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

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision denying Appellant’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, holding that the district court properly denied relief on Appellant’s claim alleging that trial counsel was ineffective at the guilt phase of his trial.Appellant, an inmate in a Georgia prison, filed a 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition in the Southern District of Georgia, asserting eighteen claims. The district court denied the petition in its entirety. At issue on appeal was whether trial counsel provided ineffective assistance during the guilt phase of Appellant’s trial by failing to use certain pretrial statements and police reports to impeach several of the State’s witnesses and by failing to object to the introduction of certain evidence. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, holding that a fair-minded jurist could agree with the state habeas court’s denial of relief. View "Meders v. Warden, Georgia Diagnostic Prison" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court ruling that the Alabama Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act “constitutes an undue burden on abortion access and is unconstitutional” and granting as-applied injunctive relief to Plaintiffs, holding that, under Supreme Court precedent, the Act is unconstitutional.At issue was a method of abortion referred to as dilation and evacuation, or dismemberment abortion, which involves tearing apart and extracting piece-by-piece from the uterus, at the fifteen to eighteen week stage of development, what was until then a living unborn child. The State sought to make the procedure more humane by enacting the Act, which required the one performing the abortion to kill the unborn child before ripping apart its body during the extraction. See Ala. Code 26-23G-2(3). Plaintiffs brought this complaint claiming that the Act was unconstitutional on its face. The district court ruled that the Act was unconstitutional because it would place substantial obstacles before women seeking pre-viability abortions. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed after applying the undue burden test, holding (1) the methods of fetal demise that the State proposed were not safe, effective, or available; and (2) neither the Act’s health exception nor its intent requirement saves the Act. View "West Alabama Women's Center v. Miller" on Justia Law

In these 30 consolidated appeals, individuals with severe autism filed suit against Disney, alleging that the company and its theme parks failed to accommodate their disabilities, in violation of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Plaintiffs claimed that access to all of Disney's rides must be both nearly immediate and in each plaintiff's individual, pre-set order to accommodate fully their impairments. The district court granted summary judgment to Disney and concluded that the Disability Access Service (DAS) program already accommodated plaintiffs' disabilities and that revising the DAS program was not necessary for plaintiffs to have equal access and enjoyment of Disney's parks.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed in part and held that Disney's generalized issuance of DAS Cards, in and of itself, did not violate the ADA. However, the DAS Card, as good as it may be, still failed to address plaintiffs' alleged impairments of the inability to wait virtually for rides and the need to adhere to a routine order of rides or repeat rides. Because factual disputes existed as to those impairments, the court reversed summary judgment on the necessary-modification inquiry. The court remanded for the district court to address Disney's alternative argument that plaintiffs' requested modification was not reasonable and would fundamentally alter the park experience. Finally, plaintiffs' complaints did not contain a cause of action for intentional or disparate-impact discrimination under the ADA and thus the court affirmed the district court's judgment as to that issue. View "A.L. v. Walt Disney Parks and Resorts US, Inc." on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's pro se 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion challenging his sentence in light of Johnson v. United States. The court held that petitioner's Indiana battery convictions were violent felonies under the Armed Career Criminal Act's (ACCA) elements clause. The court explained that a conviction under the Indiana statute necessarily required that the defendant use force capable of causing physical pain or injury. View "DeLeon Colon v. United States" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit held that its order denying a certificate of appealability (COA) to petitioner in this case should not be reconsidered. The court held that petitioner was not entitled to a COA for two distinct reasons: first, his claim arose from the rule announced in Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, 580 U.S. ___, 137 S. Ct. 855 (2017), and that rule did not apply retroactively; and second, he has failed to show cause to overcome his procedural default. View "Tharpe v. Warden" on Justia Law

On remand from the Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus based on petitioner's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. The Supreme Court held that this court must "look through" an unexplained decision by a state supreme court to the last reasoned decision and presume that the state supreme court adopted the reasoning in the decision by the lower state court. The court held that the superior court concluded that counsel provided petitioner effective assistance where, even if additional potential mitigating evidence had been admitted in petitioner's sentencing, there was no reasonable probability that the outcome of the sentencing trial could be different. Finally, the court denied petitioner's motion to remand or, alternatively, to expand the certificate of appealability and to permit supplemental briefing. View "Wilson v. Warden" on Justia Law

School administrators filed suit alleging that the school board's investigation and discipline of their efforts to convert their school into a charter school violated their freedom of speech and association in violation of the First Amendment. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the school board under D'Angelo v. School Board of Polk County, 497 F.3d 1203 (11th Cir. 2007). The panel held that the Supreme Court's most recent opinion in Lane v. Franks, 134 S. Ct. 2369 (2014), did not undermine, let alone abrogate D'Angelo's precedential effect. In this case, the administrators spoke not as private citizens but as the principal and assistant principal of a public school, pursuant to their official duties, when they undertook to convert their public school into a charter school. Therefore, their speech was not protected by the First Amendment. View "Fernandez v. The School Board of Miami-Dade County" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the City of Brookhaven, holding that its ordinance regulating adult businesses was not unconstitutional. The city passed the ordinance for the stated purpose of preventing the negative secondary effects of such businesses. As a preliminary matter, the court held that res judicata did not preclude Stardust from litigating its claims in this appeal. On the merits, the court held that the ordinance did not impermissibly restrict Stardust's constitutionally protected speech; the ordinance was not unconstitutionally vague in violation of due process; the City's enforcement of the ordinance did not violate Stardust's equal protection rights; and the ordinance did not impermissibly infringe on individuals' substantive due process right to intimate sexual activity. View "Stardust, 3007 LLC v. City of Brookhaven" on Justia Law

Medallion Holders filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the County's 2016 ordinance authorizing Transportation Network Entities (TNEs). After the district court dismissed the complaint, the Florida legislature passed a new body of laws that preempted the TNE Ordinance, and thus the Medallion Holders' claims for declaratory and injunctive relief were moot.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of Medallion Holders' claims for monetary damages arising under the Takings and Equal Protection Clauses, which were not moot. The court explained that the medallions conferred by the County created a license to offer for-hire taxicab services in Miami-Dade County; the County did not afford the Medallion Holders the right to exclude competition in the marketplace; and the regulatory scheme was rationally related to improving the quality and safety of for-hire transportation service and was wholly consonant with the Equal Protection Clause. View "Checker Cab Operators, Inc. v. Miami-Dade County" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, who is deaf, filed suit against PGH and its parent organization, Lifemark Hospitals, alleging that they failed to provide an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter for plaintiff to effectively communicate during an involuntary commitment evaluation. At issue on appeal was whether plaintiff was afforded an equal opportunity, through an appropriate auxiliary aid, to effectively communicate medically relevant information during his involuntary commitment evaluation. The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendants, holding that genuine issues of material fact existed as to whether plaintiff was able to effectively communicate medically relevant information and whether the hospital personnel were deliberately indifferent. View "Crane v. Lifemark Hospitals, Inc." on Justia Law