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

A frightened woman called 911, stating that she was in her car in a narrow alley when another driver blocked her exit, got out of his car, was approaching in a menacing manner, screaming obscenities, and had displayed a gun. A Chicago police officer responded and saw a car parked at the entrance to the alley. The driver (Charles) emerged. He matched the caller’s description, so the officer frisked him. Finding nothing, the officer searched the car and discovered a loaded handgun. Charles was indicted for possessing a firearm as a felon, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). Long after the pretrial-motion deadline lapsed, Charles moved to suppress the gun. Days later, Charles requested a bench trial. Over Charles's objection, the judge held a combined suppression hearing and bench trial, admitted the gun, and found Charles guilty. Before sentencing Charles changed counsel several times and filed multiple motions. The case was transferred to a new judge, who agreed that the gun should have been suppressed, but found that Charles would have been convicted without the gun in evidence. Charles was sentenced to 15 years. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The suppression motion was properly denied. The officer had probable cause to search Charles’s car for a gun based on the caller’s report and his own observations. View "United States v. Charles" on Justia Law

Brown, convicted of raping adult women and diagnosed with paraphilia (specifically, sexual attraction to non-consenting women) and personality disorder with antisocial and narcissistic traits, was civilly committed to the Rushville Treatment and Detention Center under Illinois’s Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act. Brown and 17 others sued the facility’s officials and clinical staff under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that policies restricting their access to movies, video games, and video game consoles violate the First Amendment. Rushville prohibited its residents from watching all R-rated movies and playing M-rated video games (may “contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language”). The policy was later changed to prohibit 353 specific movies and 232 specific games. Rushville subsequently discovered that two residents were using a video game console to access the internet to view forbidden material and banned residents from possessing video game consoles capable of accessing the internet. Brown contended that the new restrictions were retaliation against him for suing. The district court entered summary judgment for the defendants. The Seventh Circuit vacated in part, finding that the record did not contain a sufficient basis to conclude that the ban on movies and video games is reasonably related to the state’s interests in security and rehabilitation, View "Brown v. Phillips" on Justia Law

A judge issued a warrant to search Thompson's house, based exclusively on the affidavit of officer Lane stating that an informant had told him that “a black male” named Sidney “routinely sells cocaine” from his Peoria house; the informant claimed to have gone to Sidney’s house twice, most recently within 72 hours, and both times saw Sidney with “a quantity of an off white like rock substance that was represented to be cocaine.” The informant provided Thompson’s address and physical description. Lane knew from prior investigations that Thompson matched that physical description and the informant had picked Thompson from a photo array. Lane checked Thompson’s criminal history and found 14 arrests involving drugs and four convictions. A state database and Lane’s surveillance verified Thompson’s address. Lane stated that once previously the informant had made a controlled buy of marijuana and another time had given information which led to a suspect’s arrest for possessing a controlled substance. Officers executed the warrant and found 17 grams of cocaine in Thomson’s house. The Seventh Circuit affirmed denial of a motion to suppress. Even if the affidavit did not include sufficient facts to establish probable cause, the evidence was admissible under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule. View "United States v. Thompson" on Justia Law

Bisluk, a conservative who votes Republican, was a special agent working in Chicago for the Illinois Department of Revenue’s Liquor Control Commission under former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s Democratic administration. She purchased a home in southern Illinois and asked her employer about transferring duty assignments from Chicago to southern Illinois, but failed to submit a transfer request or apply for the job. She did not get a position. She sued several state officials alleging that she was denied a transfer to southern Illinois because of her political association, in violation of the First Amendment and because of her gender in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the defendants. The undisputed evidence showed that Bisluk did not receive the transfer because she did not submit the proper transfer paperwork or apply for the job. View "Bisluk v. Hamer" on Justia Law

Common Cause is a national organization that advocates for elimination of barriers to voting. ICommon Cause Indiana challenged the constitutionality of Indiana Code 33-33-49-13, which establishes the process for electing judges to the Marion Superior Court in Marion County. This system is unique in Indiana, as it is the only office where primary election voters do not vote for as many candidates as there are persons to be elected to that office in the general election. Common Cause contends that the procedure violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court and Seventh Circuit agreed.The statute burdens the right to cast a meaningful vote without sufficiently weighty interests to justify such a burden. In the context of partisan judicial elections, which the state has chosen to adopt as its preferred system for selecting judges for the Marion Superior Court, the asserted benefits and interests surrounding partisan balance do not justify the burden placed on the right to vote. View "Common Cause Ind. v. Individual Members of the Ind. Election Comm'n" on Justia Law

A deputy noticed paper covering the light above the bed of pretrial detainee Kingsley and ordered him to remove it. Kingsley refused and ignored several subsequent requests. The administrator decided that jail staff would remove the paper and would transfer Kingsley to another cell in the interim. Five officers arrived and ordered Kingsley to back up to the door with his hands behind his back. After being warned to follow the order or be tasered, Kingsley continued to lie face-down on his bunk. The parties dispute what followed, but an officer applied a taser for five seconds. Kingsley was placed on a medical watch, but refused the attention of a nurse. Kingsley, pro se, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The court granted defendants partial summary judgment; a claim of excessive force proceeded to trial, resulting in a verdict for the defendants. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Following the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision, Kingsley v. Hendrickson, the Seventh Circuit vacated and remanded for a new trial. Kingsley should prevail if he can establish that the officers acted in an unreasonable manner—without regard to subjective intent. The evidence would have supported a finding for him under that theory, but the jury was told that it also had to find the officers had a proscribed intent. View "Kingsley v. Hendrickson" on Justia Law

Two weeks before her death, Julie Jensen gave a sealed envelope to her neighbors, stating that if anything happened to her, they should give the envelope to the police. It contained a handwritten letter, stating that her relationship with her husband had deteriorated and that “I ... fear for my early demise.” Julie made similarly statements in voicemails left with the police and to others. A search of the Jensens’ home computer yielded internet searches for suicide and poisoning, including a search for “ethylene glycol poisoning.” Ethylene glycol (antifreeze) was found in Julie’s system. The search also revealed that Jensen was having an affair. Jensen was charged with first-degree intentional homicide. Experts disagreed about the cause of death. The trial court ruled that Julie’s letter was admissible. After the Supreme Court decided Crawford v. Washington, (2004), Jensen moved for reconsideration. The Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted “a broad forfeiture by wrongdoing doctrine.” On remand, the court found by a preponderance of the evidence that Jensen killed Julie, causing her absence from trial, and had forfeited his right to confrontation with respect to the letter. The Seventh Circuit affirmed a grant of habeas corpus relief: the Wisconsin court’s determination reflected an unreasonable application of the harmless error standard. Rrroneous admission of Julie’s letter and statements to the police had a substantial and injurious effect in determining the guilty verdict. View "Jensen v. Clements" on Justia Law

Religious, not-for-profit organizations challenged the “contraceptive mandate” of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), 42 U.S.C. 300gg-13(a)(4), arguing that the ACA’s accommodations for religious organizations impose a substantial burden on their free exercise of religion, and that the ACA and accompanying regulations are not the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling government interest, in violation of the plaintiffs’ rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. 2000bb. The district court entered a preliminary injunction. The Seventh Circuit reversed, stating: It is the operation of federal law, not any actions that the plaintiffs must take, that causes the provisions of services that the plaintiffs find morally objectionable. The accommodation has the legal effect of removing from objectors any connection to the provision of contraceptive services. View "Grace Schools v. Burwell" on Justia Law

Rollins pleaded guilty to selling crack cocaine and was sentenced to 84 months in prison and four years of supervised release. The Seventh Circuit vacated the sentence on limited grounds, noting that the government agreed that the district judge was likely unaware of a change in the recommended term of supervised release brought about by the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. The court noted that the Supreme Court holding, Johnson v. United States, (2015), that the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), is vague, does not affect this case. While the residual clause in the career-offender guideline is materially identical to the residual clause in the ACCA, Circuit precedent holds that the Guidelines cannot be challenged as unconstitutionally vague. The court noted that the U.S. Sentencing Commission has begun the process of amending the career-offender guideline to delete the residual clause, bringing the Guidelines into alignment with Johnson. Rollins’s challenge to the application of the career-offender guideline failed on plain-error review. The application notes to section 4B1.2 specifically list possession of a sawed-off shotgun as a qualifying crime of violence. View "United States v. Rollins" on Justia Law

When she arrived at the Kankakee jail on suspicion of conspiring to commit bank fraud, plaintiff was almost eight months pregnant. She experienced pains 11 days later and was taken to a hospital, where she gave birth. Plaintiff claims that the child suffered serious birth defects because of oxygen deprivation attributable to a displacement of the placenta. She was returned to the jail several days after the birth but remained there for only four days before being transferred to another jail. Two months later, having been shifted among several jails, she pleaded guilty. She was sentenced to 50 months in prison. She filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 two years later, alleging that defendants failed to take a proper medical history when she was first placed in jail; failed to respond to several requests for medical assistance; and failed to react quickly when she went into labor The court dismissed for failure to exhaust administrative remedies through the correctional system. The Seventh Circuit reversed. Even if plaintiff had been told upon her return from the hospital that she had only four days to file a grievance, that deadline was unreasonably short for a woman who had just given birth to a severely impaired child. She was effectively prevented from filing a grievance. View "White v. Bukowski" on Justia Law