The district court denied the petition. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, stating that complicity to felonious assault and felonious assault are not the same crime and that no ultimate fact necessary for his conviction of complicity to felonious assault was determined by the jury at the first trial. View "Christian v. Wellington" on Justia Law

Adams and Cooper were among 14 defendants charged, in a 39-count indictment, with conspiring to distribute cocaine and cocaine base (crack cocaine) in violation of 21 U.S.C. 846. Both pleaded guilty. Based on prior offenses, the district court found Adams and Cooper to be career offenders, applied the U.S.S.G. 4B1.1 sentencing enhancement, and sentenced them to 165 months and 120 months of imprisonment, respectively. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, rejecting challenges to the application and constitutionality, under the Sixth Amendment, of the career-offender guidelines. Adams’s Tennessee conviction of aggravated assault did not qualify as a crime of violence under the categorical approach, but court documents demonstrated that Adams necessarily pleaded guilty to a Class C felony. View "United States v. Adams" on Justia Law

McGuire was convicted of the kidnaping, rape, and aggravated murder of Joy Stewart and was sentenced to death. On direct appeal, the Ohio Supreme Court summarized the evidence presented in mitigation and determined that the aggravating factors carried sufficient weight to support the sentence. Following sentencing, McGuire’s appellate counsel, which had not represented him at trial or at sentencing, did not raise a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel and the state appellate court affirmed the sentence of death. The Ohio Supreme Court deemed the claim forfeited. A federal district court denied a habeas petition and the Sixth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court denied certiorari. In a motion under FRCP 60(b), McGuire sought to re-open a claim asserting the ineffectiveness of trial counsel arising from their failure to adequately investigate and present mitigation evidence at the penalty phase of trial, relying upon the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision, Martinez v. Ryan, and arguing that the procedural default for this claim should be excused because his counsel on state post-conviction review was ineffective. The Sixth Circuit affirmed denial. McGuire did not demonstrate the extraordinary circumstances required to justify relief from final judgment pursuant to Rule 60(b)(6).View "McGuire v. Warden, Chillicothe Corr. Inst." on Justia Law