Justia U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Winters pled guilty to conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute large quantities of drugs. The plea agreement provided that the government would recommend a base offense level of 32. But at sentencing the government concurred in the Presentence Investigation Report’s conclusion that Winters was a career offender, which raised Winters’s offense level to 37. The district court set Winters’s offense level at 37, and sentenced him to 165 months’ imprisonment, well below the recommended Guidelines. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting an argument that the government violated the plea agreement. The Supreme Court’s decision in Sykes v. United States, 131 S.Ct. 2267 (2011), overrode that recommendation. The case, decided while Winters’s sentencing was pending, held that felony vehicle flight was a crime of violence for purposes of the career offender provisions. View "United States v. Winter" on Justia Law

Grigsby and coconspirators executed two bank heists, stealing more than one-half million dollars from the bank where Grigsby worked as a teller. Grigsby was indicted on two counts of entering a federally insured bank for the purpose of committing a felony, 18 U.S.C. 2113(a). She pleaded guilty without a plea agreement to the first count and stipulated that she committed the second crime. With that, the government moved to dismiss the second count. In her sworn statement to the court, Grigsby minimized her role, trying to pin most of the blame on her coconspirators. The district court applied a two-level sentencing enhancement for obstruction of justice, U.S.S.G. 3C1.1, and a three-level enhancement for her supervisory role, 3B1.1(b). The resulting guidelines range was 46 to 57 months; the court chose a sentence of 57 months. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the sentence. Both enhancements were based on a factual finding that Grigsby lied during her plea colloquy in an intentional effort to mislead the court; the finding was supported by the evidence and specific enough to withstand clear-error review. The court sufficiently considered the section 3553(a) sentencing factors and was not required to specifically address Grigsby’s routine arguments for a below-guidelines sentence. View "United States v. Grigsby" on Justia Law

Carter and Willis robbed a couple at gunpoint, taking the couple’s vehicle and their belongings. One of the stolen cell phones was enabled with a GPS tracking feature. Police were able to monitor find and arrest them the same night. In a joint trial with separate juries for each defendant, the two were convicted of carjacking, using a firearm during the carjacking, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting a challenge to sufficiency of the evidence. The court upheld the district court’s jury instruction, requiring the government to prove that each defendant “intended to cause serious bodily harm when the defendant took the motor vehicle” as consistent with the carjacking statute, which refers to “intent to cause death or serious bodily harm” 18 U.S.C. 2119. View "United States v. Carter" on Justia Law

In 2001, Hall was convicted in state court of murdering his stepson. Shortly after his verdict came down, Hall discovered that one of his jurors had a son that was a fellow inmate of his. Before his trial, the juror’s son informed the juror that Hall was likely innocent, but during the trial, the juror found out that his son and several co-inmates changed their mind about Hall, and thought him guilty. The juror relayed this information to several jurors. The state court rejected Hall’s motion to correct error, and Hall was denied relief on direct appeal. After unsuccessfully seeking collateral relief in Indiana, Hall filed a federal habeas petition, arguing that the state should have carried the burden of proving that the extraneous information that reached his jury was not prejudicial. The district court granted the petition. The Seventh Circuit vacated and remanded, holding that the state court violated a clearly established constitutional right, but did not adequately address the issue of prejudice. The district court erred in presuming prejudice.View "Hall v. Wilson" on Justia Law

Claiming anxiety, depression, suicidal tendencies, insomnia, vertigo, migraine headaches, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome, and plantar fasciitis, Farrell, then 33 year old, applied for disability insurance benefits. Her initial application was denied, but the Social Security Administration Appeals Council remanded. The Administrative Law Judge again ruled against her, in part because of her failure to establish definitively that she suffered from fibromyalgia. The Appeals Council summarily affirmed this decision, despite new evidence before it that confirmed the fibromyalgia. The district court affirmed. The Seventh Circuit reversed. The Social Security Administration’s regulations require the Appeals Council to consider “new and material evidence.” The ALJ did not adequately deal with competing expert opinions. View "Farrell v. Astrue" on Justia Law

A class of persons required to register on the state’s online sex and violent offender database sued the Indiana Department of Correction, alleging that failure to provide any procedure to correct errors in the registry violates due process. In response, the DOC created a new policy to give notice to current prisoners about their pending registry listings and an opportunity to challenge the information. The district court granted summary judgment on the ground that the new policy was sufficient to comply with due process. The new procedures still fail to provide any process at all for an entire class of registrants: those who are not incarcerated. The Seventh Circuit reversed. State judicial post-deprivation remedies cited by the DOC are insufficient to meet the requirements of due process. Although registrants can challenge registry errors in the course of criminal prosecutions for failure to comply with registration requirements, due process does not require a person to risk additional criminal conviction as the price of correcting an erroneous listing, especially where a simple procedural fix is available much earlier. View "Schepers v. Comm'r of IN Dep't of Corr." on Justia Law

Schorsch enrolled in a long-term disability plan in 1991, but apparently never received a summary plan description or explanation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, 29 U.S.C.1132. In 1992 she was in an automobile accident; in 1993 Schorsch began receiving disability benefits. In 2006, at the plan’s request, Schorsch underwent a medical exam, which resulted in a report finding her capable of performing a medium duty job. The plan notified Schorsch that it would terminate her benefits, but did not mention a surveillance report, which was part of the determination. , Schorsch’s counsel sent a letter, but neither Schorsch nor her attorney submitted a request for review. The plan notified Schorsch that the appeals period had passed. Schorsch’s claimed breach of contract and unreasonable denial of benefits under Illinois law and ERISA violations. The plan had lost the administrative record relating to Schorsch’s claim. The district court granted summary judgment on the ground of failure to exhaust administrative remedies. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. There are exceptions that may excuse a failure to exhaust, but Schorsch offered no evidence of reasonable reliance on information missing from the notice or that alleged deficiencies were material. View "Schorsch v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Martin was the Sheriff of Gallatin County from 1990 until his conviction on 15 counts: marijuana distribution, possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime, conspiracy to distribute marijuana, witness tampering, conspiracy to tamper with witnesses, and attempted structuring of financial transactions. The government obtained audio and video recordings of three deliveries of marijuana to Potts by Martin, while in uniform, in his patrol vehicle, and in possession of his service revolver. While incarcerated jail, Martin solicited inmates to kill Potts and another witness and took steps to obtain payments for the murders. Because of a bizarre case of mistaken identity, a non-juror was in the jury room for no more than five minutes before jurors lined up to enter the courtroom. Each juror testified that the individual did not speak to anyone in the jury room. The court notified the parties that it intended to proceed with the trial. Defense counsel did not object. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the conviction, finding that the district court did not err in its inquiry into the potential jury tampering and in its determination that no improper communication or influence had occurred, but remanded for recalculation of the sentence. View "United States v. Martin" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and sexual exploitation of a child, 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(5)(B), 2251(a), and was sentenced to 420 months, reserving the right to appeal the legality of the search of his computer. The warrant affidavit said that authorities had discovered that a pornographic video, which a 13- year-girl had made of herself and uploaded to the Internet, had been downloaded to a computer at defendant’s home and that images from that video had been uploaded from that computer to an image-sharing website. A Facebook message with a link to that website had been sent to the girl’s stepmother from the same computer. Authorities identified the computer’s Internet Protocol address as registered to the defendant. Defendant argued that the facts were stale and that there was no reason to believe that seven months after he had uploaded child pornography there would still be evidence of the crime on his computer. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Staleness is highly relevant to the legality of a search for a perishable or consumable object, like cocaine, but rarely relevant to a computer file. Computers and computer equipment are “not the type of evidence that rapidly dissipates or degrades.” View "United States v. Seiver" on Justia Law

Defendant gave an informer for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration $477,020 for 32 kilograms of what he thought was cocaine. After arresting him officers searched his apartment, with assistance and written consent from his 18-year-old niece, and found 13 kilograms of real cocaine. Defendant's niece had access to the apartment to assist defendant with child care.No charges were based on the real cocaine. He pled guilty to attempting to possess cocaine and intending to distribute it and was sentenced to 120 months in prison. His plea agreement provided that he could challenge the search, based on an apparent belief that he might be acquitted of attempted possession if the real cocaine were kept out of the case. The judge denied the motion. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The police had a reasonable belief that the niece was authorized to consent to the search. View "United States v. Garcia" on Justia Law