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

In 2008, defendant Jason Austin was the leader of a street-level, retail drug-trafficking operation. Austin received drugs from suppliers and sold the drugs to users, with the help of many others. Money was passed up a chain of “managers” or “bundle runners,” who in exchange distributed drugs to “pack workers” for sales. Drug proceeds were then finally passed from the managers up to Austin. Off-duty Chicago Police Detective Robert Soto and Kathryn Romberg were shot and killed while sitting in Soto’s car on the west side of Chicago. The investigation into their murders focused on Austin and his operation. The murder case against Austin was ultimately dismissed. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Chicago Police Department then began what became a two-year investigation into Austin and his operation. The investigation included numerous undercover drug purchases, extensive surveillance, and interviews with informants and coconspirators. At the end of the investigation in November 2010, over 100 people were arrested. Austin was indicted on federal charges relating to his role in the drug-trafficking conspiracy, particularly for his participation from January 2008 through June 2010. A jury found Austin guilty of five counts of drug distribution and one count of conspiracy to distribute, but only for an amount of less than 100 grams of heroin. He appealed only his sentence, challenging the quantity of drugs attributable to him and the court’s finding that he played a leading role in the organization. In particular, he argued that a key witness has been so thoroughly discredited by alleged misstatements and contradictions that it was error for the court to credit his testimony at least in part. After review, the Seventh Circuit disagreed, and affirmed Austin’s sentence. View "United States v. Austin" on Justia Law

On July 5, 2013, the Governor of Wisconsin signed into a law a statute that the Wisconsin legislature had passed one month earlier prohibiting a doctor from performing an abortion unless he or she has admitting privileges at a hospital no more than thirty miles from the clinic in which the abortion is performed. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and Milwaukee Women’s Medical Services (which operate the only four abortion clinics in Wisconsin) joined by two doctors employed by Planned Parenthood, challenged the statute’s constitutionality under 42 U.S.C. 1983, first seeking and obtaining a preliminary injunction and ultimately seeking a permanent injunction against enforcement of the statute. After a trial, the trial judge granted a permanent injunction against enforcement of the statute. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, holding (1) Plaintiffs had standing to sue; and (2) the statute is unconstitutional because it imposes a burden excessive in relation to the aims of the statute and the benefits likely to be conferred by it. View "Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, Inc. v. Schimel" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, who is black, filed a complaint against the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) in federal court, alleging that the CTA fired him because of his race in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 42 U.S.C. 1981. The CTA responded that Plaintiff was fired because he violated CTA’s policy against sexual harassment. The district court granted the CTA’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that Plaintiff’s evidence was insufficient to create a triable issue under either the direct or indirect methods of proving unlawful discrimination. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, holding that Plaintiff’s case failed under both the direct and indirect methods of proof. View "Smith v. Chicago Transit Auth." on Justia Law

Appellant, an alien, has been frequently removed from the United States in light of his criminal record. Appellant has been convicted three times of illegal reentry in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326(a). In this, Appellant's most recent prosecution for illegal reentry, Wisconsin turned Appellant over to immigration officials after he had been caught fleeing the scene of an accident. Appellant entered a conditional guilty plea preserving for review his argument that the district judge wrongly rejected his defense under section 1326(d). The Seventh Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court did not err in finding that Appellant did not establish a defense under section 1326(d). View "United States v. Larios-Buentello" on Justia Law

In 2011, Nationwide Credit Corporation, a debt-collection agency - telephoned Gregory Leeb about an unpaid medical bill. Leeb mailed and faxed a letter to Nationwide disputing the debt. A few days later, Nationwide sent Leeb a letter asking him to provide additional information and instructing him to detach the upper portion of the letter and “return with payment.” The bottom portion stated that the communication was “from a debt collector attempted to collect a debt.” Leeb sued, arguing that Nationwide violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) - which required Nationwide to “cease collection” until it verified the debt - by sending the letter. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Leeb. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, holding (1) Nationwide’s letter, objectively viewed, was an attempt to collect the debt; and (2) Nationwide’s violation was not excused under FDCPA’s “bona fide error” provision. View "Leeb v. Nationwide Credit Corp." on Justia Law

ACT, Inc. and The College Board (collectively, Defendants) are national testing agencies that administer the ACT and SAT college entrance exams. When a student applies to take a test, Defendants obtain some of the student’s personally identifiable information (PII). As part of the examination process, some students authorize Defendants to share certain PII with participating educational organizations through an information exchange program. In 2014, a group of former information exchange program participants (collectively, Plaintiffs) filed a putative class action complaint against Defendants, alleging that they were harmed because the testing agencies did not disclose that the students’ PII was actually sold to the educational organizations for profit. The district court dismissed the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1), concluding that Plaintiffs failed to establish standing under Article III of the Constitution. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, holding that Plaintiff’s factual allegations failed to establish a plausible claim of Article III standing. View "Silha v. ACT, Inc." on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Petitioner was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted armed robbery. The Illinois Appellate Court reversed Petitioner’s attempted armed robbery conviction and ordered resentencing on the murder conviction, arguing that the evidence did not support the conviction for attempted armed robbery. Thereafter, Petitioner filed a second appeal challenging his conviction for first-degree murder. The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed Petitioner’s murder conviction, and the Illinois Supreme Court denied further review. Petitioner subsequently filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2254, claiming that his rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment had been violated and that there was insufficient evidence to sustain his murder conviction. The district court denied relief, concluding that Petitioner procedurally defaulted his claims. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court correctly found that Petitioner procedurally defaulted his claims. View "Crockett v. Butler" on Justia Law

On four occasions, Normal, Illinois, police attached battery‐powered, global‐positioning‐ system devices (GPS) to the Lincoln sedan belonging to Martin, a suspected drug trafficker, in an effort to monitor his movements. The police attached the GPS without seeking a warrant or consulting legal counsel regarding the constitutionality of this investigative technique. The GPS tracking assisted police in identifying locations Martin used for his drug‐trafficking operations, which later led to a search warrant, seizure of evidence, and indictment. Before Martin’s trial, the Supreme Court held that attachment of a GPS to a vehicle and its subsequent use to track a vehicle’s movements constitutes a “search” under the Fourth Amendment. The district court denied Martin’s motion to suppress, finding that Seventh Circuit 2010 precedent permitted warrantless use of the GPS. Martin was later convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to a mandatory term of life imprisonment under 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(A). The Seventh Circuit affirmed, the exclusionary rule does not apply “when the police conduct a search in objectively reasonable reliance on binding judicial precedent.” View "United States v. Martin" on Justia Law

A building that housed the Café, other restaurants, and 10 apartments burned to the ground. The Cafe’s owner, Rahman, signed a consent form that allowed investigators to look for the “origin and cause” of the fire. Investigators performed a line search looking for a laptop and safe that Rahman told investigators were in the basement, but found neither. Based on the absence of the laptop, the presence of gasoline, and other evidence, investigators settled on arson as the cause of the fire. Rahman was charged with arson and lying to investigators about the location of the laptop. He was acquitted of the arson counts, but convicted of providing false statements to the government. The Seventh Circuit reversed, finding that evidence from the basement line search should have been suppressed as exceeding the scope of Rahman’s consent. The investigators had already ruled out the basement as the origin of the fire when they conducted the search. Their only purpose was to find secondary and circumstantial evidence of arson, which exceeded the scope of Rahman’s consent. The fact that one of Rahman’s computers was found at his home and did not contain business records was not sufficient to find him guilty of the charged false statement. View "United States v. Rahman" on Justia Law

Chatman was charged with six counts of distributing heroin, 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1), based on separate transactions between Chatman and an undercover agent. He pled guilty to one count, his sixteenth criminal conviction since 1996 and third for delivery of a controlled substance. He had convictions for possession of a controlled substance, unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, domestic battery, driving under the influence, and driving on a suspended or revoked license. At Chatman’s sentencing hearing, when describing Chatman’s criminal history, the government stated that Chatman had “several” possession of a controlled substance convictions and “several” DUI convictions. After hearing arguments, the court assigned him 27 criminal history points under U.S.S.G. 4A1.1, which produced a Category VI criminal history designation. The court matched this criminal history designation with the instant offense score of 29 to reach a suggested sentence of 151 to 188 months. The court heard arguments regarding the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors, then sentenced Chatman to 160 months in prison and three years of supervised release, with conditions including refraining from “excessive use of alcohol,” and of “any narcotics,” and having a mental health evaluation during supervised release. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting an argument that the court improperly relied on inaccurate statements by the government regarding his criminal history, but modified to expunging a mental health evaluation that was not orally pronounced from the bench. View "United States v. Chatman" on Justia Law