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

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for violating 18 U.S.C. 1028A(a)(1), which makes it a crime for any person to use, without authority, a means of identification of another person. The court held that, considering all the evidence, the government proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the bank was insured by the FDIC both before and after defendant's offenses and that it did not need to renew its insurance in the interim. Therefore, coupled with the universal presumption that all banks were federally insured, and viewing the proof in the light most favorable to the government, a reasonable juror could find that the bank was insured by the FDIC on the dates of defendant's offenses. Furthermore, the court held that the plain meaning, statutory context, and existing precedent all showed that defendant "used" his victim's means of identification when he employed that person's signature to obtain the loan and thereby converted the signature to his own service. View "United States v. Munksgard" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against a district attorney for violating his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, 42 U.S.C 1983, when the attorney committed libel per se by defaming plaintiff in retaliation for seeking legislative compensation for his wrongful convictions. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint based on qualified immunity holding that, although plaintiff's complaint stated a valid claim of retaliation under the First Amendment, the attorney enjoyed qualified immunity because plaintiff's right was not clearly established when the attorney violated it. View "Echols v. Lawton" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit denied a petition for review of the BIA's decision denying petitioner's application for asylum, withholding of removal, and humanitarian asylum. The court held that the IJ and BIA reasonably determined that petitioner failed to demonstrate that "Mexican citizens targeted by criminal groups because they have been in the United States and they have families in the United States" were viewed as a socially distinct group in Mexico and that the group was not defined with sufficient particularity. Even if the court were to hold that the agencies' decisions did not merit deference, the court would reach the same conclusion. Furthermore, petitioner failed to establish a nexus between the persecution suffered, the persecution she claims she will suffer, and any other statutorily protected grounds for asylum. View "Perez-Zenteno v. U.S. Attorney General" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court's denial of a 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus based on trial counsel's ineffective assistance by failing to object, or move for a mistrial, at any point during the deadlocked jury deliberations. Petitioner claimed that the total force and effect of the two trial judges instructing the jury over and over again that it must keep deliberating after the jury declared over and over again that it was unable to reach a verdict, was coercive.Because the claim was not adjudicated on the merits in the state court proceedings, the court need not defer to the decisions of the state courts here. The court held that the failure of petitioner's counsel to object and to move for a mistrial, as the coercive circumstances piled up, was prejudicial. Furthermore, trial counsel's failure to object and move for a mistrial was deficient performance for Strickland purposes. View "Brewster v. Hetzel" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit granted a petition for review of the BIA's dismissal of petitioner's appeal based on the ineffective assistance of counsel. Petitioner claimed that counsel misled her into accepting voluntary departure by telling her she would immediately be deported if she did not accept it.The court held that petitioner bore the burden of producing a transcript of the hearing and, because she did not produce a transcript, the court found that it could rely on the IJ's reconstruction of the record. However, in this case, the IJ's reconstruction may be incomplete and the court was unable to fully assess petitioner's voluntariness in regard to her acceptance of a voluntary departure. Therefore, the court remanded to the BIA to determine the full scope of that issue. View "Flores-Panameno v. U.S. Attorney General" on Justia Law

In an ancillary third-party forfeiture proceeding where Maritime Life asserted that it was given a security interest in the forfeited property, the Eleventh Circuit held that the district court committed harmless error in requiring Maritime Life to prove the authenticity of the collateral assignment that allegedly granted it a security interest in the forfeited property by a preponderance of the evidence. In this case, ample evidence supported the district court's finding on the ultimate question of authenticity and that finding controlled whether Maritime Life had an interest in the property.The court also held that, although the district court erred in permitting the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago to intervene in the forfeiture proceeding even though it had no legal interest in the property, the intervention did not affect Maritime Life's substantial rights and did not require reversal. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Maritime Life Caribbean Limited" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a German citizen, sought the return of his children from the United States to Switzerland under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Respondent, a French citizen who moved with the children from Switzerland to Georgia, opposed the children's return.The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of the petition to return the children to Switzerland and held that, although petitioner established that the children's habitual residence at the time of removal was Switzerland, he failed to demonstrate that respondent's removal of the children violated his custody rights under Swiss law. In this case, the divorce judgment constituted a decision of the Swiss court and under the divorce judgment, respondent had the sole rights of custody as they pertained to determining whether to move the children to the United States. View "Pfeiffer v. Bachotet" on Justia Law

Fla. Stat. 95.231, which operates to cure certain defective deeds after the passage of five years, applies to a parcel on which the United States has asserted a federal estate-tax lien. The Eleventh Circuit held that section 95.231(1) cured the deed by operation of law in December 2003, and the property was at that point validly transferred to the trust. Furthermore, the court held that United States v. Summerlin, 310 U.S. 414, 416 (1940), was inapplicable here because, by the time the United States asserted its tax lien, the property no longer remained in the estate. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment on the United States' foreclosure claim and remanded for further proceedings. View "Saccullo v. United States" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress evidence found in the search of his vehicle. The court held that the rapidly blinking turn signal provided reasonable suspicion to stop the car where state law required turn signals to be in good working condition. However, under Rodriguez v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 1609 (2015), the patrolman did unlawfully prolong the stop. The court held that the patrolman's actions were nonetheless permitted under binding case law at the time and thus the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applied in this case. View "United States v. Campbell" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's authorized successive 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence. The court held that, given the holding in Ovalles v. United States, 905 F.3d 1231 (11th Cir. 2018) (en banc), that 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(3)(B)'s residual clause is not unconstitutionally vague, a Johnson- or Dimaya-based vagueness challenge to section 924(c)'s residual clause cannot satisfy section 2255(h)(2)'s "new rule of constitutional law" requirement. Likewise, the court held that any challenge petitioner might raise to the district court's use of the categorical approach and its application of section 924(c)(3)(B)'s residual clause in his case would not satisfy section 2255(h) either, as such a claim would be statutory in nature. View "Solomon v. United States" on Justia Law