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

Plaintiffs, an attorney and her client, filed suit against defendants in their individual capacities, asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for violations of the Fourth Amendment based on the warrantless recording of their privileged conversations and the seizure of the written statement, and under 18 U.S.C. 2520(a) for violations of the Federal Wiretap Act based on the warrantless recording. The court concluded that plaintiffs had a reasonable expectation of privacy for their privileged attorney-client conversations in the interview room of the St. Johns County Sheriff's Office. The surreptitious recording and monitoring of those attorney-client conversations, without notice to plaintiffs, and without a warrant, violated the Fourth Amendment. Under the circumstances, it was clearly established that the Fourth Amendment prohibited the warrantless recording of attorney-client conversations between a non-incarcerated suspect and his attorney. The district court correctly held that defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity. The court also concluded that the warrantless seizure of the client's written statement from the attorney violated their Fourth Amendment rights and that the exigent circumstances exception was inapplicable in this instance. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs and remanded for further proceedings. View "Gennusa, et al. v. Canova, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs challenged the district court's order dismissing as moot his lawsuit alleging that two Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) officials violated his rights under the Eighth Amendment by being deliberately indifferent to the protection he required after he assisted the BOP in the investigation of its own officer in another city. The court concluded that the district court applied the wrong standard for rebutting the government actor's presumption. Applying the correct legal standard to the facts of plaintiff's case, the court concluded that his request for injunctive relief was not moot. The BOP has not met its "formidable" or "heavy" burden of establishing "that it is absolutely clear the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur" or that the challenged conduct has been unambiguously terminated. The BOP has not met its burden to show that plaintiff would not be returned to a high-security BOP facility. Considering all the circumstances of plaintiff's case and applying the proper standard for evaluating voluntary cessation by a government actor, the court concluded that the BOP failed to carry its burden to demonstrate unambiguous termination of the challenged conduct. Accordingly, plaintiff's suit was not moot. The court reversed and remanded. View "Doe v. Stover, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of 18 U.S.C. 2422(b), and the Government filed a joint statement consenting to the magistrate judge's jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 636(c). In Appeal No. 12-10293, which must be decided before the court reached Appeal No. 11-15149, the question presented was whether the consensual delegation of a motion to vacate sentence under 28 U.S.C. 2255 to a magistrate judge for final disposition under section 636(c) violated Article III of the Constitution. The court need not decide whether that delegation would violate Article III because the court held that a section 2255 proceeding was not a "civil matter" for purposes of section 636(c). Therefore, the magistrate judge lacked the statutory authority to enter final judgment on the section 2255 motion. Accordingly, the magistrate judge's order denying petitioner's section 2255 motion was vacated and the court remanded to the district court for disposition. View "Brown v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against prison officials after he was assaulted and stabbed by his cellmate. Plaintiff alleged that the officials were deliberately indifferent to the substantial risk of harm that the cellmate posed to plaintiff. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants. The court concluded that a reasonable jury could infer from the facts that defendants actually knew that plaintiff faced a substantial risk of serious harm from the cellmate where defendants knew that the cellmate had a violent past, was very disruptive, and needed greater management. The cellmate had started a dangerous fire that endangered his life and plaintiff's life, had expressed no regret for doing so, and used plaintiff's personal photographs and papers to start the fire. Defendants also knew that plaintiff feared for his life. Because the record contained sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could find the subjective element of plaintiff's Eighth Amendment failure-to-protect claim, the district court erred in granting defendants' motion for summary judgment on that basis. The law clearly established that defendants' failure to investigate the substantial risk of harm constituted unconstitutional deliberate indifference to plaintiff's Eighth Amendment rights. Therefore, defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Caldwell, et al. v. FCI Talladega Warden, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner, a Florida state prisoner, appealed from the denial of his motion to reconsider the denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition. The court concluded that the State was procedurally required to serve petitioner with exhibits it filed separately from its answer (Appendix) and referenced in its answer. Therefore, the district court abused its discretion by denying defendant's motion to reconsider. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded with instructions that the State serve petitioner with the twelve documents in the Appendix to which he was procedurally entitled so that he may be allowed to amend his reply to the State's answer. Then the district court should adjudicate the merits of the fully briefed habeas corpus petition. View "Rodriguez v. FL Dep't of Corrections" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction of sexual exploitation of a minor to produce child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2251(a) (Count 1), distribution of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(2) (Count 2), and possession of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(5)(B) (Count 3). The court affirmed defendant's conviction on Counts 1 and 3. The court concluded, however, that the government failed to establish distribution within the meaning of section 2252A(a)(2) because it did not present evidence that defendant transferred child pornography to others or freely allowed them access to his computerized stash of images. For that reason, the court vacated his conviction on Count 2. The court also vacated his sentence on all counts and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Grzybowicz" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his 96-month sentence after pleading guilty to possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. The district court calculated a base offense level of 24 under U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(a)(2) because defendant had at least two prior convictions for a crime of violence within the meaning of the residual clause of U.S.S.G. 4B1.2. The court concluded that the district court did not err in treating defendant's Florida state conviction for vehicular flight as a crime of violence under the sentencing guidelines. View "United States v. Travis" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction of robbery and firearms offenses. The court vacated defendant's conviction on Count Four, the 18 U.S.C. 924(c) charge for using and brandishing a gun in the commission of the April 11th robbery, where the government's evidence was plainly insufficient. The court concluded, however, that the evidence was sufficient to support defendant's remaining convictions; the district court improperly denied defendant's request for expert assistance but the denial did not result in a fundamentally unfair trial; defendant failed to meet his burden in demonstrating that the district court committed plain error when it allowed introduction of a phone call between defendant and his brother as substantive evidence; and defendant's cumulative error argument failed. Accordingly, the court reversed Count Four and affirmed defendant's remaining convictions. View "United States v. Feliciano" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an inmate at the W.C. Holman Correctional Facility, was assaulted in the "back hallway" with a knife by another inmate who cut plaintiff's throat and nearly killed him. Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against prison officials, seeking damages for the injuries he received. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiff's requests for leave to conduct additional discovery where the only evidence plaintiff was unable to obtain related to the purchasing of craft materials and the policies for disposing of used hobby craft blades. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants on plaintiff's claim that defendants were deliberately indifferent to the substantial risk of serious harm plaintiff faced at the time of the assault. Although the evidence demonstrated that the warden was on notice that inmate-on-inmate assaults occurred in the back hallway, the evidence of inmate-on-inmate assault involving weapons did not indicate that inmates were exposed to something even approaching the constant threat of violence and Holman's policies for monitoring the back hallway did not create a substantial risk of serious harm. The record failed to demonstrate that any lapse in oversight of cutting instruments created a substantial risk of excessive inmate-on-inmate violence. Even if the conditions at Holman created an excessive risk of inmate-on-inmate violence, defendants were not deliberately indifferent to the risk. View "Harrison v. Culliver, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to Alabama Power on their complaint alleging that Alabama Power unreasonably lowered the water levels of Smith Lake. Determining that Article III's standing requirements have been met, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to issue a declaratory judgment concerning plaintiffs' purported riparian rights. Plaintiffs did not have a right to a declaratory judgment and the district court did not abuse its substantial discretion by assuming plaintiffs had riparian rights and then resolving their claims on an alternative basis. The court agreed with the district court that plaintiffs' claims were a collateral attack on the FERC's final relicensing determination. Plaintiffs' argument that they were not subject to the exclusive judicial review provision of section 825l(b) of the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. 825l(b), because they are distinct parties from Smith Lake Improvement and Stakeholders Association (SLISA) and did not participate in the proceedings before the FERC was unavailing. Section 821 of the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. 821, did not allow plaintiffs to veto the operation of a project that was approved and licensed by the FERC. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment denying plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment and granting summary judgment to Alabama Power. View "Otwell, Sr., et al. v. Alabama Power Co." on Justia Law