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

Plaintiff, a 63-year-old, was gardening at her son's house when an officer, disguised as a mailman, delivered a package containing ketamine. She spoke to the officer and accepted the package. Officers executed a warrant 30 minutes later. Plaintiff, unable to get up and down because of arthritis, was pushed to the ground and held down for 10 minutes and heard the click of a gun. A friend of plaintiff's son, a guest in the house, admitted that the package was his; he was removed. Plaintiff was detained for about two hours while the house was searched. The district court and Eleventh Circuit rejected plaintiff's Fourth Amendment claims. Although the warrant referred to persons within the dwelling, and plaintiff was outside, the initial detention was reasonable in light of the facts known to officers at the time. After officers determined that plaintiff was no threat, continued detention in the house was reasonable during the diligently-pursued search. The force employed was minimal and reasonable despite officers' knowledge that plaintiff was an elderly woman, wearing only a one-piece bathing suit, and was known by officers to be infirm.

The court sua sponte modified its previous opinion in this appeal to reflect recent developments in the law of the First and Seventh Circuits. At issue was whether the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (FSA), Pub. L. No. 111-120, 124 Stat. 2372, applied to defendants who committed crack cocaine offenses before August 3, 2010, the date of its enactment, but who were sentenced thereafter. The court held that the general savings clause could not bar application of the FSA to sentencing conducted after its August 3, 2010 enactment. Accordingly, the court remanded defendant's case to the district court for resentencing.

Plaintiff, owner and operator of a flat-rate ground transportation service, filed a lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, claiming that the Hillsborough County Public Transportation Commission's (Commission) regulations required him to obtain certificates and permits for his vehicles were preempted by 49 U.S.C. 14501, also known as the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century. Specifically, plaintiff contended that section 14501(a)(1)(C) preempted the Commission's regulation regarding his 15-passenger vehicle and section 14501(c)(1) preempted the Commission's regulation regarding his 7-passenger minivan. The court affirmed the district court's decision rejecting plaintiff's first argument and adopted that court's reasoning. The court also held that, because plaintiff transported property only as an ancillary service to the transportation of passengers he was not a "[m]otor carrier of property" under section 14501(c). Consequently, it followed that the provision and its subparts did not preempt the Commission's luxury service transportation rule. Accordingly, the district court correctly granted summary judgment to the Commission.

In this reverse discrimination case under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq., and 42 U.S.C. 1981, plaintiff, a white male, claimed that his former employer discriminated against him on account of his race in terminating his employment. At issue was whether the district court misapplied the summary judgment standard to the evidence presented. Based on the totality of the circumstances, the court held that the record contained sufficient circumstantial evidence from which a jury could infer that the employer displayed a racially discriminatory animus toward plaintiff when it fired him in May 2005. Consequently, plaintiff presented a case sufficient to withstand the employer's motion for summary judgment. Therefore, the judgment of the district court was vacated and remanded for further proceedings.

Martin J. Bradley III and his father, Martin J. Bradley, Jr. (collectively, the Bradleys), owned Bio-Med Plus, Inc. (Bio-Med), a Miami-based pharmaceutical wholesaler that purchased and sold blood-derivatives. This case stemmed from multiple schemes to defraud the Florida and California Medicaid programs by causing them to pay for blood-derivative medications more than once. The Government chose to prosecute the schemes and a grand jury indicted eight individuals, including Albert L. Tellechea, and two companies, Bio-Med, and Interland Associates, Inc. The Bradleys, Bio-Med, and Tellechea subsequently appealed their convictions and raised several issues on appeal. The court affirmed the Bradleys', Bio-Med's, and Tellechea's convictions, and Bradley III's and Bio-Med's sentences. The court vacated Bradley, Jr.'s sentences on Counts I and 54 and Tellechea's sentence on Count 3, and remanded those counts for resentencing. The court reversed the district court's October 4, 2006 order appointing the receiver and monitor, and its supplemental receivership order of May 17, 2007. The court finally held that, as soon as circumstances allowed, the receivership should be brought to an immediate close.

Petitioner appealed the denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 habeas corpus petition challenging his death sentence after he was convicted of murdering two people. At issue was whether defendant was denied his Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights to effective assistance of counsel when the trial court denied his requests to remove his lawyer and his lawyer's requests to withdraw and when his lawyer failed to investigate and to present mitigating evidence at resentencing in addition to that which the lawyer presented at the original sentencing. The court held that defendant was not denied effective assistance of counsel and in applying the deferential review standard mandated by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. 2254(d)(1), (d)(2), the Florida Supreme Court's ruling was not contrary to, and did not involve an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law and was not based on an unreasonable determination of the facts. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of habeas corpus relief.

This case stemmed from defendant's spree of murder and mayhem that covered three counties of rural Georgia. Defendant was convicted of malice murder, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. Defendant was sentenced to death and appealed the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. At issue was whether the prosecution's exercise of six peremptory challenges against six black members of the jury venire on the basis of race was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Also at issue was whether certain arguments made by the prosecutor amounted to misconduct that deprived defendant of a fair trial. The court held that the adjudication of defendant's Batson claims and prosecutorial misconduct claims by the Supreme Court of Georgia was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law, and was not an unreasonable determination of the facts. Therefore, the court held that, after careful review of the record, defendant's claims lacked merit. The court further held that three remaining claims raised by defendant also failed. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction and sentence.

In May 2010, defendant pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute 50 grams or more of cocaine base and two counts of distributing 5 grams or more of cocaine. Defendant's sentencing was scheduled for August 3, 2010, which was the date on which President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 ("FSA"), Pub. L. No. 111-120, 124 Stat. 2372. At issue was whether the FSA applied to defendants who committed crack cocaine offenses before August 3, 2010, but who were sentenced thereafter. The court held that the general savings statute, 1 U.S.C. 109, could not bar application of the FSA to sentencing conducted after its August 3, 2010 enactment. Accordingly, the court remanded defendant's case to the district court for resentencing.

Defendant appealed his felony drug offenses and his sentence enhancement based on two prior felony drug offenses. At issue was whether there was sufficient evidence to support his convictions; whether there were cumulative errors at trial that prejudiced him to the extent that he was entitled to a new trial; and whether the Government properly filed and served its 21 U.S.C. 851 notice of enhanced sentence. The court found that the first two issues lacked merit and focused its analysis on the Government's service of the notice of enhancement. The court held that defendant was not served before trial with a copy of the information in accordance with section 851(a)(1) and therefore, the district court lacked authority to impose an enhanced sentence on Counts I and Counts II. Accordingly, the court vacated defendant's mandatory term of life imprisonment on Count I and ten year sentence on Count II and remanded with instructions to resentence him on those counts without the enhancement. The court affirmed the judgment of the convictions on all counts.

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Pakistan, petitioned for review of the BIA's decision upholding the IJ's denial of his request for discretionary relief and order of removal. At issue was whether an attorney rendered ineffective assistance when he conceded, at a second removal hearing, that petitioner had sought to procure an immigration benefit through willful misrepresentation of a material fact in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(6)(C)(i); 1227(a)(1)(A). The court denied the petition for review and held that substantial evidence supported the finding by the BIA that the attorney's decision to concede removability was a reasonable strategic decision.