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

Vergara returned to Tampa, on a cruise ship from Cozumel, Mexico with three cell phones. Customs Officer Ragan searched his luggage and asked Vergara to turn a phone on and then looked through the phone for about five minutes. Ragan found a video of two topless female minors and called DHS investigators, who decided to have all three phones forensically examined. A forensic examination of two phones conducted that day revealed more than 100 images and videos, “the production of which involved the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.” The phones were not damaged. Charged under 18 U.S.C. 2252(a)(1), (b)(1) and 2252(a)(4)(B), (b)(2), Vergara unsuccessfully moved to suppress the evidence. The court Vergara’s argument that the Supreme Court’s 2014 holding, Riley v. California, required the agents to obtain a warrant before conducting the forensic search. Vergara was sentenced to 96 months of imprisonment followed by supervision for life. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The forensic searches occurred at the border, not as searches incident to arrest. Border searches never require a warrant or probable cause but, at most, require reasonable suspicion. Vergara has not argued that the agents lacked reasonable suspicion to conduct a forensic search of his phones. View "United States v. Vergara" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court's denial of defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 and state law claims on the basis of qualified immunity and official immunity. In this case, plaintiff filed suit against three officers after he was arrested for violating Georgia's mask statute during a protest in downtown Atlanta. The court held that defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on the section 1983 claims where plaintiff failed to show that his arrest violated a constitutional right and that the right was clearly established at the time of the arrest. The court also held that defendants were entitled to official immunity on the state law claims where there was no evidence that defendants acted with actual malice or an actual intent to injure plaintiff. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Gates v. Khokar" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendants in an action brought by the estate of Ananias Shaw, who was shot and killed by a police officer. Shaw was coming towards the officer with a hatchet when the officer shot him. The court held that a reasonable officer could have concluded, as the officer here did, that the law did not require him to wait until the hatchet was being swung toward him before firing in self-defense. Therefore, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment as to the excessive force claim. Furthermore, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment as to the false arrest claim and the officer was entitled to state agent immunity on all of the state law claims. View "Shaw v. City of Selma" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit granted a petition for panel rehearing, withdrew the previous published opinion, and substituted this opinion. The court denied the petition for review of the BIA's order affirming petitioner's removal from the United States. The court held that 8 U.S.C. 1432(a) did not discriminate based on gender where, had the situation been reversed, if petitioner's mother had become a lawful permanent resident, was naturalized, and raised him in the United States while his father remained in Jamaica, he still would not have derived citizenship because his parents never legally separated. The court also held that section 1432(a) did not unconstitutionally discriminate based on legitimacy and, in the alternative, assuming without deciding that section 1432(a)(3)'s distinction based on marital choice was a legitimacy based classification, the statute passed constitutional muster. The court agreed with its sister circuits that section 1432(a) was substantially related to protecting parental rights. Finally, section 1432(a) did not unconstitutionally burden petitioner's fundamental right to maintain a family unit. View "Levy v. U.S. Attorney General" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded the district court's summary judgment dismissal of plaintiff's discrimination claims against Manheim, her employer. Plaintiff alleged that the employer discriminated against her by paying her less than her male predecessor. The court held that, taking the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff, she was entitled to proceed to trial on her Equal Pay Act and Title VII claims. In this case, a jury could conclude that plaintiff was entitled to relief under the Equal Pay Act because the evidence supported a finding that she has made a prima facie case and that Manheim failed to establish an affirmative defense in response, and that plaintiff was entitled to relief under Title VII because the evidence supported a finding that her sex "was a motivating factor for" the pay disparity between her and her male predecessor. View "Bowen v. Manheim Remarketing, Inc." on Justia Law

In this school desegregation case, black schoolchildren opposed a motion filed by the Gardendale City Board of Education to permit it to operate a municipal school system. The district court devised and permitted a partial secession that neither party requested. The Eleventh Circuit held that the district court did not clearly err when it found that the Board moved to secede for a racially discriminatory purpose; the district court did not not clearly err when it found, in the alternative, that the secession would impede the desegregation efforts of the Jefferson County Board; but the district court abused its discretion when it sua sponte permitted the partial secession of the Board. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded with instructions to deny the motion to secede. View "Stout v. Gardendale City Board of Education" on Justia Law

In this school desegregation case, black schoolchildren opposed a motion filed by the Gardendale City Board of Education to permit it to operate a municipal school system. The district court devised and permitted a partial secession that neither party requested. The Eleventh Circuit held that the district court did not clearly err when it found that the Board moved to secede for a racially discriminatory purpose; the district court did not not clearly err when it found, in the alternative, that the secession would impede the desegregation efforts of the Jefferson County Board; but the district court abused its discretion when it sua sponte permitted the partial secession of the Board. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded with instructions to deny the motion to secede. View "Stout v. Gardendale City Board of Education" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court's decision issuing a writ of habeas corpus setting aside petitioner's failure-to-register conviction on the ground that his prior sodomy conviction was invalid under Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 123 S. Ct. 2472 (2003). The court held that petitioner's claim that Lawrence voided his sodomy conviction was unexhausted and thus the district court erred by entertaining it. The court also held that the Court of Appeals, in light of Georgia state law, correctly found that petitioner suffered no prejudice under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052 (1984). View "Green v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400–1482, alleging that the School Board's refusal to include the desired therapy in their children's Individual Education Plan (IEP) reflected its predetermined policy of never including any Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA)-based method or strategy in a child's IEP. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment and held that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the policy because it was not applied to them. The court explained that, although plaintiffs could claim to suffer injury because the School Board did not adopt the specific ABA services they were requesting, such a claim was not a cognizable injury in fact under the procedural prong of Bd. of Educ. of Hendrick Hudson Cent. Sch. Dist. v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 206–07 (1982), because the children's IEPs included an ABA-based service. View "L.M.P. v. School Board of Broward County" on Justia Law

After Dontrell Stephens was shot four times by Deputy Sheriff Adams Lin and was permanently paralyzed, an action was brought against Deputy Lin and Sheriff Bradshaw. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for Sheriff Bradshaw on the Monell claim brought against him, but remanded for a new trial upon finding that an erroneous jury instruction deprived Deputy Lin of the opportunity to have his claimed defense of qualified immunity considered by the district court. In this case, the excessive force inquiry was not sufficiently divorced from the qualified immunity inquiry in that the instruction improperly conflated the two inquiries and presented the jury with both together. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for a new trial. View "Stephens v. Bradshaw" on Justia Law