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

Petitioner petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) order (1) affirming the Immigration Judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his application for cancellation of removal and dismissing his appeal, and (2) denying his motion to reopen and remand his removal proceedings. Petitioner, a citizen of Mexico, conceded removability. This petition is about only his application for cancellation of his removal. The main grounds for both his appeal to the BIA and his motion to reopen were Petitioner’s claim that his counsel rendered ineffective assistance and denied him constitutional due process as to his cancellation-of-removal application.   The Eleventh Circuit concluded as to the denial of Petitioner’s application that: (1) cancellation of removal is a purely discretionary form of relief from removal; (2) Petitioner does not have a constitutionally protected liberty interest in that purely discretionary relief; and (3) therefore, Petitioner’s constitutional due process claim is meritless, and we lack jurisdiction to entertain it under the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”).   As to Petitioner’s ineffective assistance claims in his motion to reopen and remand, the court concluded that: (1) Petitioner cannot establish a constitutional due process violation based on the BIA’s denial of his motion to reopen because he does not have a protected liberty interest in either discretionary cancellation of removal or in the granting of a motion to reopen; (2) the BIA properly followed its legal precedent and (3) the court lacks jurisdiction to entertain Petitioner’s challenge to the denial of his motion to reopen. View "Rosendo Ponce Flores v. U.S. Attorney General" on Justia Law

Defendant, a class C felon, violated the conditions of his supervised release. After revoking his supervised release, the district court sentenced Defendant to the statutory maximum of two years imprisonment and added one year of home confinement with location monitoring. This appeal presented a question of first impression about supervised release and home confinement.   The Eleventh Circuit vacated Defendant’s sentence to the extent it imposed a term of home confinement and remanded for resentencing. The court held that because the district court sentenced Defendant to the statutory maximum term of two years imprisonment, it lacked authority to impose an additional year of home confinement with electronic monitoring “as an alternative to incarceration.” The court noted that as the Fifth Circuit has explained, a court cannot “impose the maximum term of incarceration under subsection (e)(3) and also impose a period of home confinement under (e)(4).” The reason is that incarceration beyond the statutory maximum term is not an option available to a district court. Because the district court did not have the option to impose imprisonment, it lacked authority to impose home confinement. The court explained that whether it views Defendant’s term of home confinement as a special condition of supervised release under Section 3563(b)(19) or as a stand-alone punishment under Section 3583(e)(4), a court may impose it “only as an alternative to incarceration.” The ordinary meaning of these provisions is that the district court erred by imposing a term of home confinement when it could not have imposed the same term of imprisonment. View "USA v. Rondell Hall" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Florida prisoner, filed a pro se civil rights suit against several prison officials under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. He alleged that the police captain retaliated against him in various ways—including placing him in disciplinary/segregated confinement—because of complaints he made and grievances he filed. He also alleged that co-defendant officers beat him while he was handcuffed and held him down, and failed to intervene during the assault. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the captain and officers all of Plaintiff’s claims.
The Eleventh Circuit vacated the grant of summary judgment except for one of the alleged instances of retaliation. The court explained that Plaintiff’s testimony directly contradicts the captain’s assertion that the initial search was “random.” The evidence—when viewed in Plaintiff’s’ favor—shows a causal connection between the submission of complaints and grievances and the initial search and trashing of the cell. Summary judgment was therefore not warranted with respect to the alleged retaliatory search and trashing of Plaintiff’s cell. Further, the court explained that a reasonable jury could find that the amount of force used against Plaintiff violated the Eighth Amendment. If Plaintiff’s version of events is believed, the evidence supports “a reliable inference of wantonness in the infliction of pain”—the officer repeatedly struck a handcuffed, restrained, and unarmed prisoner several times because he “raised his voice.” View "Quincy A. Williams v. Correctional Officer Radford, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant and his spouse maintained a car insurance policy (the “Policy”) with State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company. While the Policy was in force, Defendant’s wife was involved in an accident in which she was struck and injured by an uninsured driver of an electric motorized scooter. Defendants made a claim for her injuries under the Policy’s Uninsured Motor Vehicle (“UM”) coverage. State Farm denied the claim on the ground that under the Policy, the scooter was neither a “motor vehicle” nor an “uninsured motor vehicle,” which the Policy defined as a “land motor vehicle.” State Farm sued Defendants, seeking a declaratory judgment that the Policy provided no coverage. Both parties moved for summary judgment. The district court denied Defendant’s motion, granting summary judgment in part to State Farm.   Defendants argued that because the Policy defines “uninsured motor vehicle” as a “land motor vehicle,” the plain and ordinary meaning of the term “land motor vehicle” dictates the scope of the Policy, and under the plain and ordinary meaning of the term, the scooter is a covered uninsured motor vehicle. The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to State Farm. The court concluded that the Policy defines “uninsured motor vehicle” more broadly than Florida insurance law requires. Because an insurer can provide more UM coverage than the law requires, we decline to disregard the Policy’s broader definition of uninsured motor vehicle in favor of a more limited statutory definition of motor vehicle. View "State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Anna Bevilacqua Spangler, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff slipped in a Wal-Mart, fell to the ground, and injured her back and shoulder. While lying on the floor, she saw the culprit: a squished grape, accompanied by juice, a track mark, and footprints. No witnesses saw the grape before her fall, and a video in the record does not offer a clear picture of when the grape might have landed there. Plaintiff sued Wal-Mart Stores East, LP, for her injuries. The district court granted summary judgment in Wal-Mart’s favor, determining that there was no genuine dispute of material fact that Wal-Mart had actual or constructive knowledge of the grape before the accident, as required by Florida law.   The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded, holding that there is a genuine dispute of material fact about Wal-Mart’s constructive knowledge. The court explained that here, Plaintiff unambiguously testified that there was a track mark and footprints through the grape. Thus, this case falls cleanly into the set of Florida cases that require a jury to decide whether the substance sat on the floor long enough to establish constructive notice. The court found that though a jury might eventually decide that the footprints belonged to Plaintiff, “an equally compelling inference from the dirty appearance of the [grape] is that it had gone undetected on the floor for a sufficient period of time to place [Wal-Mart] on constructive notice. View "Vanessa Sutton v. Wal-Mart Stores East, LP" on Justia Law

After he pleaded guilty to several counts, including two violations of 18 U.S.C. Section 922(g), the district court sentenced Defendant to the mandatory minimum sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act. In doing so, the court concluded that Defendant’s two prior convictions for selling cocaine in violation of Florida Statutes Section 893.13(1)(a) were “serious drug offense[s]” that Penn “committed on occasions different from one another.” Defendant appealed both determinations. Defendant contends that his sale-of-cocaine offenses were not serious drug offenses under ACCA.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court wrote that it disagreed with Defendant’s contentions. Both of his arguments for why his sale-of-cocaine offenses are not serious drug offenses fail. The court reasoned that its precedent squarely forecloses his mens rea argument about the need to prove knowledge of the controlled substance’s illicit nature. And attempted transfers of a controlled substance are “distributing,” as ACCA uses the term. Likewise, his argument that his sale-of-cocaine offenses did not occur on separate occasions fails because he committed the crimes thirty days apart. View "USA v. Keith A. Penn" on Justia Law

Pardoned felon Defendant appealed the district court’s denial of his motion to expunge the records of his criminal conviction. Defendant argued that the district court erred in concluding that (1) it lacked jurisdiction over his claim; and (2) even if it had jurisdiction, the merits of his motion did not warrant expungement. After oral argument and consideration of the record below, we conclude that the district court lacked jurisdiction over Defendant’s motion.   The Eleventh Circuit vacated and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. The court explained that although the district court correctly noted that it lacked the requisite ancillary jurisdiction to hear Defendant’s expungement motion, it ultimately impermissibly evaluated and denied the motion on the merits. The court reasoned that no court has ever recognized ancillary jurisdiction over a constitutional expungement where the alleged constitutional violation was the natural result of an otherwise valid arrest or conviction. Thus, the court found it does not have ancillary jurisdiction over his expungement claim. View "USA v. James Batmasian" on Justia Law

In 2019, Defendant sought a further reduction under the First Step Act. By that time, he had completed four of the sentences—including all three marijuana-only sentences. The district court initially denied relief, holding that even Defendant’s crack-related convictions weren’t “covered offenses.” Defendant appealed, the government confessed error, and the Eleventh Circuit vacated and remanded. The district court then reduced Defendant’s sentences to time served on the eleven crack-related convictions but held that, under Denson’s interpretation of Section 404(b), it lacked authority to modify his sentences on the three non-covered powder-related offenses.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court held (1) that the Eleventh Circuit’s statement in Denson that a district court “is permitted to reduce a defendant’s sentence” under the First Step Act “only on a ‘covered offense’” and “is not free . . . to change the defendant’s sentences on counts that are not ‘covered offenses,’” was a holding; (2) that Concepcion did not abrogate that holding; and (3) that the prior-panel-precedent rule obliges the court to follow it. View "USA v. Michael Jerome Files" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of cocaine possession. During Defenant's direct examination, he testified that he did not conspire with a co-defendant. In response, the district court held a sidebar conference, at which the prosecution requested the court instruct the jury on the elements of conspiracy. The court provided the instruction to the jury, and the jury convicted Defendant.On appeal, Defendant challenged the court's clarifying instruction to the jury regarding conspiratorial liability as well as the sufficiency of the evidence. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed Defendant's conviction. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it intervened to prevent a misunderstanding of the law of conspiracy that Defendant's counsel invited. Further the court held that the evidence was sufficient to establish that Defendant possessed the necessary men's rea to commit the offense. View "USA v. Francisco Morel" on Justia Law

Defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment for a 2004 conviction for possessing cocaine base. At the time, Defendant's sentence was the statutory maximum for his crime because he had a prior conviction for a drug felony. Since then, Congress passed the First Step Act, which raised the threshold quantity required to authorize a sentence of life imprisonment. Thus, under the Fair Sentencing Act, Defendant's current maximum sentence would be 30 years. However, Defendant did not appeal his sentence on that ground because it complied with the statutory maximum at the time.In 2012, the Supreme Court held in Dorsey v. United States that defendants who had been convicted but not sentenced before the Fair Sentencing Act should be sentenced in accordance with the Act. Defendant filed a motion to vacate but failed to cite the Dorsey opinion.In 2018, Defendant filed a motion for a reduced sentence under the First Step Act of 2018. The district court denied relief. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, finding that the district court did not abuse its discretion because the First Step Act never requires that a Defendant receive a reduced sentence. The court also held that the district court gave an adequate “brief statement of reasons” for the exercise of its discretion. View "USA v. Patrick Frederick Williams" on Justia Law