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

Plaintiff, a Georgia state prisoner proceeding pro se, appealed the district court's sua sponte dismissal, under 42 U.S.C. 1997e(a) and 28 U.S.C. 1915A, of his 42 U.S.C. 1983 civil rights action. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court erred in dismissing his claims. The court held, and the state conceded, that the district court erred in dismissing without prejudice defendant's dental treatment claim on the basis that it was "clear from the face of the complaint" that defendant had not exhausted his administrative remedies with regard to this claim. The court held, however, that there was no merit in defendant's remaining claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded in part.

The United States appealed an award of attorney's fees and costs under the Hyde Amendment, Pub. L. No. 105-119, section 617, 111 Stat. 2440, 2519, and two attorneys, Sean Cronin and Andrea Hoffman, appeal public reprimands entered against them based on their work as Assistant United States Attorneys in an underlying criminal action marked by hard adversarial tactics. The court held that the district court abused its discretion when it imposed sanctions against the United States for a prosecution that was objectively reasonable, and the district court violated the constitutional right to due process of the two lead prosecutors, when it denied them notice of any charges of misconduct and an opportunity to be heard. Therefore, the court vacated the award of attorney's fees and costs against the United States and the public reprimand of Cronin and Hoffman, but the court denied the request of Cronin and Hoffman that the court reassign the case to a different district judge at this stage.

Petitioner appealed the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2241. Petitioner was subject to the 1976 Parole Commission and Reorganization Act, 18 U.S.C. 4101-4218, because he was incarcerated for an offense he committed prior to the effective date of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, specifically, petitioner was serving a life sentence for the 1976 murder of a U.S. Park Ranger. At issue was whether the U.S. Parole Commission engaged in "unauthorized action" during petitioner's mandatory parole proceedings. The court held that the Commission was engaged in such unlawful action, which impermissibly tainted the Commission's June 14, 2005 decision reopening petitioner's mandatory parole proceedings.

Appellant appealed the district court's judgment denying it sovereign immunity protection as an arm of the state of Alabama. Appellee contended that appellant was sufficiently independent from the state of Alabama, that it was not entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity, and that her claim under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., should be allowed to continue. At issue was whether appellant was an arm of the state. The court held that at this time, appellant was not entitled to sovereign immunity protection as an arm of the state of Alabama where the state court found that an entity was not an arm of the state. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

The city filed a complaint in admiralty against defendant, a vessel, claiming that defendant committed the maritime tort of trespass because it remained at the city marina after the city explicitly revoked its consent, and seeking to foreclose its maritime lien for necessaries (unpaid dockage provided to defendant by the city). Claimant, owner of the vessel, appealed from the district court's entry of an order of summary judgment and an order of final judgment for the city in an in rem proceeding against defendant. The court held that the district court did not err in concluding that it had federal admiralty jurisdiction over defendant where defendant was a "vessel" for purposes of admiralty jurisdiction; the district court's factual findings regarding the amount claimant owed under the city's maritime lien for necessaries were not clearly erroneous; the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to the city on claimant's affirmative defense of retaliation; the district court correctly concluded that the city was not estopped from bringing its action in admiralty against defendant; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to apply collateral estoppel because the issues at stake were significantly different from those in dispute in the state court proceeding. Accordingly, the district court's orders were affirmed.

Defendant was indicted in October 2006 of conspiring to "possess with the intent to distribute, and to distribute, 50 grams or more of cocaine base (crack) and 5 kilograms or more of cocaine hydrochloride (powder)." In September 2007, defendant pleaded guilty to the lesser-included offense of conspiracy to distribute an unspecified quantity of both identified drugs. Defendant subsequently appealed substantive and procedural aspects of his 151 months imprisonment. The court held that because there was no basis to disturb the ruling, or any of the other decisions defendant challenged, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

This appeal stemmed from a violent drug conspiracy in South Florida that involved a number of criminals. The four whose joint trial led to this appeal were Daniel "D.V." Varela, Liana "The Negra" Lopez, Ricardo "Rick" Sanchez, and Daniel "Homer" Troya. During their crime wave, Troya and Sanchez carjacked a fellow drug dealer and shot him to death, as well as his wife and their two young children. Lopez and Varela, on appeal, raised several issues, the primary one being that they should not have been jointly tried with Troya and Sanchez. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying the motions for severance and proceeding with a joint trial of all four conspirators who resided in the "Thug Mansion." The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Varela's motion to sever the felon-in-possession charges against him from the other charges; by requiring that all four of the defendants agree on the exercise of any peremptory challenges; in denying Varela's motion to suppress the results of the October 25 search of the "Thug Mansion;" and by allowing Varela's former cocaine customers to testify about their dealings with him. The court further held that the mandatory life sentence of life imprisonment that 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(A) provided did not violate the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause in light of United States v. Willis. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Count One of the multi-count indictment in this case charged Robert and Patrick Singletary, and others, with conspiring between 1997 and September 16, 2004, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371, to commit three offenses: (1) to defraud a federally insured bank, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1344; (2) to make false representations with respect to material facts to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1001; and (3) to defraud purchasers of residential property and mortgage lenders, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1343. The Singletarys eventually pled guilty to Count One to the extent that it alleged a conspiracy to commit the section 1343 offense in addition to the section 1001 offense. At issue was whether the district court abused its discretion in ordering restitution in the sum of $1 million. The court held that the district court failed to determine by a preponderance of the evidence which of the 56 mortgages the loan officers handled was obtained through a false "gift" letter, a false "credit explanation" letter, or a false employment verification form; and where fraud was found, to determine the extent of the actual loss HUD could have incurred due to the mortgage's foreclosure. Accordingly, the court vacated the restitution provisions and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiffs brought this action challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119, amended by Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (HCERA), Pub. L. No. 111-152, 124 Stat. 1029 (Act). The government subsequently appealed the district court's ruling that the individual mandate was unconstitutional and the district court's severability holding. The state plaintiffs cross-appealed the district court's ruling on their Medicaid expansion claim. The court held that the Act's Medicaid expansion was constitutional. The court also held that the individual mandate was enacted as a regulatory penalty, not a revenue-raising tax, and could not be sustained as an exercise of Congress's power under the Taxing and Spending Clause; the individual mandate exceeded Congress's enumerated commerce power and was unconstitutional; and the individual mandate, however, could be severed from the remainder of the Act's myriad of reforms. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part the judgment of the district court.

Defendant appealed his convictions for conspiracy to commit wire fraud using a computer, accessing a protected computer without authorization with intent to defraud, and three counts of aggravated identify theft where defendant's convictions arose from a scheme he and his co-conspirators concocted to access Florida A&M University's internet-based grading system. Defendant also appealed his sentence, contending that his 84 month prison sentence was procedurally and substantively unreasonable. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the challenged Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) evidence; by preventing cross-examination on his pending state burglary charges; and by giving instructions to the jury regarding two distinct statutory conspiracies. The court also held that the evidence was sufficient to support his convictions on Counts Three, Four, and Five for aggravated identity theft and any error in the jury instructions did not adversely affect the outcome of the trial or the substantial rights of defendant. The court further held that, upon consideration of the parties' briefs and review of the record, based on the totality of the circumstances, defendant's low-end Guidelines range sentence was consistent with the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors and was therefore reasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.