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

Petitioner, a death row inmate, appealed from the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2254. On appeal, petitioner asserted that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel at the penalty phase of his capital murder trial when the court interfered with his counsel's mitigation strategy and when his counsel did not object to the interference. The court held that petitioner failed to point to any clearly established federal law from the United States Supreme Court on the question of whether the ultimate authority to call trial witnesses rested with counsel or the client. Consequently, petitioner's claims were barred under section 2254. View "Burton, Jr. v. Commissioner, Alabama DOC" on Justia Law

Defendants were convicted of drug related charges after they were arrested in Panama and the Panamanian Government consented to their prosecution in the United States. At issue was the scope of congressional power to proscribe conduct abroad: whether the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, 46 U.S.C. 70503(a), 70506, exceeded the power of Congress to "define and punish... Offences against the Law of Nations," as applied to the drug-trafficking activities of defendants in the territorial waters of Panama. Because the court concluded that drug trafficking was not an "Offense against the Law of Nations" and that Congress could not constitutionally proscribe defendants' conduct under the Offences Clause, the court vacated their convictions. View "United States v. Bellaizac-Hurtado" on Justia Law

This appeal arose out of a bankruptcy court proceeding involving the Asbestos Settlement Trust, which was created in bankruptcy court in 1996 to pay asbestos mass tort claims for both bodily injury and property damage against Celotex Corporation and Carey Canada, Inc. Because neither the district court nor the bankruptcy court order was a final judgment or order and because neither order fell within any of the exceptions to this circuit's final judgment rule, the court lacked jurisdiction to review these orders. Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeal. View "Michigan State University, et al v. Abestos Settlement Trust" on Justia Law

This case stemmed from the FCC's issuance of an order requiring telecommunications carriers to make payments into a Universal Service Fund for subsidizing services for certain categories of consumers. At issue was what should happen to the intrastate portion of the fees that the customers paid to reimburse the carriers for the payments they made to the fund. The court held that the district court correctly decided that it lacked jurisdiction to decide the claims. Because the district court lacked jurisdiction to review the FCC's orders at all, it lacked jurisdiction to decide whether the orders were invalid because they were outside the jurisdictional authority of the agency. View "Self v. BellSouth Mobility, Inc., et al" on Justia Law

In this capital case, at issue was whether defense counsel were ineffective in failing to seek a competency hearing at the penalty phase of defendant's trial and whether defendant was in fact incompetent at the time he entered a plea of guilty to the murder of the victim. The court held that the new testimony adduced at the postconviction evidentiary hearing on which defendant relied was insufficient to establish that the Florida Supreme Court's determination was an unreasonable application of Strickland v. Washington. The court also held that there was no basis on the record to conclude that the district court's finding that defendant was competent was clearly erroneous and therefore, defendant was not entitled to relief on the merits of his substantive competency claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Lawrence v. Secretary, Florida DOC, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs in these five separate putative class actions alleged that Wells Fargo and Wachovia Bank unlawfully charged them overdraft fees for their checking accounts, which were governed by agreements that provided for arbitration of disputes on an individual basis. On appeal, Wells Fargo argued that it did not waive its right to compel arbitration because it would have been futile to move to compel arbitration before the Supreme Court decided AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion. The court concluded that Concepcion established no new law. Because the court concluded that it would have been futile for Wells Fargo to argue that the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. 1 et seq., preempted any state laws that purported to make the classwide arbitration provisions unenforceable, the court affirmed the denial of its motion to compel arbitration. View "Garcia v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A." on Justia Law

In this matter, the court must decide whether it had original subject matter jurisdiction over several petitions for review of an administrative rule that exempted transfers of waters of the United States from the requirements for a permit under the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq., or whether the court could avoid deciding that question and instead exercise hypothetical jurisdiction to decide the merits of the petitions. The court held that, under the plain language of the governing statute, the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the petitions and could not exercise hypothetical jurisdiction over them. Accordingly, the court dismissed the petitions. View "Friends of the Everglades v. United States Environmental Protection Agency" on Justia Law

The State appealed the part of the district court's judgment that granted petitioner habeas relief from his death sentence on the theory that application of the jury sentencing provisions of the Florida statute violated his Sixth Amendment rights, as interpreted in Ring v. Arizona. Based on Supreme Court precedent, the court reversed the district court's judgment insofar as it granted federal habeas relief to petitioner on Ring grounds. In his cross-appeal, petitioner contended that his Sixth Amendment right to public trial was violated when the court partially closed the voir dire proceedings because of the limited seating that was available in a small hearing room. The court agreed with the district court that the Florida Supreme Court's decision on this issue was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law as determined by the Supreme Court and the court added three points about the nature of the deference due to the state court. Finally, the court rejected petitioner's claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part. View "Evans v. Secretary, FL DOC, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued defendant under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that her termination was unconstitutional under the First Amendment because it was based on her candidacy. The court held that the First Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court and the Eleventh Circuit, did not require defendant to retain her political opponent after becoming superior court clerk for the county. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant. View "Underwood v. Harkins, et al" on Justia Law

In 2010, the Commissioner issued four summonses to third-party financial institutions to determine whether the Miccosukee Tribe had complied with its federal withholding requirements during the period from 2006-2009. The Tribe petitioned to quash the summonses on the grounds of sovereign immunity, improper purpose, relevance, bad faith, and overbreadth. The district court denied those petitions. Because the court concluded that tribal sovereign immunity did not bar the issuance of these third-party summonses, the district court did not clearly err when it found that the summonses were issued for a proper purpose, and the Tribe lacked standing to challenge the summonses for overbreadth, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Miccosukee Tribe of Indians v. United States" on Justia Law