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

In March 2017, a woman contacted police explaining that the defendant, her ex-boyfriend, was having sex with her 14-year-old sister. When the girl’s family confronted her, she acknowledged that she was communicating with the defendant over social media, had sent him nude pictures, and that they had sex. The defendant’s cell phone contained nude pictures of the girl. The defendant was charged with various sex offenses in a seven-count indictment. During his arrest, officers confiscated the defendant's second cell phone, which contained additional inculpatory evidence.The district court denied the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence found in his home during a warrantless search, from one of his cellphones obtained from his work, and his statements to detectives. The defendant was ultimately convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment plus a consecutive ten-year mandatory minimum sentence.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The officers had consent to enter the defendant’s home to obtain his cell phone. Once officers reviewed the phone, they then developed probable cause to search the defendant’s second cell phone. The court also rejected the defendant’s challenges to the computation of his sentence. View "USA v. Romeo Valentin Sanchez" on Justia Law

Under its Social Media Policy, Defendants, the Palm Beach County Fire Rescue Department, disciplined appellants, two firefighters who work for the department. The termination resulted from an exchange the appellants had on an invitation-only social medial page associated with one of Appellant’s campaigns for the presidency of the local firefighters’ union. Appellants accused Defendants of conspiring to misuse member-donated paid time off. The court reviewed the case by examining four factors developed from Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968), and Connick v. Myer, 461 U.S. 138 (1983). The court held that the district court (“DC”) erred in finding that Appellants’ speech did not address a matter of public concern at step one of the four-part test.Further, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the DC’s dismissal of Appellants’ free-association claim, finding that it is a free speech claim at its core. Finally, the court found that the Social Media Policy in question suffers from “astonishing breadth,” as it expressly prohibits “disseminating content” that “could be reasonably interpreted as having an adverse effect upon Fire Rescue morale, discipline, operations, the safety of staff, or perception of the public.” The court vacated the DC’s summary judgment on the overbreadth claim and affirmed the DC’s decision rejecting Appellants’ facial-vagueness claim. View "AJ O'Laughlin, et al. v. Palm Beach County" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit vacated the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's Americans with Disabilities lawsuit based on lack of Article III standing, concluding that plaintiff has at least alleged an Article III qualifying stigmatic injury. In this case, plaintiff alleged that she suffered a concrete injury when she viewed a hotel's website that omitted accessibility-related information required by federal regulations and as a result, she says, experienced "frustration and humiliation"—even though she admits that she had (and has) no intention to personally visit the hotel.Despite the absence of a close common-law comparator, the court concluded that under existing precedent plaintiff has alleged a concrete intangible injury. The court explained that plaintiff's allegations satisfy Article III under a narrower reading of Sierra v. City of Hallandale Beach, 996 F.3d 1110 (11th Cir. 2021). Because she claims not only that she suffered illegal discrimination but also that the discrimination resulted in "frustration and humiliation" and a "sense of isolation and segregation," the court concluded that plaintiff has adequately pleaded a concrete stigmatic injury. And because her emotional injury is her emotional injury, it affects her "in a personal and individual way" and is therefore sufficiently particularized. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Laufer v. Arpan LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action against University officials, alleging that the University's policy requiring a permit to engage in public speech on the University's sidewalk violated his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The Eleventh Circuit previously concluded, among other things, that plaintiff had not shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of his case and agreed with the district court that the sidewalk at issue is a limited public forum and thus the University's permit requirement needed to be only reasonable and view-point neutral.In this appeal, after careful consideration and with the benefit of oral argument—and even assuming that the City of Tuscaloosa owns the sidewalk at issue—the Eleventh Circuit disagreed with plaintiff that any facts material to its analysis have changed. Accordingly, the court again concluded that the sidewalk is a limited public forum. The court also reviewed the permitting requirement and found that the policy provisions on leafletting were reasonable, and that plaintiff's actions do not fall within the "casual recreational and social activities" exception. The court concluded that the University's advance-notice requirement was reasonable where the University phrases the ten-day advance-notice period in terms of "should," not "must," and the record contains no evidence that the University has rejected an application simply because it was not submitted ten days before the event. Furthermore, the University's reasons for the advance-notice requirement are also reasonable, and the sidewalk is a limited public forum. Moreover, the policy permits the fast-tracking of a permit if an event relates to a current issue or responds to another event. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Keister v. Bell" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit concluded that John Doe, a pseudonymous student at Samford University, has not stated a claim against the university for a violation of Title IX, based on a university disciplinary board finding him responsible for sexual assault and suspending him for five years. The court concluded that the alleged facts do not permit a reasonable inference that the university discriminated against Doe "on the basis of sex" where the alleged procedural irregularities do not make sex discrimination plausible; the alleged public pressure and public statements do not make sex discrimination plausible; and the Clery statistics do not change the plausibility of the Title IX claim.The court also concluded that the Title IX claim failed under the Yusuf tests; nor has Doe satisfied the selective enforcement test. Finally, the court concluded that the appeal from the denial of the motion to proceed under a pseudonym is moot. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment in favor of the university and dismissed as moot the appeal from the denial of the motion to proceed under a pseudonym. View "Doe v. Samford University" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of defendants' motion to dismiss his complaint, seeking judicial review of the USCIS's denial of a national interest waiver pursuant to 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(2)(B)(i), based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court held that section 1153(b)(2)(B)(i) specifies that a national interest waiver is within the discretion of the Attorney General, and therefore section 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) precludes judicial review. Accordingly, the district court did not err by dismissing the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. View "Brasil v. Secretary, Department of Homeland Security" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court's grant of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus vacating petitioner's convictions for murder, armed robbery, and kidnapping with bodily injury. Of the twelve claims presented to the Circuit Court, only the first five challenged petitioner's conviction and thus are relevant here. Claims I and III incorporated numerous subclaims: Claim I had three subclaims, while Claim III had eight subclaims denoted A through H, with Claim III-H having an additional five subclaims of its own. Claim III-H-4, which provided the principal basis for the writ of habeas corpus the district court issued, alleged that the prosecutor failed to disclose to the defense as required by Brady v. Maryland the handwritten notes he made of a pretrial conversation he had with two named individuals.The court concluded that petitioner failed to exhaust Claim III-H-4 in the state courts because he failed to present the claim to the Florida Supreme Court such that the reasonable reader would understand the claim's particular legal basis and specific factual foundation. Furthermore, the district court's issuance of the writ based on a witness's statement constituted reversible error. The court considered the remaining claims and affirmed the district court's denial of relief as to petitioner's cross-appeal. View "Green v. Secretary, Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court's entry of summary judgment in favor of defendant in an action brought by plaintiff, alleging race discrimination after defendant terminated plaintiff. The court concluded that the district court properly found that plaintiff failed to show that defendant engaged in race discrimination under the McDonnell Douglas framework. However, in the alternative, plaintiff provided a convincing mosaic of discrimination sufficient to survive summary judgment at this stage. In this case, plaintiff has met his burden of showing factual disputes that should be decided by a jury—a jury whose role it is to weigh conflicting evidence and make any necessary credibility determinations. Therefore, the court remanded for further consideration. View "Jenkins v. Nell" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit vacated the district court's order dismissing, based on lack of standing, plaintiffs' action alleging that Sea Island did not comply with the Clean Water Act’s permitting process. The court concluded that Plaintiff Fraser adequately alleged a concrete injury to her aesthetic interest in the wetland and therefore the court need not address plaintiffs' remaining arguments. In this case, Fraser adequately alleged that she suffered an injury to her aesthetic interests in the wetland because she has viewed the wetland, derived aesthetic pleasure from its natural habitat and vegetation, and now derives less pleasure from the unnatural grasses and lawn placed on the wetland. Therefore, Fraser's allegations are sufficient to establish an injury in fact at this stage, and the district court erred in concluding otherwise. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "The Glynn Environmental Coalition, Inc. v. Sea Island Acquisition, LLC" on Justia Law

Heather operated a health-coaching business called Constitution Nutrition. She started her business in California, which did not require a license. After moving to Florida in 2015, she continued to run her business—meeting online with most of her clients and meeting in person with two clients who lived in Florida. She described herself as a “holistic health coach” and not as a dietician. Heather tailored her health coaching to each client, which included dietary advice. After a complaint was filed against her and she paid $500.00 in fines and $254.09 in investigatory fees, Heather sued, claiming that Florida’s Dietetics and Nutrition Practice Act, which requires a license to practice as a dietician or nutritionist, violated her First Amendment free speech rights to communicate her opinions and advice on diet and nutrition to her clients. The district court granted the Florida Department of Health summary judgment.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, after considering the Supreme Court’s decision in National Institute of Family & Life Advocates v. Becerra (2018). The Act “is a professional regulation with a merely incidental effect on protected speech,” and is constitutional under the First Amendment. View "Del Castillo v. Secretary, Florida Department of Health" on Justia Law