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

Plaintiffs, two death row inmates, served the GDC with a subpoena directing it to testify at a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition and to produce documents concerning Georgia's lethal injection protocol. Plaintiffs planned to use the testimony and documents to support their pending 42 U.S.C. 1983 claims challenging the legality of Mississippi's lethal injection protocol.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of plaintiffs' motion to quash. The court held that the district court applied the correct standard of review to the magistrate judge's ruling on the motion to quash under the "clearly erroneous" or "contrary to law" standard. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by accepting and adopting the magistrate judge's ruling and granting the GDC's motion to quash. View "Jordan v. Georgia Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit sua sponte vacated its prior opinion and substituted the following opinion.On direct appeal, defendant challenged his two firearm convictions, claiming that his predicate Hobbs Act robbery and attempted robbery offenses did not constitute crimes of violence under 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(3). The court expressly readopted and reinstated in full Sections I, II, III(A), and III(C) of its panel opinion in St. Hubert I just as previously written. The court again reaffirmed the residual clause in Section III(B), but did so on the basis of its en banc decision in Ovalles v. United States, 905 F.3d 1231 (11th Cir. Oct. 4, 2018). Finally, the panel readopted and reinstated Section IV of its prior panel opinion with some additional analysis.The court held that defendant's guilty plea did not waive his particular claims that Counts 8 and 12 failed to charge an offense at all; sections 924(c)(3)(B)'s risk-of-force clause was constitutional under Ovalles, and defendant's predicate Hobbs Act robbery and attempted Hobbs Act robbery qualified as crimes of violence under section 924(c)(3)(B)'s risk-of-force clause; and, as an independent, alternative ground for affirming defendant's convictions and sentences on Counts 8 and 12, the court concluded that defendant's predicate offenses of Hobbs Act robbery and attempted Hobbs Act robbery categorically qualified as crimes of violence under section 924(c)(3)(A)'s elements clause. View "United States v. St. Hubert" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit dismissed in part and denied in part petitioner's thirteenth application for leave to file a second or successive motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his federal sentence. The court held that 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(3)(B) is not unconstitutionally vague because it requires a conduct-based approach instead of a categorical approach. The court noted that it has specifically explained, and at length, that this feature of section 924(c)(3)(B) allows it to withstand the reasoning that led the Supreme Court to hold in Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), and Sessions v. Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. 1204 (2018), that similarly worded residual clauses in other federal statutes are unconstitutionally vague. View "In re: Tracy Garrett" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of a federal habeas corpus petition because it was time-barred. The court held that the district court did not err by concluding that the statute of limitations began to run when the deadline expired for petitioner to file a certiorari petition in the Georgia Supreme Court, rather than ninety days after the date the Georgia Supreme Court dismissed petitioner's certiorari petition as time-barred. In this case, petitioner's conviction became final for purposes of the Antiterrorism and Death Penalty Act's statute of limitations provision on September 5, 2006. View "Phillips v. Warden" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of a 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for habeas corpus as untimely. The court held that the district court did not err in concluding that petitioner's Rule 3.850 motion was not "properly filed" in the state court and thus did not toll the one-year statute of limitations in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). The court explained that Pace v. DiGuglielmo, 544 U.S. 408 (2005), clearly held that when a state court finds a post-conviction motion untimely, that is the end of the matter, and the motion cannot be considered a tolling motion. In this case, Pace was applicable and the state court found the post-conviction motion untimely. View "Jones v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by disregarding the Federal Rules of Evidence during a 21 U.S.C. 851 hearing. Under 21 U.S.C. 841(b), defendants convicted of certain drug-related felonies are subjected to a 240-month mandatory minimum if they have previously been convicted of a drug-related felony. A section 851 hearing is required if the existence of the prior conviction is in dispute and the decision to apply the Federal Rules of Evidence during the hearing is left to the discretion of the district court. In this case, the court affirmed the district court's judgment, holding that there was sufficient evidence for the district court to find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant was previously convicted of possession of cocaine. Furthermore, it was not reasonably probable that the outcome of the proceedings would have changed even if the district court had applied the correct standard. View "United States v. Hernandez" on Justia Law

Second-degree murder in Florida is a "violent felony" within the meaning of the elements clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(2)(B)(i). The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction under the ACCA and held that defendant's contention -- that physical force is not categorically an element of Florida second-degree murder chiefly because poisoning someone does not involve physical force -- was foreclosed by recent precedent in Hylor v. United States, 896 F.3d 1219 (11th Cir. 2018). View "United States v. Jones" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed Defendants Carthen and Groce's conviction and sentence for multiple counts of federal robbery and firearm offenses. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's guilty verdict; the district court did not plainly err in finding enough evidence of a conspiracy to admit the coconspirator's testimony; the district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding Groce's proposed impeachment evidence relating to the testimony of the alleged coconspirator; the district court did not miscalculate the mandatory minimum sentence; and Groce failed to make a threshold showing of gross disproportionality. View "United States v. Carthen" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit held that, although the decision to allow the government to introduce inculpatory evidence while both defendant and her lawyer were absent for three to ten minutes in a trial that lasted more than 49 hours violated defendant's right to counsel, her right to confront the witnesses arrayed against her, and her right to be present at trial under both the Due Process Clause and Fed. R. Crim. P. 43, the errors did not affect defendant's substantial rights. The court also rejected defendant's other challenges to her convictions based on the sufficiency of the indictment and claimed errors in the jury instructions. In this case, the indictment was plainly adequate, and, to the extent that the district court may have erred in how it charged the jury, these errors did not prejudice defendant. Finally, defendant failed to establish prejudice under the doctrine of cumulative error. Accordingly, the court affirmed defendant's convictions. View "United States v. Margarita Garcia" on Justia Law

The en banc court remanded this appeal to the panel for further proceedings in light of Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U.S. ___, 138 S. Ct. 1204 (2018), after the initial panel opinion affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion to vacate her 18 U.S.C. 924(c) conviction and sentence for using and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence, namely, attempted carjacking.The panel reinstated its prior ruling in Ovalles I insofar as it held that defendant's attempted carjacking conviction qualifies as a crime of violence under section 924(c)(3)(A)'s elements clause. In this case, defendant had by definition attempted to use or threaten force because she attempted to commit a crime that would be violent if completed. Therefore, given that section 924(c)'s elements clause equates an attempted force with actual or threatened force, and that an attempt conviction requires an intent to commit all elements of the completed crime, attempted carjacking qualifies as a crime of violence under section 924(c)(3)(A) as well. View "Orvalles v. United States" on Justia Law