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

Thomas was convicted of the voluntary manslaughter of his uncle and is serving a 40-year sentence at Indiana’s Westville Correctional Facility. He has a history of mental illness which began before his incarceration; his symptoms include suicidal ideations, paranoia, and hallucinations. Thomas has also been diagnosed with epilepsy, antisocial personality disorder, and anxiety, for which he has received various medications while incarcerated. Thomas sued state correctional officials, alleging deficient health care, inadequate conditions of confinement, and that officers treated him with excessive force. The district court found Thomas’s pro se complaint deficient and gave him opportunities to remedy its problems but ultimately dismissed his case for failure to prosecute. The court also denied three requests by Thomas for appointed counsel. The Seventh Circuit reversed the dismissal. The district court abused its discretion by denying Thomas’s requests to appoint counsel. Thomas made reasonable attempts to obtain counsel and the court did not assess whether Thomas appeared competent to litigate the case given its difficulty. This outcome prejudiced Thomas. The court remanded for the appointment of an attorney. The district court also provided insufficient grounds on which to dismiss Thomas’s case for failure to prosecute. View "Thomas v. Wardell" on Justia Law

Donald and Lauretta Bauer purchased land from Donald’s parents and executed promissory notes and a mortgage. When Donald’s parents died, their interest in the notes transferred to Donald's siblings, who sought foreclosure. A state court entered a foreclosure judgment and a deficiency judgment. No judicial sale occurred. The Bauers tried to redeem the property by satisfying the judgment. The foreclosure plaintiffs issued citations to discover assets and sought additional interest. The state court found that the Bauers owed an additional $33,782.96 in interest. The Bauers paid; the plaintiffs filed a satisfaction of judgment. The Bauers then sued, alleging tampering with evidence and abuse of process by seeking to extort money through the issuance of citations to discover assets. The state appellate court upheld the dismissal of the case.The Bauers filed a federal suit, 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the defendants, including the state-court judge, conspired to introduce a forged document into evidence during the foreclosure trial and that the judge and the clerk allowed the plaintiffs to issue baseless citations to discover assets. The district court dismissed the case under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, which precludes federal district-court jurisdiction “over cases brought by state-court losers challenging state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced.” The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting the Bauers’ argument that they did not seek to set aside the state court’s order or judgment but only mean to challenge the “collection practices” of the defendants and their collusion. Any finding in favor of the Bauers would require the federal court to contradict the state court’s orders. View "Bauer v. Koester" on Justia Law

In 2011, the petitioners pleaded guilty to violating 18 U.S.C. 924(c) for brandishing a firearm during a “crime of violence”—theft from a federally licensed firearms dealer, 18 U.S.C. 922(u). In 2016, both moved under 28 U.S.C. 2255 to vacate their section 924(c) convictions, citing the Supreme Court’s 2019 “Davis” holding that a violation of section 922(u) no longer counts as a crime of violence. The district court denied relief. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Express collateral-attack waivers in both plea agreements are valid and bar their challenges to their convictions and sentences. The petitioners did not satisfy any recognized bases for avoiding a valid collateral-attack waiver. The court rejected their arguments that they were asserting a non-waivable “jurisdictional” challenge to the constitutionality of the statute of conviction; that allowing their convictions to stand would result in a “miscarriage of justice”; and that their section 924(c) convictions rest on a “constitutionally impermissible factor.” View "Ross v. United States" on Justia Law

Mascow, a teacher who had tenure under Illinois law, was laid off in 2017. Because her latest rating was “unsatisfactory,” she was first in line for layoff when the school lost one position and lacked any recall rights if the school district began hiring again—as it did. She sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the Due Process Clause entitled her to a hearing before the layoff and that the “unsatisfactory” rating violated the First Amendment. Mascow became co-president of the Union in 2010. Her First Amendment claim rests on her actions in 2014 and 2015 in notifying administrators that planned activities would violate the collective bargaining agreement. The school canceled one event and revised the other. The district court rejected both claims, reasoning that a reasonable jury could not find that the 2014 and 2015 meetings caused a reduction in Mascow’s ratings, noting that Mascow’s co-president, who attended the 2015 meeting, retained an “excellent” rating. The Seventh Circuit affirmed with respect to the First Amendment but vacated with respect to the due process claim. Neither the district judge nor the parties’ briefs addressed how teachers can obtain review of their ratings and whether those opportunities satisfy the constitutional need for “some kind of hearing.” View "Mascow v. Board of Education of Franklin Park School District No. 84" on Justia Law

Muresanu began participating in an ATM skimming scheme when he was 17 years old and had recently arrived from his native Romania. Muresanu was charged with possession of counterfeit access devices and three counts of attempted aggravated identity theft. There is no such federal crime; the statutory definition of aggravated identity theft does not cover attempts. Muresanu’s attorney did not object to the defect in a pretrial motion but “strategically waited" and moved for acquittal on the identity-theft counts after the government rested its case. The judge ruled that Muresanu had waived the objection, then deleted the attempt language from the jury instructions and instructed the jury on the elements of the completed crime. The modified instruction conformed to the statutory offense but varied from the indictment. Convicted, Muresanu was sentenced to 34 months on count one and a consecutive mandatory 24-month sentence on the identity-theft counts.The Seventh Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. The judge correctly applied the Sentencing Guidelines to count one. Defects in the indictment are not jurisdictional and must be raised by pretrial motion but the modification of the jury instructions led the jury to convict Muresanu of crimes not charged by the grand jury, violating his Fifth Amendment right to be tried only on charges brought by indictment. That error is per se reversible. View "United States v. Muresanu" on Justia Law

While confined in the Cook County Jail, Koger accumulated books in his cell. Guards removed more than 30. Prisoners may not have more than three books or magazines at a time (excluding religious and legal materials). On remand, the judge granted the defendants summary judgment, holding that the policy is valid under the First Amendment and that it is irrelevant whether the guards asked Koger which books he wanted to keep or what the Jail did with the confiscated books.The Seventh Circuit affirmed in part. The court noted Cook County’s stated reasons for the policy: books can be used for coded messages among prisoners, making it necessary to leaf through pages when doing a property search; books may be used to hide drugs, weapons, and other forbidden items. Curtailing the need for labor-intensive searches is a good reason for limiting the number of books in a cell. The court remanded in part. Koger lost a possessory interest in the books but he did not automatically lose his property interest. He was entitled to sell or ship the books, or reclaim them after his confinement. In addition to ascertaining the Jail’s policy, the district court must decide what choices, if any, were offered to Koger concerning the excess books and what became of them. View "Koger v. Cook County" on Justia Law

The cause of Cory's 2006 death was undetermined. The police later reopened the investigation. A grand jury indicted her husband, Lovelace, an Illinois criminal defense lawyer. Lovelace's first trial resulted in a hung jury. In his 2017 retrial, a jury found him not guilty. In a suit against under 42 U.S.C. 1983, Lovelace claimed that the defendants fabricated evidence, coerced witnesses, and concealed exculpatory evidence. The case was assigned to Judge Myerscough. A year later, the case was reassigned to Judge Bruce. Months later, the plaintiffs successfully moved to disqualify Bruce. The case was reassigned back to Myerscough, who informed counsel about circumstances that might seem relevant to her impartiality, her usual practice. Myerscough's daughter had just been hired as an Exoneration Project attorney. The plaintiffs’ law firm funds the Project and donates the time of its attorneys. The plaintiffs’ attorney stated that she worked with the judge’s daughter at the Project but did not supervise her and was not responsible for her compensation. Screening was implemented. Myerscough had recently attended a fundraiser for Illinois Innocence Project, where her daughter previously worked. The fundraiser recognized “exonerees,” including Lovelace. Defendants unsuccessfully requested that Myerscough disqualify herself under 28 U.S.C. 455(a).The Seventh Circuit denied a mandamus petition. There was no reasonable question as to Myerscough’s impartiality; no “objective, disinterested observer” could “entertain a significant doubt that justice would be done” based on the fundraiser. Section 455(b) requires recusal only if a judge’s close relative is “acting as a lawyer in the proceeding” or is known “to have an interest that could be substantially affected.” Nothing beyond the bare fact of the daughter’s employment poses a risk of bias. View "Gibson v. Myerscough" on Justia Law

Bridges, a Cook County Department of Corrections pretrial detainee, fell out of the upper bunk to which he had been assigned and injured himself. He sued, asserting that his injuries were caused by the defendants’ practice of ignoring medically necessary lower bunk prescriptions. Bridges cited five lawsuits filed by detainees who alleged that, between 2005 and 2012, they were injured when using upper bunks after their lower bunk prescriptions were ignored. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the defendants. A local government may not be sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for an injury inflicted solely by its employees or agents; it is when the execution of a government’s policy or custom, whether made by its lawmakers or by those whose edicts or acts may fairly be said to represent official policy, inflicts the injury that the governmental entity is responsible under section 1983. The Department houses thousands of detainees, with hundreds entering and leaving on a daily basis; three or five incidents over a seven-year period is inadequate as a matter of law to demonstrate a widespread custom or practice. Nothing connected the incidents and they were not so common as to place the defendants on notice of a widespread practice. View "Bridges v. Dart" on Justia Law

Law enforcement learned that Lee was distributing large quantities of ice methamphetamine and arranged a controlled buy. The source purchased over 83 grams of ice methamphetamine. Days later, officers conducted a planned traffic stop. Lee consented to a K-9 walkaround. The dog alerted to the presence of drugs. Troopers searched the car and found over seven pounds of ice methamphetamine and $19,170 in cash, including $900 of marked money used in the controlled buy. Lee stated that he had been dealing ice methamphetamine in the area for three years. In the seven months before his arrest, Lee distributed approximately 100 pounds. Agents executed a search warrant at Lee’s residence and discovered ice methamphetamine, 12 firearms in close proximity to the drugs, scales, drug paraphernalia, and ammunition. Lee pled guilty to possessing 50 grams or more of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and possessing firearms in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime and was sentenced to 210 months’ imprisonment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed in part, rejecting Lee’s argument that he should not have received two extra criminal history points under U.S.S.G. 4A1.1(d) for dealing methamphetamine while on supervision for a drunk driving offense. The court vacated a term of supervised release that would have prohibited him from interacting with known felons unless he receives the probation officer’s permission; that term violates the rule against delegating Article III power. View "United States v. Lee" on Justia Law

As a result of a 2009 stroke, Perry, serving a long sentence for murder, suffers from aphasia, which impairs his ability to speak, write, and understand words. Perry pursued direct and collateral review in Indiana’s courts. On collateral attack, an appointed lawyer abandoned the case. Five months after dismissing the state proceeding in order to obtain assistance, he refiled it. The state judge dismissed the renewed application, ruling that the original dismissal was with prejudice. Perry then filed a federal petition under 28 U.S.C. 2254, which was summarily dismissed as untimely. Time during which a properly-filed state collateral attack is pending is excluded from the one year available to file in federal court, 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(2), but the federal judge determined that Perry’s second state proceeding was not properly filed because a second or successive collateral attack in Indiana requires judicial permission that Perry did not seek. The court declined to apply equitable tolling: Perry displayed all of the diligence needed for tolling but did not encounter any extraordinary circumstance that blocked timely filing because aphasia is not an “external” obstacle, The Seventh Circuit vacated. The record does not permit a determination of whether Perry’s difficulties stem from a brain injury that left him unable to understand or use language well enough to protect his interests or from his failure to do enough legal research to understand which time in state court would be excluded under section 2244(d)(2). View "Perry v. Brown" on Justia Law