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

Howard was charged as a felon in possession of a weapon. Before his trial, the government struck the only three Black jurors on the 39-person venire panel. The judge had admonished the jurors that they could not use the internet for any purpose related to or surrounding the case and asked the jurors to “[r]aise your number if you don’t use the internet.” Jurors 9, 13, and 24 each raised their numbers. Jurors 9 and 24 were two of the three Blacks. The prosecutor struck each of them, explaining: “I do not believe people when they say they don’t use the Internet.” In response to the defendant’s subsequent Batson challenge, the court applied the three steps of the Batson inquiry. At the third step—that the defendant established purposeful discrimination by the government—the court summarized Howard’s counsel’s argument, stating: “Your sole justification and your persuasiveness is that the government attorney, who does happen to be African-American, has struck every single African-American on the panel.”The Seventh Circuit affirmed Howard’s conviction, rejecting arguments that the district court erred by injecting the prosecutor’s race into the Batson inquiry, improperly evaluating the peremptory strike, and failing to make required demeanor findings. The prosecutor’s theory was not so “implausible or fantastic” as to require a conclusion that the justification was “pretext[] for purposeful discrimination.” View "United States v. Howard" on Justia Law

Ingram contends that, while confined in the Terre Haute Penitentiary, he was attacked and beaten by guards, after which the medical staff denied him necessary care. A magistrate concluded that Ingram failed to exhaust his administrative remedies, as required by 42 U.S.C.1997e(a), and granted the defendants summary judgment.The Seventh Circuit affirmed in part. Ingram filed three substantive grievances. Two he did not pursue to a conclusion; one. asserting that members of the staff failed to protect him from harm, was rejected because it lacked required attachments and Ingram did not resubmit a grievance or appeal. A second grievance asserted that staff retaliated against him by withholding necessary medical care. The prison rejected this grievance because Ingram had not attempted an informal resolution. An inmate cannot short-circuit the grievance process by filing in court while that process is ongoing.The court remanded in part. Ingram alleged that he never got a written decision on his remaining substantive grievance, complaining about the attack itself. If an appeal was blocked by the need to attach a document that the prisoner did not have, then that appeal is not “available” to the prisoner, and the statute allows the prisoner to turn to court. The district court should have held a hearing and taken testimony on subjects such as whether the Warden refused to provide the statement to Ingram or whether there was just a bureaucratic delay in handing it over. View "Ingram v. Watson" on Justia Law

Kitterman is a frequent litigator in Illinois federal and state courts, in response to Illinois authorities' insistence that he is required to register as a sex offender. Kitterman believes that this obligation has expired. He filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, against defendants from the Belleville Police Department, the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department, and the Illinois State Police, alleging that the authorities’ continued enforcement of registration duties violated his constitutional rights.The district court dismissed Kitterman’s complaint for failure to state a claim. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Nothing in federal law calls into question Kitterman’s obligation to register as a sex offender under Illinois law. Even accepting as true that Kitterman’s 1996 conviction was subject to a former Illinois registration law, Kitterman’s current registration duties were triggered in 2011 when he committed additional crimes. The court expressed doubt that a state prosecutor has the power to make the promises that Kitterman described concerning his registration obligations. Kitterman has been under a lawful duty to register ever since his 1996 guilty plea. Kitterman’s federal lawsuit failed because federal constitutional violations cannot be established by showing only that the state officials misapplied state law. View "Kitterman v. City of Belleville" on Justia Law

Courtney was sentenced to three years in state prison followed by one year of supervised release for violating an earlier term of parole by failing to register as a sex offender. Courtney’s supervised release was revoked before he left prison. The stated reason was not that he had acted wrongly but that he had no arrangements for a place to live that state officials deemed suitable. Courtney spent his year of supervised release in prison.Courtney brought suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the defendants failed to investigate his proposed living arrangements and ignored his grievances and that his release was revoked without evidence that he violated any terms of release and without adequate procedural protections. The district court dismissed Courtney’s claims as barred by the Supreme Court’s 1994 “Heck” decision, which forecloses civil litigation that would call into question the validity of a state criminal conviction or sentence that has not been set aside or that would call into question the validity of parole revocation, at least when the revocation is based on the parolee’s wrongdoing.The Seventh Circuit affirmed in part but remanded the claims based on the defendants’ failure to do their jobs. Courtney’s claims that the defendants, after his parole revocation, ignored his grievances and communications regarding possible host sites, if substantiated, would not necessarily imply that the Prison Review Board’s decision to revoke his parole was invalid. Courtney’s claims concerning the defendants’ inaction before that date are similar to seeking a writ of mandamus, not like seeking habeas corpus relief, and would not “necessarily demonstrate the invalidity of confinement or its duration.” View "Courtney v. Butler" on Justia Law

In 1998, Evans was charged with murder. While awaiting trial, Evans asked his cellmate to kill two witnesses. The cellmate secretly recorded those conversations for the authorities. State charges followed for soliciting murder. In 1999 two separate juries convicted Evans of both murder and solicitation. After Illinois courts affirmed both convictions on direct appeal, Evans filed a petition for postconviction relief in state court in 2003. His petition is still pending. In 2019, frustrated with the delay, Evans invoked 28 U.S.C. 2254 and turned to federal court for relief. He claimed that Illinois’s postconviction relief process had proven “ineffective,” allowing him to seek federal habeas relief without waiting further for relief in the Illinois courts.The Seventh Circuit agreed with Evans and vacated the denial of relief. “The delay Evans has experienced of twenty years and counting is beyond the pale and indefensible.” The exhaustion requirement is neither ironclad nor unyielding. A state-law remedy can become ineffective or unavailable by virtue of delay if the delay is both inordinate and attributable to the state. In this case, the “extraordinary delay has stemmed in no small part from the state’s own conduct, both in its capacity as a respondent to the litigation and as the state trial court itself.” View "Evans v. Wills" on Justia Law

The Indiana Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA) requires sex offenders who study, work, or reside in Indiana to register with the state. Indiana residents who committed sex offenses either before the Indiana General Assembly enacted SORA or before the Assembly amended SORA to cover their specific offense challenged, under the Equal Protection Clause, SORA’s “other-jurisdiction” provision. That provision requires them to register under SORA because they have a duty to register in another jurisdiction. The Seventh Circuit previously rejected arguments that SORA violated the constitutional right to travel and the Ex Post Facto Clause and concluded that the district court incorrectly applied strict scrutiny to the equal protection claim, remanding for a determination of whether the other-jurisdiction provision survives rational basis review. On remand, the district court concluded that requiring the registration of pre-SORA sex offenders who have a registration obligation in another jurisdiction is not rationally related to a legitimate state interest and granted the plaintiffs summary judgment.The Seventh Circuit reversed. Indiana has a legitimate interest in seeking to register as many sex offenders as the state constitution permits; SORA’s other-jurisdiction provision is rationally related to advancing that interest. The Indiana Supreme Court has held that when an offender is already obligated to register elsewhere, requiring registration in Indiana merely extends that existing duty, which is not punitive and does not offend Indiana’s Ex Post Facto Clause. View "Hope v. Commissioner of Indiana Department of Correction" on Justia Law

Pucillo, an Indiana resident who formerly used the last name Lock, had previously leased an apartment from Main Street. He filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in May 201, and listed as a debt past‐due rent he allegedly owed Main. The bankruptcy court granted him a discharge in September 2017, including any debt to Main. That bankruptcy discharge is listed on Pucillo’s credit reports but Main was not notified of Pucillo’s bankruptcy. In July 2017, 10 weeks before the discharge, Main had placed Pucillo’s account with National Credit for collection. Over the next 18 months, National sent Pucillo two collection letters, stating that if payment was made, National “will update credit data it may have previously submitted regarding this debt.”The week before Pucillo received the second letter, he filed suit under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. 1692e (demanding payment of a debt not owed) and section 1692c(c) (failure to cease communications and cease collections). He alleged that National’s continued communications “confused and alarmed” him. National did not actually give information to a credit reporting agency—before or after his bankruptcy discharge. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. Pucillo lacked Article III standing to sue. Pucillo’s allegations of ʺconfusion,” “stress,” “concern,” and “fear” are not sufficiently concrete to result in an injury in fact that would give him standing to sue. View "Pucillo v. National Credit Systems, Inc." on Justia Law

independent-expenditure political action committees (super PACs) do not give money directly to candidates, party committees, or ballot-initiative movements. They spend money themselves to advocate for or against candidates, parties, or initiatives. The Fund wants to operate as an Indiana independent-expenditure PAC but fears that the state’s Election Code does not allow it to accept unlimited donations from corporations, in violation of the First Amendment. Indiana’s election officials say they do not believe their laws could be enforced that way.Indiana’s campaign finance laws allow corporations to make contributions "to aid in the election or defeat of a candidate or the success or defeat of a political party or a public question.” Section 4 imposes limits on direct corporate contributions to candidates and party committees but imposes no cap on contributions to committees unaffiliated with a political party, such as PACs. Section 5 ensures that corporations cannot use PACs as a loophole to avoid contribution caps by requiring corporations to designate their contributions to PACs “for disbursement to a specific candidate or committee listed under section 4.” Section 5 does not address how or whether a corporation could earmark a contribution for a PAC's independent expenditure for or against a candidate or party.The Seventh Circuit certified to the Indiana Supreme Court Does the Indiana Election Code—in particular, sections 3-9-2-3 to -6—prohibit or otherwise limit corporate contributions to PACs or other entities that engage in independent campaign-related expenditures? View "Indiana Right to Life Victory Fund v. Morales" on Justia Law

Police released the footage of a bank robbery to the media. Several tipsters identified Garcia as the robber. Garcia was arrested without a warrant. Two days later Detective Spano submitted a “Probable Cause Statement and Judicial Determination” (CR-215) form to a court commissioner (essentially a magistrate) to establish a basis for Garcia’s continued detention. The form references the Fourth Amendment and Wisconsin Statute 970.01, “Initial Appearance Before a Judge.” Spano indicated that he had “probable cause to believe that [Garcia] committed” bank robbery and violated his parole," citing a description of the surveillance footage and the tips. The commissioner checked a box stating: “I find probable cause to believe that the arrested person committed the offense(s),” and set bail at $50,000. Garcia, in jail, was not present for the CR-215 determination.Hours after the probable cause finding—without counsel for Garcia—the police conducted an in-person lineup with two tellers. Three days later, Wisconsin prosecutors charged Garcia with bank robbery. Garcia appeared in court that day represented by a public defender; 10 days later Garcia appeared at a preliminary hearing; the court ordered him detained pending trial.The Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed Garcia’s conviction, determining that the right to counsel had not attached at the time of the lineup. The Seventh Circuit affirmed a grant of habeas corpus relief (28 U.S.C. 2254). The state court's resolution of Garcia’s Sixth Amendment right-to-counsel claim was objectively unreasonable, even applying "vast deference" under 2254(d)(1). The court cited the “Supreme Court’s long line of cases on the attachment of the right to counsel.” The judicial machinery of the state’s adversarial process necessarily began to turn against Garcia after the commissioner executed the CR-215 form. View "Garcia v. Hepp" on Justia Law

Police discovered a loaded firearm, cocaine, and more than 800 methamphetamine pills on Jones’s person and in his car during a traffic stop. Federal charges followed. Counsel declined to make frivolous challenges to the court’s jurisdiction at Jones’s request. Jones sought to represent himself. Magistrate Long conducted an extensive Faretta colloquy, covering Jones’s education, mental health, and prior legal experiences. Jones confirmed his understanding of the charges and agreed to follow the Federal Rules of Evidence and Criminal Procedure. He claimed that he understood the perils of self-representation, which Long explained in detail. The court allowed Jones to represent himself and appointed his public defender as standby counsel. Jones spent months before trial challenging the court’s jurisdiction in frivolous filings, advancing “sovereign-citizen” arguments.Concerned with the incoherence of the filings, the government requested a second Faretta colloquy. District Judge Mihm conducted the colloquy. Jones insisted he did not “consent” to jurisdiction and would not participate in his trial. While he acknowledged understanding the “letter” of the charges against him, he also expressed confusion about whether the proceedings were criminal, civil, administrative, or even “statutory maritime.” Mihm concluded that Jones’s waiver of counsel remained valid. Jones did not deliver opening or closing statements, cross-examine witnesses, or lodge any objections. His testimony had no bearing on the charges against him. The Seventh Circuit affirmed his conviction and 138-month sentence. Jones knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to counsel. View "United States v. Jones" on Justia Law