Appeals

After being struck in the head with a metal handlebar, called the n-word, and having his life threatened by four white men in Lewiston, Me., Black man retrieves a gun from his home nearby, returns to the scene, and fires a shot into a dirt pile. At trial, the prosecutor peremptorily struck the only person of color from the jury pool. Man: this is discrimination and violates Batson v. Kentucky. Trial court: "I can't make any findings." Man is convicted and sentenced to three years in prison.

Utah Highway Patrol officer pulls over a car with Kansas plates for speeding and changing lanes without properly signaling. After talking with the driver, trooper returns to his patrol car and calls for a local sheriff's K-9 unit. The K-9 eventually shows up and alerts on the car, and the resulting search turns up a gun, fentanyl pills, and a kilo of cocaine. Man: the trooper had no reasonable suspicion to prolong the stop to facilitate the dig sniff? Trial court: Yes, he did. Tenth Circuit: No, he didn't.

What standard of review should federal habeas courts use when assessing state courts' prior determinations that constitutional trial errors were harmless?

The U.S. Supreme Court struggled during oral arguments Wednesday over whether its landmark Miranda ruling allows criminal suspects to file civil suits against police officers who don't warn them of their rights against self-incrimination.

West Virginia used-car dealers file motion to suppress evidence obtained during search, and four years later a court agrees that the state trooper who applied for the warrant omitted important facts and made misleading statements and dismisses the criminal charges (failing to disclose to customers that their cars had been totaled before being refurbished) with prejudice. Fourth Circuit: But it's too late for them to sue the trooper over the unconstitutional search. They should have sued while the criminal case was still pending.

The Supreme Court on Monday turned away an appeal from a death row inmate in Texas who said his jury had been tainted by racial bias (view full article).

The justices refused to hear the case of Kristopher Love, a Black man who was sentenced to death in Texas, after he objected to the seating of a juror who had said he believed “nonwhite races” to be the “more violent races.”

If someone is held at gunpoint and forced to withdraw money from an ATM, is the bank being robbed (a federal crime) or just the person (not a federal crime)? Seventh Circuit (2005): The bank - because the money belongs to the bank. Fifth Circuit (2005):  The person - because the money belongs to the account holder. Tenth Circuit (last week): Bank - because the money belongs to the bank.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari in Cruz v. Arizona, No. 21-846 (Mar. 28, 2022) (cert. granted), to decide “[w]hether the Arizona Supreme Court’s holding that Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.1 (g) precluded post-conviction relief is an adequate and independent state-law ground for the judgment.

Fifth Circuit: "Ann Sheperd, the owner of a home-health agency, lawyered up after being indicted for Medicare fraud. But there was a tiny problem: Unbeknownst to Sheperd, her pretrial lawyer—who represented her until days before trial—also represented one of the Government's star witnesses. Oops." Remand for a hearing to determine whether lawyer's conflict of interest affected representation.

The case is United States v. Sheperd, 19-20073 (5th Cir. Mar. 8, 2022).

Today the Supreme Court decided Wooden v. United States, No. 20-5279 (S. Ct. March 7, 2022) soundly tossing out a sentencing enhancement for a Georgia man who was designated a “career criminal” based on his burglary convictions for breaking into a single mini-storage facility and stealing items from 10 separate storage units. Previous coverage available here and here.