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

Plaintiff appealed the district court's order affirming eight rulings of the bankruptcy court. The court concluded that the bankruptcy court did not err in holding an evidentiary show-cause hearing where plaintiff received notice of the civil contempt allegations against him and the bankruptcy court gave plaintiff the opportunity to testify, submit evidence, and rebut the allegations of civil contempt at his show-cause hearing; plaintiff's due process rights were not violated when the bankruptcy court conducted a show-cause hearing on his civil contempt without appointing plaintiff an attorney; the bankruptcy court did not err by imposing coercive and compensatory civil contempt sanctions; and the bankruptcy court had subject matter jurisdiction over the allegations of civil contempt against plaintiff and the authority to enter a final order, not merely a proposed judgment, finding plaintiff in civil contempt. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court in all respects except as to the amount of the fee award. The court remanded for the bankruptcy court to award a fee based on the work the Trustee performed pursuant to Appellee Mitchell’s motion for contempt, and to determine whether the Trustee may pursue its adversary claim at this late date. View "Gowdy v. Mitchell" on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted by a jury of three counts and he received prison sentences on Counts 1 and 2, but his sentence was suspended for Count 3. A Florida state court dismissed Count 3 from petitioner's judgment on the grounds that his convictions for Counts 1 and 3 violated double jeopardy. Petitioner subsequently filed a habeas petition, arguing that the state court’s 2013 dismissal of Count 3 created a “new judgment” under Magwood v. Patterson, thereby permitting him to avoid the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, 28 U.S.C. 2254, bar on second or successive habeas petitions. The court concluded that, because petitioner was never sentenced on Count 3, he has never been held in custody pursuant to Count 3. Accordingly, because the state court’s dismissal of Count 3 did not affect the judgment pursuant to which petitioner is in fact being held in custody, the dismissal did not create a new judgment under Magwood and the district court properly dismissed petitioner's habeas petition as second or successive. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the habeas petition as second or successive. View "Cox v. Secretary, FL DOC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Georgia state prisoner with a third-grade education, alleged in his pro se handwritten complaint that he was on his way to the dining hall at the Valdosta State Prison when he was savagely attacked by another inmate who had been threatening him. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state an Eighth Amendment claim of deliberate indifference. According to the complaint, the prisoner attacked plaintiff because he was not a gang member and not Muslim, yet was housed in a dormitory where gang members reigned, weapons were tolerated, and violence ran amuck. Plaintiff said that he had asked certain prison officials to move him to a different dormitory before he was attacked, but they refused his request. The court concluded that the allegations in the complaint sufficed to make out a plausible claim that the officials named as defendants were aware of the serious risk of harm faced by plaintiff. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded with instructions that plaintiff be allowed to formally and properly amend his complaint. View "Lane v. Philbin" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of kidnapping his wife and murdering his sister-in-law, appealed the district court's denial of his petition for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court concluded that petitioner failed to show that the state court's conclusion that trial counsel's performance constituted anything but effective assistance under Strickland v. Washington was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established law. The court also rejected petitioner's Atkins v. Virginia intellectual-disability claim where petitioner failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his impaired behavior qualified him as intellectually disabled for purposes of Georgia’s death-penalty law. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Tharpe v. Warden" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of first-degree murder, robbery, and grand theft, appealed the district court's denial of federal habeas relief. Petitioner argues that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to fully investigate and present mental-health mitigation evidence during the penalty phase of his trial. Petitioner also claims his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to contemporaneously object when he was shackled in view of the venire panel during jury selection and that the district court abused its discretion by denying him an evidentiary hearing on this claim. The court concluded that, considering the significant aggravators in this case, the limited mitigating value of a forensic psychologist's testimony, and the unfavorable evidence the psychologist's testimony would likely have brought in its wake, petitioner has not shown that the Florida Supreme Court’s determination that he was not prejudiced by counsel’s failure to present mental-health mitigation evidence was an unreasonable one. The court also concluded that, in light of petitioner's violent criminal past, the lack of provocation for the crime, the horrific suffering he inflicted on the victim, and the relatively weak mitigating evidence, even if the court reviewed the claim de novo and did not afford the Florida Supreme Court’s determination any deference, there is no reasonable probability that seeing petitioner in shackles during jury selection caused the jurors to vote for death when they otherwise would not have. Accordingly, the court affirmed the denial of habeas relief. View "Jones v. Secretary, FL DOC" on Justia Law

After officers shot and killed Dirk Smith in his own home, his surviving wife and children filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and Georgia law against the county, the police chief, and the officers. The court chose to exercise pendant appellate jurisdiction over plaintiffs' claims in their cross-appeals. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the officers on plaintiffs' illegal entry claim because the officers were authorized to enter the home without a warrant under the exigent circumstances exception where officers believed that an emergency existed. The court concluded that the officers' single use of a taser on Mr. Smith was not unreasonable. However, the court affirmed the district court's denial of summary judgment on plaintiffs’ section 1983 claim against Officers Ings and LePage for shooting Mr. Smith because the officers had “reasonable warning” that fatally shooting an unarmed person suspected of a misdemeanor in his own home merely because he was moving toward them was a constitutional violation; the court affirmed the district court's denial of summary judgment on plaintiffs’ parallel state-law claim; affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment as to the supervisory liability claims where no supervisory liability can arise from the second tasing of Mr. Smith and plaintiffs' section 1983 supervisory liability claim related to the shooting fails because Sgt. Gamble neither participated in the shooting nor had a legally sufficient causal connection to it; and plaintiffs’ state-law supervisory liability claims related to the shooting fail because Sgt. Gamble did not violate a ministerial duty or act with actual malice. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Smith v. LePage" on Justia Law

The Commissioner appealed the tax court's judgment in favor of the Estate and the Government of the United States Virgin Islands. In 2010, the IRS issued notices of deficiency to Travis L. Sanders, before his death in 2012, alleging that he had not been a bona fide USVI resident during those years and that Madison, a USVI-based consulting firm that Sanders was a limited partner in, was an illegal tax shelter. Because Sanders was not a bona fide USVI resident, the Commissioner claims, Sanders was required to file tax returns with the IRS and was not entitled to the Economic Development Program (EDP) tax reduction. The court held that the statute of limitations was triggered only if Sanders actually was a bona fide resident of the USVI; in this case, the facts relied on by the tax court are insufficient to establish that Sanders ever became a bona fide resident of the USVI; and thus the court vacated the tax court's judgment. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Commissioner v. Estate of Travis L. Sanders" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a United States citizen, worked as the lead trumpeter on a passenger Royal Caribbean cruise ship. The ship is a Bahamian flagged vessel with a home port in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Royal Caribbean, the operator of the vessel, is a Liberian corporation with its principal place of business in Florida. After plaintiff became ill while working for Royal Caribbean, he filed suit alleging unseaworthiness, negligence, negligence under the Jones Act, maintenance and cure, and seaman’s wages and penalties. Royal Caribbean moved to compel arbitration, and the district court granted the motion. This appeal presents an issue of first impression: whether a seaman’s work in international waters on a cruise ship that calls on foreign ports constitutes “performance . . . abroad” under the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, 9 U.S.C. 202. The Convention makes enforceable an arbitration agreement between United States citizens if their contractual relationship “envisages performance . . . abroad.” The court affirmed the order compelling arbitration of the dispute because a seaman works abroad when traveling in international waters to or from a foreign state. View "Alberts v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd." on Justia Law

After ending their marriage, Ex-Wife and Ex-Husband commenced proceedings in the Moscow Court for division of marital assets. In the Russian Dispute, Ex-Wife claimed that Ex-Husband was concealing and dissipating marital assets through and with the assistance of “offshore companies” around the world. In the United States, Ex-Wife sought information from Gabriella Pugh and her employer in Atlanta, Georgia - Trident - that she expected would reveal Ex-Husband’s beneficial ownership of Bahamian corporation, Tripleton. On referral, the Magistrate Judge granted Ex-Wife's ex parte Application for Judicial Assistance and authorized service of two subpoenas. In these consolidated appeals, Trident challenges the district court's order allowing discovery pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1782 (Appeal No. 15-13008 (“First Appeal”)) and imposing contempt sanctions (Appeal No. 15-15066 (“Second Appeal”)). The court agreed with the district court that the location of responsive documents and electronically stored information - to the extent a physical location can be discerned in this digital age - does not establish a per se bar to discovery under section 1782; having rejected the Extraterritoriality Argument, the court agreed with the district court that significant “circumstantial evidence” established that Trident Atlanta had “control” over responsive documents in the physical possession or custody of Trident Bahamas; and therefore the court affirmed as to the First Appeal. The court rejected Trident Atlanta's frivolous jurisdictional argument; the Contempt Order is supported by the evidence; and therefore the court affirmed the Second Appeal. View "Sergeeva v. Tripleton Int'l Ltd." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed her conviction of one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and a separate count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. Defendant's conviction stemmed from her involvement in a scheme to defraud Medicare. The court concluded that the evidence was sufficient to convict defendant where she knew of and willfully joined the charged conspiracies; charging defendant with two separate conspiracy offenses did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause where each conspiracy requires proof of a unique element not required by the other and each offense was thus textually distinct from the other; and the court rejected defendant's remaining claims of trial error. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Gonzalez" on Justia Law