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

Walker, an inmate, brought a civil rights suit against prison officers. Walker asked the court six times to recruit a volunteer lawyer to represent him. The Seventh Circuit held that the court acted within its discretion when it denied his initial motions but abused its discretion when it denied the sixth. A litigant in a civil case has neither a statutory nor a constitutional right to counsel. When the court receives a request to recruit counsel from an indigent plaintiff, it must determine whether the plaintiff has made a reasonable attempt to obtain counsel on his own and whether, given the difficulty of the case, the plaintiff is competent to litigate it himself. This case involves the second question. Walker was facing jury trial by videoconference. That substantially increased the difficulty of his case, despite the simplicity of his claims. The basic competence that Walker had demonstrated during the pretrial phase did not necessarily reflect his ability to handle a video trial entirely on his own. Trying a case requires additional skills, and Walker had managed the pretrial phase with the help of a jailhouse lawyer who had since been transferred to another prison. View "Walker v. Price" on Justia Law

The police received an anonymous 911 call from a 14‐year‐old who borrowed a stranger’s phone and reported seeing “boys” “playing with guns” by a “gray and greenish Charger” in a nearby parking lot. A police officer drove to the lot, blocked a car matching the caller’s description, ordered the car’s occupants to get out of the car, and found that a passenger in the car, Watson, had a gun. He later conditionally pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). The Seventh Circuit vacated the conviction. The police did not have reasonable suspicion to block the car. The anonymous tip did not justify an immediate stop because the caller’s report was not sufficiently reliable. The caller used a borrowed phone, which would make it difficult to find him, and his sighting of guns did not describe a likely emergency or crime—he reported gun possession, which is lawful. View "United States v. Watson" on Justia Law

An Illinois jury convicted McGhee of murder and attempted murder. McGhee’s defense attorney asked the judge to poll the jury after the verdict was read. The judge said, “[a]ll right,” but did not conduct the poll; he simply thanked and dismissed the jurors. An Illinois criminal defendant “has the absolute right to poll the jury after it returns its verdict.” Defense counsel did not object when the judge moved directly to closing remarks, nor did he raise the issue in a post-trial motion. McGhee’s appellate lawyer failed to challenge the error on direct review. McGhee’s conviction was affirmed on appeal and in state collateral review. He sought habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of the petition. McGhee’s "Strickland" claims, that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the judge’s jury-polling error and his appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the judge’s error on appeal, were waived because he did not present them in his section 2254 petition. McGhee procedurally defaulted his claim that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge trial counsel’s failure to preserve the polling error. McGhee failed to present the claim through one complete round of state-court review. View "McGhee v. Watson" on Justia Law

Miller was arrested after police found him unconscious behind the wheel of his car, which he had crashed into a street light. At the jail, an officer pulled him from the squad car and found a handgun on the floor where his feet had been. A jury found Miller guilty of possessing a firearm as a felon, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1). He was sentenced to 87 months in prison. His presentence report that disclosed Miller, age 31, had 17 criminal history points, with 11 adult convictions, including five felonies: three for firearms, one for drugs, and one for obstruction of justice. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the conviction as supported by sufficient evidence but vacated his sentence. The judge incorrectly said the instant offense was Miller’s seventh felony conviction, and Miller’s 17 criminal history points would place him in a criminal history category VIII if the Guidelines went beyond category VI. The miscounting of Miller’s felony convictions did not affect the Guidelines range but received explicit attention from the district judge when he selected a sentence using the section 3553(a) factors. The misstatement amounted to procedural error. Defendants have a due process right to be sentenced based on accurate information. View "United States v. Miller" on Justia Law

In 2013, Elder and co-defendants were charged with having conspired to traffic large quantities of methamphetamine from Arizona to southwest Indiana. His co-defendants pleaded guilty. Elder was found guilty of conspiring to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine and 500 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine, 21 U.S.C. 841 and 846. Elder had a 1997 Arizona conviction for possession of drug paraphernalia and a 1999 Arizona guilty-plea conviction for possession of equipment or chemicals for the manufacture of dangerous drugs. The court concluded that Elder was subject to a mandatory term of life imprisonment under section 841(b)(1)(A) based on two prior “felony drug offense” convictions. The Seventh Circuit concluded that his paraphernalia conviction did not qualify as a felony drug offense under 21 U.S.C. 802(44). On remand, the court concluded that the 1999 conviction qualified as a felony drug offense so that he was subject to a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence. The court calculated Elder’s guidelines range as 324-405 months’ imprisonment and sentenced him to 260 months. The Seventh Circuit issued a limited remand on the question of whether the error was harmless, finding that the 1999 Arizona conviction is not a “felony drug offense” as defined by section 802(44). View "United States v. Elder" on Justia Law

Williams was accused of offenses relating to a wide‐ranging sex‐trafficking scheme. He lured women in desperate circumstances into prostitution by convincing them that he would take care of them and maintained control through brutal physical abuse. Before trial, the government filed a notice of its intent to call FBI Agent Mentzel as an expert witness, adequately describing Mentzel’s credentials but listing only broad topics without explanation of what she would say about each. Williams argued that the disclosure was inadequate under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16(a)(1)(G); that Mentzel’s testimony was unnecessary— jury instructions would define the crime of human trafficking; and that her testimony would be impermissible character evidence. The court overruled these objections. Mentzel testified about how human traffickers operate but did not testify about Williams or his actions. Three of Williams’ victims testified. There were pictures of injuries that Williams had inflicted on his victims and online prostitution ads for each testifying victim, all linked to Williams’ email addresses. There were text messages and Facebook messages in which Williams admitted to being a pimp and referred to the victims who later testified. The Seventh Circuit affirmed his conviction. While the government did not violate the rules prohibiting the use of character evidence, it probably did violate the expert disclosure requirement but any error was harmless. The evidence of guilt was so overwhelming that the jury would have convicted Williams even if Mentzel had not testified. View "United States v. Williams" on Justia Law

Undercover officers conducted several controlled buys of methamphetamine by contacting Jones and obtaining the drugs from either Jones, Jones’s girlfriend (Rowland), or their housemate. A jury convicted Jones of possessing and conspiring to distribute methamphetamine. The district court sentenced him to a term of imprisonment of 145 months, considering Jones’ possession of a gun carried in Rowland’s purse and also several quantities of methamphetamine for which Jones claimed he was not responsible. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Rowland’s possession of the gun and the drugs were foreseeable to Jones and in furtherance of the conspiracy. The court found that the co-conspirators operated as a team. A district court calculating drug quantities at sentencing need only support its findings by a preponderance of the evidence and district courts may make reasonable though imprecise estimates based on information that has indicia of reliability.” View "United States v. Jones" on Justia Law

In December 2003, Chicago detectives separately questioned Johnson about a shooting death. Johnson admitted that he drove the shooter to the scene but claimed not to know anything about the plan. Johnson was charged with murder under an accountability theory. Johnson unsuccessfully moved to suppress his statements based on noncompliance with Miranda. At a 2007 trial, the detectives testified about Johnson’s statements. The jury found him guilty. The Illinois Appellate Court reversed in 2010. At a second trial in 2012, the detectives repeated their testimony. Johnson was convicted. The appellate court reversed in 2014, citing insufficient evidence. In 2015, Johnson sued the detectives under 42 U.S.C. 1983 alleging that they violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by interrogating him without Miranda warnings and giving testimony about his unwarned statements. The district court found the claims untimely because Johnson filed suit more than two years after his statements were introduced at trial. The Seventh Circuit reversed in part. Precedent (Heck) blocks a section 1983 claim that necessarily implies the invalidity of a criminal conviction unless the plaintiff can show that the conviction has been invalidated; if a claim is Heck-barred, accrual is deferred until the conviction is overturned. Claims of this kind necessarily imply the invalidity of the convictions, so Heck’s deferred accrual rule applies. The first conviction was reversed in 2010, so those claims are untimely. Claims relating to the second trial are timely. View "Johnson v. Winstead" on Justia Law

Heishman was high on amphetamines and running naked in the street. Indianapolis police tried to subdue him. A paramedic administered a sedative to Heishman so he could be moved to an ambulance to be taken to a hospital. Soon, Heishman’s heart and breathing stopped. Despite efforts to revive him, he died days later. Heishman’s estate sued, asserting federal Fourth Amendment claims and state-law tort claims. The district court denied the paramedic qualified immunity on the excessive force claim and allowed all but one of the state-law claims to proceed against the paramedic and the hospital without requiring the plaintiff to comply with the Indiana Medical Malpractice Act. On interlocutory appeal, the Seventh Circuit reversed as to both issues. Case law does not clearly establish that a paramedic can violate a patient-arrestee’s Fourth Amendment rights by exercising medical judgment to administer a sedative in a medical emergency. All of the state-law claims are subject to the substantive terms of Indiana’s Medical Malpractice Act, including damage caps and the requirement to submit the claim to a medical review panel before suit is filed. The undisputed facts show that the paramedic was exercising medical judgment in dealing with a patient in a medical emergency. View "Thompson v. Cope" on Justia Law

George was charged with conspiracy, 18 U.S.C. 371, and a Medicare‐fraud kickback scheme, 42 U.S.C. 1320a-7b(b)(1) based a scheme whereby George received payments of $500 per person from Rosner Home Health Care, for each Medicare patient that she referred to it. Two owners and an employee of Rosner (Tolentino, Magsino, and Hernal) pled guilty before trial. The district court found George guilty and sentenced her to six months of imprisonment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting George’s arguments that there was insufficient evidence to support the conviction and that the court erred in failing to limit the cross‐examination of George to matters within her knowledge as a layperson. Hernal had cooperated in the investigation, so the prosecution’s evidence included recordings of the two discussing the illegality of the scheme and establishing the referrals and payments, in cash or check, plus bank records of George’s deposits, and referral logs. The district court properly allowed cross‐examination as to the book that George raised in her direct examination and which she introduced into evidence and properly allowed questioning about her knowledge of the illegality of referral payments. A defendant can be asked about her knowledge or state of mind: a question which seeks factual information, not a conclusion as to its legal significance. View "United States v. George" on Justia Law