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

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's complaint and denied his emergency motion for a stay of execution as moot. The court rejected plaintiff's challenge to Georgia's requirement that a prisoner show he acted with due diligence in filing his motion, and Georgia’s requirement that the favorable DNA testing results create a reasonable probability that he would have been acquitted had those results been available at trial.The court also held that the district court properly dismissed plaintiff's as-applied due process claim because, to the extent he made the challenge in his complaint, he expressly disavowed it in his reply to the State's motion to dismiss; even if the argument were not waived, it was foreclosed by circuit precedent; and the claim amounted to an assertion that the state court misapplied state law, which, without more, did not violate the federal Constitution. Finally, the court held that, because plaintiff failed to identify a cause of action that meets the actual injury requirement for a claimed denial of access to the courts, the district court properly dismissed his access to the courts claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. View "Cromartie v. Shealy" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's 210 month sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The court held that defendant's prior conviction for attempted first-degree assault under Alabama Code 13A-6-20(a) qualifies as a violent felon under the Armed Career Criminal Act's (ACCA) elements clause. Furthermore, regardless of whether defendant pleaded guilty to attempted first degree assault under section 13A-6-20(a)(1) or (a)(2), either offense qualifies as an ACCA violent felony under the elements clause. Because defendant did not challenge the district court's determination that he has two other prior convictions for serious drug offenses, the court held that the district court did not err in concluding that defendant had the requisite three predicate convictions to sustain an ACCA-enhanced sentence. View "United States v. Harris" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the denial of his motions to suppress evidence found in two separate, warrantless searches of his motel room. A gun was discovered in the first search, and drugs and associated paraphernalia were discovered in the second search.The Eleventh Circuit held that defendant did not abandon his motel room when he ran and thus he had Fourth Amendment standing to challenge the officers' initial entry and the ensuing protective sweep, which they conducted within 10 minutes of his flight. However, defendant's constitutional challenge to the officers' entry and sweep failed on the merits, because the officers reasonably believed that defendant was in the room and thus they had authority to enter the room to execute the arrest warrants, to conduct a limited protective sweep, and to seize the gun found in plain view. In regard to the second search, which officers carried out with the consent of hotel management after 11:00 a.m., the court held that defendant lost any reasonable expectation of privacy in his room at checkout time. Therefore, he did not have Fourth Amendment standing to contest the search. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "United States v. Ross" on Justia Law

On remand from the Supreme Court in light of Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), the Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and held that he could not establish that errors affected his substantial rights. Defendant argued that Rehaif made plain that errors occurred when his indictment failed to allege, his jury was not instructed to find, and the government was not required to prove that he knew he was a felon when he possessed the firearm. The court held, however, that the record established that defendant knew of his status as a felon and thus he could not prove that the errors affected his substantial rights or the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of his trial. View "United States v. Reed" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's convictions and sentences for Hobbs Act robbery, knowingly carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, and knowingly possessing a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon. The court rejected defendant's contention that the district court erred by limiting his cross-examination of an FBI Task Force Officer, denying his motion to suppress pre- and post-Miranda statements, dismissing count three of the original indictment without prejudice, and denying his motions for judgment of acquittal in both trials. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to support defendant's convictions and his cumulative error claim lacked merit. Finally, the court held that the district court did not procedurally err in calculating defendant's advisory guidelines range during both of his sentencing proceedings. View "United States v. Ochoa" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of habeas relief to petitioner, who was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to death.The court held that the Georgia state habeas court's fact-finding was not entitled to deference in the pre-Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 regime. In this case, the state habeas court adopted verbatim the state's proposed order; offered no guidance to the Assistant Attorney General drafting the proposed order; did not review the order, other than signing it, dating it, and changing the concluding sentence, notwithstanding the glaring errors it contained; and did so ex parte without so much as affording petitioner a chance to challenge any of it or propose an alternative order.The court also held that the district court correctly determined that petitioner's trial lawyers' conduct fell beneath an objective standard of reasonableness when they failed to adequately investigate whether petitioner suffered from organic brain damage at the time of the killing. In light of the substantial evidence petitioner demonstrated showing that he suffered from organic brain damage, the court held that the district court did not err in finding that petitioner had been prejudiced by his lawyers' deficient performance. View "Jefferson v. GDCP Warden" on Justia Law

Rosemond v. United States, 572 U.S. 65, 67 (2014), announced a new substantive rule that applies retroactively to cases on collateral review. Nonetheless, the Eleventh Circuit held that petitioner was not entitled to relief under Rosemond, because the evidence at trial was sufficient for a reasonable jury to infer that he had advance knowledge his co-conspirators would use or carry firearms during the underlying crime of violence.The court also held that aiding and abetting a carjacking qualifies as a crime of violence under the elements clause of 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(3)(A). Therefore, the court held that United States v. Davis, 588 U.S. ___, 139 S. Ct. 2319, 2336 (2019), does not affect petitioner's section 924(c) conviction. Furthermore, the court held that counsel was not ineffective for failing to object to the jury charge, which lacked an instruction on advanced knowledge. Finally, the court declined petitioner's request for remand, holding that the district court's order regarding a certificate of appealability (COA) effectively denied a COA regarding petitioner's jury-instruction claim. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion to vacate his sentence. View "Steiner v. United States" on Justia Law

On remand from the Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit remanded the case to the district court with instructions to issue a writ of habeas corpus vacating petitioner's sentence and entitling him to a new sentencing hearing.Applying Brecht v. Abrahamson, the court reviewed the trial judge's error under Ake v. Oklahoma, holding that the constitutional error in this case was structural. The court held that the Ake error infected the entire sentencing hearing from beginning to end, because petitioner was prevented from offering any meaningful evidence of mitigation based on his mental health, or from impeaching the State's evidence of his mental health. The court held that this Ake error defies analysis by harmless-error review and thus prejudice to petitioner was presumed. View "McWilliams v. Commissioner, Alabama Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit held that the district court did not have jurisdiction over defendant's brand new 28 U.S.C. 2255 challenge because the court never gave defendant permission to raise it. In this case, defendant was required to ask this court for permission to raise a claim in a successive section 2255 motion, which he did not. Therefore, the court vacated the district court's merits decision and remanded with instructions to dismiss the new section 2255 challenge. The court also held that defendant failed to meet his burden of showing that his new sentence was substantively unreasonable. View "United States v. Pearson" on Justia Law

The mere proximity between a firearm and drug possessed for personal use could not support a USSG 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) enhancement without a finding that the gun facilitated or had the potential to facilitate the defendant's drug possession. Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence after he conditionally pleaded guilty to knowingly possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court's application of a four-level sentencing enhancement under USSG 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) for possessing a firearm in connection with another felony. In this case, the district court applied the enhancement based solely on the proximity between the firearm and a hydromorphone pill. The court held that the district court erred by applying the enhancement without finding that the firearm facilitated, or had the potential of facilitating defendant's possession of the pill.However, the court affirmed the denial of defendant's motion to suppress and held that, in light of the totality of the circumstances, defendant's known criminal history, non-compliance, argumentativeness, and nervous, agitated behavior following lawful orders to exit the truck would cause a reasonably prudent officer in the circumstances to believe that his safety or that of his fellow officers was in danger. The court also affirmed the denial of defendant's application of an enhanced base offense level under USSG 2K2.1(a)(3), because his prior Florida conviction for drug conspiracy was a predicate controlled substance offense under the Guidelines. View "United States v. Bishop" on Justia Law