Justia U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g), and sentenced to 80 months' imprisonment. At issue was whether the enhancement defendant received for possession of a firearm under U.S.S.G. 2D1.1(b)(1), which the district court applied based on the cross-reference provision in the guideline applicable to firearm offenses, constituted impermissible double counting. The court held that because defendant's guideline range for his drug possession was higher than his guideline range for possession of a firearm, the court properly applied the cross-reference provision in U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(c)(1)(A) and properly calculated defendant's sentencing range using section 2D1.1. Therefore, inclusion of the firearm enhancement under section 2D1.1(b)(1) did not constitute double counting and defendant's sentence was affirmed.

Defendant appealed his convictions for mail fraud and interstate transportation of forged securities, and his restitution order. The court concluded that the district court committed no error in admitting the Rule 404(b) evidence at issue; the evidence presented to the jury was sufficient to sustain defendant's convictions; and the district court did not err in including certain transactions in the restitution order. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

This appeal involved the district court's entry of a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of Alabama Act No. 3010-761 (Act). The Act would prohibit a state or local government employee from arranging "by payroll deduction or otherwise" the payment of any contribution for "political activity." The district court found that the statute impinged on important free speech rights protected by the First Amendment and that appellees were likely to succeed in showing the Act was both overbroad in its restrictions and unduly vague as to what constituted political activity. The court concluded that the constitutional question before it turned upon a question of state law and therefore delayed final judgment as to the preliminary injunction until the Alabama Supreme Court had an opportunity to render is interpretation of the Act by answering the court's certified questions.

Plaintiff, operator of two pen pal services, brought a civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983 alleging that the FDOC's Pen Pal Solicitation Rule, which prohibited inmates from soliciting pen pals, violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Appellants sought to enjoin the FDOC officials from banning all pen pal solicitation correspondence between the entities that appellants operated and Florida inmates, arguing that the rule substantially burdened their programs and deprived them of due process. The court affirmed the district court because the FDOC rule was rationally related to a legitimate penological interest and that the FDOC did not violate appellants' due process rights.

Defendant appealed his conviction for conspiracy to defraud the United States by obtaining false tax refunds. On appeal, defendant argued that the magistrate judge's comments at the in camera hearing amounted to improper participation in his plea discussions, requiring that his conviction be vacated. The court agreed that the magistrate's comments amounted to judicial participation in plea discussions and the record reflected that defendant pled guilty after these comments were made. Under the court's binding precedent, defendant need not show any individualized prejudice. Accordingly, the court vacated defendant's conviction and remanded for further proceedings.

Petitioner's, an Alabama death-row inmate, 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition was partially granted by the district court on his claim that his sentence violated the fair-warning requirement of the Due Process Clause because it was based on Ex parte Kyzer, which was decided after he committed his offense and was retroactively applied to his case. The Alabama Supreme Court's interpretation of its death penalty statute in Kyzer - that the charge averred in the indictment could be used as the aggravating circumstance for a judge to impose the death penalty - provided the required, and only, aggravating circumstance for petitioner to receive the death penalty when he was resentenced in 1986. Based on a clear reading of Alabama law, the court held that petitioner was not eligible for the death penalty. Therefore, petitioner was entitled to habeas relief because his death sentence violated the fair-warning requirement of the Due Process Clause as it was based on Kyzer, which was an "unforeseeable and retroactive judicial expansion of narrow and precise statutory language."

Plaintiff filed a petition for rehearing en banc, which also operated as a petition for panel rehearing. The court granted the petition and vacated its earlier opinion. This appeal involved plaintiff's claim under 41 U.S.C. 1981, for racial discrimination based on Tyson Foods' failure to promote him to shift manager at its Gadsden, Alabama chicken processing plant. Plaintiff challenged the district court's judgment vacating the jury's punitive damages award. Tyson Foods challenged the district court's refusal to enter judgment in its favor based on the law of the case, the district court's denial of its motion for judgment as a matter of law based on insufficient evidence of discrimination, a number of evidentiary rulings the court made, and the court's refusal to order remittitur of the jury's award of compensatory damages. The court addressed each issue and ultimately affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Plaintiff was enrolled in the Counselor Education Program at Augusta State University (ASU), seeking to obtain her master's degree in school counseling. Plaintiff subsequently filed an action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that requiring her to complete a remediation plan addressing what the faculty perceived as deficiencies in her ability to be a multiculturally competent counselor violated her First Amendment free speech and free exercise rights. Plaintiff also filed a motion for a preliminary injunction that would prevent ASU's officials from dismissing her from the program if she did not complete the remediation plan. The district court denied her motion for a preliminary injunction and plaintiff appealed. The court held that because plaintiff failed to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits with respect to her free speech and free exercise claims, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying her motion for a preliminary injunction.

In 1987, defendant was convicted of first degree rape. In 2009, defendant was convicted for conspiracy to violate federal drug laws. Because of defendant's earlier youthful offender adjudication on the rape charge, in sentencing him on the federal drug charge the court imposed as a condition of supervised release that he register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 U.S.C. 16901, et seq. At issue was whether it violated the Ex Post Facto Clause to require a defendant who was convicted of a post-SORNA crime that was not a sex offense to register as a condition of supervised release because of a pre-SORNA, Alabama Youthful Offender Act conviction that was a sex offense. The court held that when Congress enacted SORNA, Congress did not intend to impose additional punishment for past sex offenses but instead wanted to put into place a civil and non-punitive regulatory scheme. The court also held that SORNA was not so punitive in effect, as applied to those convicted of sex offenses under the Alabama statute, as to negate the intention that it be a civil regulatory scheme. Therefore, the court rejected defendant's ex post facto claim.

Petitioner was convicted in Florida state court of armed burglary and first-degree murder and a death sentence was imposed. On appeal, petitioner argued that he was entitled to habeas relief because the state withheld material exculpatory evidence and knowingly presented false or misleading evidence to the jury at his trial. Petitioner also contended that the sentencing state court, in its sentencing order, erred in relying on deposition testimony that was not presented in open court either at the guilt or the penalty phase. The court held that petitioner had not carried his burden of establishing that the state court's factual determinations were unreasonable, and therefore petitioner had also not established that Brady v. Maryland and Giglio v. United States were contravened or unreasonably applied by the Florida Supreme Court. The court also held that petitioner had not carried his burden of demonstrating that the Florida Supreme Court's conclusion that the sentencer's reference to non-trial testimony was contrary to or involved an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent. Accordingly, the district court's order denying petitioner's habeas petition was affirmed.