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

Henness was convicted of offenses including aggravated murder from conduct occurring in 1992 and was sentenced to death. Henness challenged Ohio’s method of execution under 42 U.S.C. 1983. As his execution date approached, Henness moved to stay his execution, arguing that Ohio's drug protocol (500 milligrams of midazolam, a paralytic agent, and potassium chloride) was likely to cause him to suffer a painful death, and that, given the availability of significantly less painful alternative methods of execution, the use of that protocol would violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Though Henness presented expert testimony, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of relief. Neither pulmonary edema nor associated symptoms qualify as serious pain prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Midazolam may cause suffocation but the Eighth Amendment only prohibits forms of punishment that seek to intensify an inmate’s death by “superadd[ing]” feelings of “terror, pain, or disgrace.” Henness did not establish that midazolam is incapable of suppressing his consciousness enough to prevent him from experiencing constitutionally problematic pain. Even if Ohio’s protocol were very likely to cause severe pain, Henness’s proposed alternative method, secobarbital, is not a viable alternative. Secobarbital can, in some instances, take days to cause death. A state may decline to use even a feasible alternative if it has a legitimate reason for doing so. Choosing not to be the first state to experiment with a new method of execution is a legitimate reason. View "In re: Ohio Execution Protocol Litigation" on Justia Law

The Black Lung Benefits Act, 30 U.S.C. 901–44, provides federal funds to individuals totally disabled by a respiratory disease commonly caused by coal mine employment. The Secretary of Labor has broad implementation authority. When a miner applies for benefits, a Labor Department “district director” investigates and issues a proposed order, from which a party may request a hearing before an administrative law judge. The ALJ holds a hearing and issues a decision. A party may appeal a “substantial question of law or fact” to the Benefits Review Board. After exhausting these steps, a party may obtain judicial review of the Board's final order.Labor Department staff (not the Secretary) had been appointing the ALJs. The Constitution’s Appointments Clause dictates that Congress may place the appointment power for “inferior Officers” only in the President, the courts, or the “Heads of Departments.” In 2017, anticipating that the Supreme Court might address the issue, the Secretary ratified the appointments of existing ALJs. Months later, the Court held (Lucia) that an SEC ALJ was an inferior officer who had been unconstitutionally appointed.A former miner and an operator unsuccessfully moved for reconsideration of adverse decisions, arguing for the first time that the Secretary had not appointed their ALJs. The Board found the arguments “waived.” The Sixth Circuit agreed. The Act requires exhaustion. Parties are normally prohibited from raising new issues at the rehearing stage. The Board had the authority to address this constitutional issue and provide effective relief; there were many cases in which it did so for parties who preserved their claims. No exception applies; the parties did not demonstrate exceptional circumstances. View "Island Creek Coal Co. v. Bryan" on Justia Law

Tennessee’s Billboard Act, enacted to comply with the Federal Highway Beautification Act, 23 U.S.C. 131, provides that anyone intending to post a sign along a roadway must apply to the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) for a permit unless the sign falls within one of the Act’s exceptions. One exception applies to signage “advertising activities conducted on the property on which [the sign is] located.” Thomas owned a billboard on an otherwise vacant lot and posted a sign on it supporting the 2012 U.S. Summer Olympics Team. Tennessee ordered him to remove it because TDOT had denied him a permit and the sign did not qualify for the “on-premises” exception, given that there were no activities on the lot to which the sign could possibly refer. Thomas argued that the Act violated the First Amendment. The Sixth Circuit affirmed that the Act is unconstitutional. The on-premises exception was content-based and subject to strict scrutiny. Whether the Act limits on-premises signs to only certain messages or limits certain messages from on-premises locations, the limitation depends on the content of the message. It does not limit signs from or to locations regardless of the messages. The provision was not severable from the rest of the Act. View "Thomas v. Bright" on Justia Law

Senator Rand Paul was mowing his lawn when he stopped to gather a few limbs in his path. Without warning, Boucher—Paul’s next-door neighbor, whom he had not spoken with in years—raced toward Paul and attacked him from behind. The impact broke six of Paul’s ribs, caused long-lasting damage to his lung, and led to several bouts of pneumonia. Boucher pleaded guilty to assaulting a member of Congress, 18 U.S.C. 351(e). Although his Guidelines sentencing range was 21-27 months in prison, the district court sentenced him to 30 days’ imprisonment. After denying Boucher’s motion to dismiss the government’s appeal, the Sixth Circuit vacated the sentence as substantively unreasonable and remanded for resentencing. Boucher may or may not be entitled to a downward variance after the district court reweighs the relevant 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors; the court gave undue weight to Boucher’s lack of political motivation in committing the assault and to his markers of “privilege,” such as his education, profession, and community standing, and did not adequately consider the seriousness of the offense of to sentencing disparities. View "United States v. Boucher" on Justia Law

In 2016, Torres sued his former employer, Precision, alleging that the company had fired him for seeking benefits under Tennessee’s Workers’ Compensation Law. Precision argued that it had not retaliated against Torres and that, even if it had, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 preempted any remedy because Torres had not been authorized to work in the United States, 100 Stat. 3359. The district court granted Precision judgment on the preemption ground without making any factual findings as to the state law claim. The Sixth Circuit vacated. The court skipped past the question of whether state law had been violated in the first place. Under “well-established principles of constitutional avoidance,” the Sixth Circuit declined to address the hypothetical presented by the appeal. Judicial restraint principles apply as much to a question of preemption as to any other question of constitutional law. View "Torres v. Precision Industries, Inc." on Justia Law

The IRS searched Ellis’s apartment and found personal identifying information for more than 400 people on printouts from the Alabama Department of Corrections’ database and in a TurboTax database on laptops seized from Ellis’s bedroom. Her computers had been used to file hundreds of electronic tax returns in 2008-2012. Ellis was charged with devising a scheme to submit fraudulent tax returns in “2012,” including eight counts of wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1343, and eight counts of aggravated identity theft, 18 U.S.C. 1028A(a)(1), (c)(5) and 18 U.S.C. 2. After the government admitted that some of Agent Ward’s grand jury statements had been wrong, Ellis unsuccessfully moved to dismiss the indictment. The court found that the “inaccurate statements did not have a substantial influence" given "overwhelming other evidence he presented.” Agent Ward testified that the intended loss from Ellis’s scheme was approximately $700,000, based on the total requested refunds, not the actual refunds. The court agreed and applied a 12-step ioffense level increase (U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b)(1)(H)), with a resulting Guidelines range for the wire fraud counts of 51-71 months. The court imposed a 48-month sentence for wire fraud and a consecutive, mandatory, 24-month sentence for aggravated identity theft and ordered forfeiture of $11,670, the total of the eight tax returns for which Ellis was convicted. The court imposed the government’s requested $352,183.20, in restitution to governmental entities. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of the motion to dismiss, the calculation of the forfeiture, and the restitution order, rejecting arguments that the government had not presented evidence that all of the refunds used to calculate restitution were part of the same scheme and that some of that amount was tied to conduct that occurred outside of the limitations period. View "United States v. Ellis" on Justia Law

Goodrich operated chemical-manufacturing plants at a Calvert City, Kentucky industrial site. In 1988, the Environmental Protection Agency designated the site a “Superfund Site” subject to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. 9601. PolyOne and Westlake disputed their share of the cleanup costs. The parties entered a settlement agreement in 2007: PolyOne must reimburse Westlake for 100% of “allocable costs,” and every five years, either party may demand arbitration to modify the amount or allocation of costs. Either party may file a complaint in federal court for a “de novo judicial determination” of which costs are allocable after the arbitration panel has issued an award. The arbitration award becomes null-and-void upon the filing of a complaint; the Agreement prohibits either party from even admitting the arbitration award into evidence. PolyOne requested a declaration that the judicial-relief provision is invalid under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. 9 and that the Agreement’s other arbitration provisions are unenforceable. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of injunctive and declaratory relief. PolyOne has a strong case but its prior conduct does not align with its present position. Twice, PolyOne demanded arbitration. PolyOne seeks to enjoin the very arbitration it demanded in 2017. The court withheld judgment on whether PolyOne has waived its ability to challenge the arbitration provisions in the future. View "PolyOne Corp. v. Westlake Vinyls, Inc." on Justia Law

In 1968, the Hamilton County, Ohio Board of County Commissioners and Cincinnati consolidated their sewer districts into a single sewer system and entered an agreement providing that the city would manage the sewer system’s operations, subject to County oversight, for 50 years. After the city indicated that it planned to unilaterally withdraw from the agreement in 2018, the Board sought judicial intervention. The district court found that the city’s withdrawal would interfere with environmental remediation projects that the city and Board had committed to implement under a 2004 consent decree. The court temporarily extended the term of the 1968 agreement, enjoining the city’s withdrawal pursuant to the court’s inherent power to enforce consent decrees. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The district court did not abuse its discretion in granting the temporary injunction because doing so was necessary to enforce the terms and objectives of the 2004 consent decree. District courts possess broad authority to enforce the terms of consent decrees, even where doing so requires interfering with municipal prerogatives or commitments. View "United States v. Board of County Commissioners of Hamilton County" on Justia Law

The Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence. The court held that petitioner could not prevail on his ineffective assistance of counsel claim because, even assuming that counsel provided deficient advice, petitioner failed to establish a reasonable probability that he would have appealed had he received competent advice from counsel. In this case, not only was petitioner's likelihood of success on appeal quite low, but even if he were to succeed on appeal, he also would have likely faced a harsher sentence than he originally received. Therefore, these were strong indicators that petitioner would not have appealed had his counsel given him accurate information. View "Neill v. United States" on Justia Law

Bullard was charged with trafficking heroin and as a felon in possession of a firearm. He unsuccessfully moved to suppress the evidence, then entered a plea agreement that recognized that Bullard could face 10 years to life in prison and that Bullard “may be classified as a career offender.” Bullard had a 2003 Arizona conviction for attempting to sell cocaine and a 2013 Ohio conviction for selling drugs. The court determined that Bullard qualified as a career offender, putting his Guidelines range at 292-365 months. Without the enhancement, Bullard’s range would have been 92-115 months. The court varied downward, sentencing Bullard to 140 months. Bullard had agreed that the convictions made him a career offender. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of his motion to suppress. Bullard then sought habeas relief, arguing that the court misclassified him as a career offender and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel when his attorneys failed to challenge this designation. Bullard argued that the Arizona statute criminalized drugs that are not federally controlled and conduct that falls outside the Guidelines’ definition. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of relief. If Bullard were sentenced today, he would not be a career offender but he is not on direct review. Bullard’s claim that the court misclassified him, resulting in a higher recommended sentence is not cognizable on section 2255 collateral review. While his ineffective assistance claim is cognizable, Bullard cannot satisfy the Strickland standard. View "Bullard v. United States" on Justia Law