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

Cuyahoga County planned for CCCC to house detainees and prisoners from nearby communities in exchange for significant payments. CCCC was already severely overcrowded and understaffed. In March 2018, Cleveland transferred inmates to CCCC. In May, the County Council agreed that CCCC’s issues were “mission-critical” but no action was taken.On June 20, 2018, Johnson was detained at CCCC, awaiting trial for petty theft. During intake, a nurse noted that he was “likely a suicide risk" having previously attempted self-harm. No protective action was taken. Days later, Johnson told a nurse that he was “suicidal.” No action was taken. CCCC correctional officers were aware that Johnson was a suicide risk. On June 29, Officers placed Johnson in solitary confinement for allegedly trying to steal food; no one checked on him. That evening, Johnson was found hanging in the cell. CCCC lacked a device for cutting him down. On July 1, Johnson died.The Department of Justice reviewed and reported CCCC's “appalling conditions,” including medical staff lacking proper licenses, mental health appraisals not being conducted in a timely manner, and deliberate use of food deprivation as punishment. CCCC housed 2,420 individuals; its capacity was 1,765. There were 96 correctional officer vacancies.Moderwell sued corrections officers and executives under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court granted the defendants judgment on Eighth Amendment claims and dismissed an excessive force claim against the executives but concluded that the complaint sufficiently alleged excessive force against the officers and deliberate indifference to serious medical needs against the executives. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Plaintiff’s deliberate indifference claims against the officers rely on the same facts as the excessive force claims, so denying qualified immunity did not impose additional discovery burdens. Whether precedent clearly established a right that was violated by the executives requires factual development. View "Moderwell v. Cuyahoga County" on Justia Law

Owens was convicted of five counts of possessing or aiding and abetting the possession of a firearm during a crime of violence (18 U.S.C. 924(c)), one carjacking, four counts of bank robbery by force or violence, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. A single section 924(c) conviction carries a five-year mandatory minimum sentence. Each subsequent 924(c) conviction then (2004) triggered an additional 25 years, even if those convictions were part of a single indictment. If Owens had agreed to cooperate, the government would have allowed him to plead guilty to a single count. After Owens rejected the government’s offers, he was convicted and sentenced to 1260 months.Owens’s co-conspirators pleaded guilty and were sentenced, respectively, to 21 months, 33 months, 39 years, and 25 years of incarceration. In 2019, Owens sought resentencing, noting that he would not be subject to the same lengthy sentence if sentenced today because the First Step Act amended 18 U.S.C. 924(c), so that his sentence would be 25 years. Appointed counsel argued that Owens was punished for going to trial and emphasized his “remarkable” record of rehabilitation. Owens then moved for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(1).The district court denied Owens’s motion, concluding that the disparity between Owens's sentence and the sentence that he would receive today was not an “extraordinary and compelling reason” for compassionate release. The court did not consider any other factors. The Sixth Circuit reversed, directing the court to consider whether Owens’s rehabilitative efforts and the lengthy sentence he received because of exercising his right to a trial may, in combination with the First Step Act’s changes, constitute an extraordinary and compelling reason for compassionate release. View "United States v. Owens" on Justia Law

The Prison Litigation Reform Act’s “three-strikes rule,” 28 U.S.C. 1915(g), provides that a prisoner accrues a strike when he brings a frivolous lawsuit. After three strikes, the Act prohibits inmates from filing those lawsuits without paying the initial court fee. Simons, a Michigan prisoner, broke a prison window. Prison officials removed money from his commissary account to make repairs. Simons filed a pro se complaint, targeting this seizure of funds as a violation of state and federal law. The district court allowed Simons to proceed in forma pauperis under 28 U.S.C. 1915(b)(1), then screened Simons’s lawsuit under 28 U.S.C. 1915A and rejected Simons’s federal claims on the merits. The court stated the dismissal would count as a “strike.”The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Simon’s challenges to the underlying dismissal lacked merit. The court’s “opinion” calling the dismissal a strike is not a judgment, and will not, alone, prohibit Simons from filing a free lawsuit in the future. Section 1915(g) calls on a later court that has before it a civil action brought by the prisoner to engage in a backward-looking inquiry and determine whether the prisoner “on 3 or more prior occasions” has brought an action or appeal that was “dismissed on the grounds that [it was] frivolous, malicious, or fail[ed] to state a claim.” View "Simons v. Washington" on Justia Law

The government uncovered substantial evidence that Sheckles was a Louisville distributor for a large drug trafficking ring. Sheckles pleaded guilty but reserved the right to appeal the district court’s refusal to suppress much of this evidence.The Sixth Circuit affirmed his conviction, rejecting arguments that officers did not have “probable cause” for the warrants to track his phone and search his apartments, engaged in an “unreasonable” “seizure” when they stopped his car and detained him, and engaged in an “unreasonable” “search” when they looked through his storage unit. Information in the officers’ affidavit provided a “substantial basis” for the state judge’s finding that probable cause existed to obtain the phone’s location data. The totality of the circumstances permitted the state judge to find probable cause to search this apartment. Officers at least had a “reasonable suspicion” to initiate the stop, after seeing Sheckles leaving an apartment they were about to search, and the handgun they later discovered gave them probable cause to arrest Sheckles at that point. Handcuffing “does not affect the legitimacy of the Terry stop” as long as the facts justify the precaution. The court concluded that a third party had actual authority to consent to the search of the storage unit. View "United States v. Sheckles" on Justia Law

Memphis previously maintained an email Media Advisory List to alert members of the media about newsworthy events and activities. The List included Thomas, the founder, editor, and publisher of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, an online news website covering issues at “the intersection of poverty, power, and public policy.” Thomas claims that in 2018, she was excluded from the List in retaliation for her news coverage of Mayor Strickland. Thomas alleges that she made multiple requests to be returned to the List and that, at one point, the City’s Chief Communications Officer (Madden) stated: “You have demonstrated, particularly on social media, that you are not objective when it comes to Mayor Strickland.” Thomas’s suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, asserted violations of the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court dismissed Thomas’ claims against Strickland and Madden on other grounds, and later dismissed as moot her claims against the city, finding that the city had ceased relying upon the List to disseminate media advisories and that the process that led to the new media relations policy was “not ad hoc or discretionary.” The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The city demonstrated that there is no reasonable expectation that it will re-implement the List and established that its change in media relations policy completely and irrevocably eradicated the effects of the challenged conduct. The change in media relations policy was “legislative-like.” View "Thomas v. City of Memphis" on Justia Law

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kentucky’s Attorney General opened civil price-gouging investigations into Kentucky-based merchants, including at least one member of the Guild that was selling goods to Kentuckians through Amazon’s online marketplace. The Guild challenged the constitutionality of Kentucky’s price-gouging laws as applied to sellers on Amazon, invoking the extraterritoriality doctrine of the dormant commerce clause. Accepting that the Attorney General sought only to enforce the Commonwealth’s price-gouging laws against Kentucky-based sellers in connection with sales to Kentucky consumers through Amazon’s platform, the district court nevertheless granted the Guild a preliminary injunction, concluding that enforcing the laws in connection with Amazon sales would have impermissible extraterritorial effects.The Sixth Circuit vacated, first holding that the Guild is likely to establish direct organizational standing and standing on behalf of its members. This enforcement of Kentucky’s price-gouging laws is unlikely to run afoul of the dormant commerce clause’s extraterritoriality doctrine, which invalidates state laws as per se unconstitutional in the narrow instances where a state expressly or inevitably exceeds its authority and seeks to control wholly out-of-state commerce. The effect on out-of-state commerce of Kentucky’s price-gouging laws depends entirely upon Amazon’s independent decision-making with regard to the structure of its online marketplace, so the application of those laws to Kentucky-based third-party sellers on Amazon in connection with sales to Kentucky consumers is unlikely to offend the extraterritoriality doctrine. View "Online Merchants Guild v. Cameron" on Justia Law

In 2016, Harvey pleaded guilty to distributing a controlled substance. He was sentenced to 156 months’ imprisonment. Harvey filed an unsuccessful section 2255 motion for habeas corpus relief claiming ineffective assistance of counsel. On June 12, 2020, Harvey sought compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(1)(A), arguing that “[t]he ongoing coronavirus pandemic presents extraordinary and compelling reasons where a defendant is susceptible to infection,” he cited his “chronic bronchitis” and the spread of COVID-19 cases at the facility in which he was incarcerated.The district court denied Harvey’s motion without holding a hearing. The one-page form stated that the court considered the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors and applicable Sentencing Commission policy statement. A checked box stated: “DENIED after complete review of the motion on the merits.” Weeks later, the court filed a five-page “OPINION." The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The form order was not necessarily procedurally defective; the facts in the record provide a reasonable basis for the denial of Harvey’s motion. Harvey admitted “that he had been selling drugs for over a year”; the prosecutor asserted at sentencing that Harvey’s house contained “a gun” and “ammunition”; Harvey had earlier drug-related convictions and had served only about 25% of his custodial sentence. The record can be read to support the conclusion that section 3553(a) did not favor Harvey’s release. View "United States v. Harvey" on Justia Law

Nian worked as a home healthcare mentor for a family with a special-needs child, “SG.” After one visit, SG’s sister, JCG, claimed that Nian entered her room, tried to kiss her, put his hands on her private areas, and then pulled down her leggings and tried to perform oral sex on her. Her mother called the police and took JCG to the hospital. Nian was found guilty of rape by cunnilingus. Nian later sought a new trial, based on an affidavit from a juror, Cox, stating that another juror had introduced into deliberations facts about Nian being from Sierra Leone and having a prior criminal record, which she felt influenced the verdict. After holding an evidentiary hearing, the court excluded Cox’s testimony under Ohio Rule of Evidence 606(B) (aliunde rule) and denied Nian’s request for a new trial. The court stated that it questioned the credibility of the proffered testimony. The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed.The Sixth Circuit reversed the denial of Nian’s petition for habeas relief. it is a constitutional error for a state court to use Ohio’s aliunde rule to exclude evidence of a jury’s consideration of extraneous information. This is not the rare case where the introduction of extraneous information was harmless. View "Nian v. Warden, North Central Correctional Institution" on Justia Law

When the state called Blackwell to testify at Miller's trial for the 1995 murder of Rice, she claimed that she could not remember anything about the day in question. Out of the jury’s presence, the judge sent Blackwell to jail to read statements that she had given to police shortly after the murder and notes that Miller’s investigator took when speaking with her. Blackwell returned to court and testified, consistently with her police statement, that the morning after the murder, she saw Miller in a car that looked like Rice’s and that Miller told her that Rice was dead before anyone else could have known. During cross-examination, Miller’s attorney asked Blackwell how she had regained her memory. Blackwell replied: “I don’t want to go to jail.”The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial. Blackwell was unavailable. Rather than allow all of Blackwell’s testimony to be read to the jury, the court carved “any reference of incarceration or intimidation.” The jury never heard Blackwell’s statement that she did not want to go to jail. The rest of the prosecution’s case relied heavily on the testimony of a single eyewitness, who had credibility problems. Convicted, Miller received a life sentence. The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Miller’s claim that the court erred in admitting Blackwell’s redacted testimony.The Sixth Circuit reversed a denial of habeas corpus relief. Confrontation of an adverse witness necessarily entails that the trier of fact be allowed to learn the material results of that confrontation. The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals' application of Supreme Court Confrontation Clause jurisprudence was objectively unreasonable. View "Miller v. Genovese" on Justia Law

The Shelby County Sheriff’s Department dispatcher alerted three deputies that a 911 caller, Nancy Lewellyn, had told the dispatcher that she was suicidal, that she had a gun (possibly a .45 caliber pistol), and that she would kill anyone who came to her residence. Each squad car was equipped with a dashboard camera, which recorded video, sound, and the time of day. At 12:14 p.m., Lewellyn walked outside and turned toward her driveway, carrying in her right hand a BB handgun that resembled a .45 caliber pistol. She began to raise that handgun. The deputies yelled to her then fired shots. Lewellyn continued walking with her right arm extended and the pistol pointing toward her car, Lewellyn leaned on its hood briefly, then turned back toward the house. The shooting continued. Llewellyn collapsed; 11 seconds had elapsed since she exited her house. Ten shots were fired. Lewellyn had deposited the handgun on the sedan’s hood before turning back. The deputies approached and discovered that she was unarmed. Lewellyn died at the scene.In a suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, the district court rejected the deputies’ claims of qualified immunity. The Sixth Circuit vacated. The reasonableness of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than in hindsight. The “facts and circumstances” support the deputies’ contention that reasonable officers would perceive that Lewellyn posed an immediate threat to their safety. View "Cunningham v. Shelby County" on Justia Law