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

Richardson was the driver and sole occupant of a car that was stopped for a traffic violation. He gave the police false names. Trying to identify him, officers conducted an inventory search and uncovered a firearm stashed beneath the passenger seat, within the driver’s reach. Before telling Richardson about the gun, officers asked him whether he had a firearms license; he responded, “That gun’s not mine.” The search uncovered other items belonging to Richardson, including a pay stub bearing his name. When Richardson had an asthma attack, he stated that his inhaler was in the glove box. During jail calls with his girlfriend, who owned the gun, he confirmed that the gun was “in the same place that it’s always in.”The Seventh Circuit affirmed his conviction and 15-year sentence, based on the Armed Career Criminal Act, which imposes a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years on any person convicted of possessing a firearm if that person has three or more prior convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses “committed on occasions different from one another.” 18 U.S.C. 924(e). Each of three robberies committed over 36 hours when Richardson was 16 was committed on a different occasion. The second robbery was committed more than an hour after and 12 miles away from the first; the third was committed the next day. Richardson constructively possessed the gun. View "United States v. Richardson" on Justia Law

Banks posted a Snapchat video of himself barbequing on his porch with a gun on the grill’s shelf. Springfield police officer Redding saw the post and knew Banks to be a convicted felon. Within minutes, Redding and other officers headed to Banks’s home and saw Banks on his porch, next to the grill. The officers struggled with Banks, eventually arresting him inside the house. A pat down revealed a loaded semi-automatic pistol in Banks’s pocket. The officers also saw a box of ammunition. They did not have a warrant to enter Banks’s porch or to search his home.At a suppression hearing, Redding stated that he did not believe he needed a warrant to enter the porch because the police had reasonable suspicion that Banks, as a convicted felon, was committing a crime by possessing a gun nor did he believe he had enough time to obtain a warrant. The district court denied Banks’s motion to suppress. Banks entered a conditional guilty plea. The Seventh Circuit reversed. Because Banks was a convicted felon, the officers needed nothing more than the video to request a warrant to arrest him. A front porch—part of a home’s “curtilage”—receives the same protection as the home itself, so the officers’ entry was illegal without a warrant. No exception to the warrant requirement applied. View "United States v. Banks" on Justia Law

Klund purports to supply electrical parts. In 1991 and in 1993, he was convicted for fraudulent misrepresentations involving defense contracts. Disqualified from the award of government contracts, from 2011-2019, Klund bid on defense contracts using shell corporations, aliases, and the names of employees and relatives. He certified that one shell company was a woman-owned business, eligible for special consideration. Klund bid on 5,760 defense contracts and was awarded 1,928 contracts worth $7.4 million. Klund satisfactorily performed some of his contracts; the Department paid $2.9 million for these goods. But he knowingly shipped and requested payment for 2,816 nonconforming electrical parts and submitted invoices for parts that he never shipped.Klund pleaded guilty to wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering. The PSR calculated the intended loss at $5.7 million and the actual loss at $2.9 million. Since Klund fraudulently obtained contracts intended for woman-owned businesses, the PSR did not apply an offset for the cost of goods actually delivered under those contracts. An 18-level increase in Klund’s offense level applied because the loss was more than $3,500,000 but not more than $9,500,000, U.S.S.G. 2B1.1(b)(1)(J). With an advisory range of 87-108 months, Klund was sentenced to 96 months’ imprisonment with a mandatory consecutive sentence of 24 months for aggravated identity theft. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, upholding the loss calculations. View "United States v. Klund" on Justia Law

Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) Officers found Smallwood unresponsive in his prison cell. When he awoke, Smallwood assured a nurse that he had not taken any drugs, and reminded her that he is diabetic. Smallwood consented to a urinalysis and the results were negative. Dr. Talbot nonetheless ordered blood tests. Smallwood asked for a form to refuse the blood draw. Prison guards stated that he could not refuse, twisted his hands and wrists, placed him in a headlock, and held a taser to his chest while placing him in restraints. They held him down while a lab technician drew his blood. The blood test results revealed no illegal drugs. Smallwood alleges that the officers took him to an observation cell where they subjected him to physical and sexual abuse, then placed him in segregation. Smallwood filed a grievance but did not properly follow IDOC grievance procedures, which require that a prisoner first attempt to informally resolve the problem: a grievant need not seek informal resolution for allegations of sexual abuse. Smallwood filed a timely formal grievance, alleging sexual abuse. Smallwood’s grievance was rejected for failing to show that he had tried to informally resolve his complaint. Smallwood expressed an inability to understand the grievance process. A year later, Smallwood's attempt at informal resolution was rejected as untimely.Smallwood sued, 42 U.S.C. 1983. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit vacated, finding unresolved, material factual questions regarding Smallwood’s ability to make use of the grievance procedure. View "Smallwood v. Williams" on Justia Law

The government is investigating Doe for suspected criminal violations of the Clean Water Act. With a search warrant, agents conducted a day-long search of Doe’s premises. An hour into the search, agents ordered Doe to turn off all security cameras. After the search, Doe contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office and accused the agents of violating the Fourth Amendment in executing the search. Doe also filed an emergency motion to unseal the affidavit supporting the warrant, attaching still images from security-camera video footage of the search, showing agents pointing guns at employees.. Doe refused the government’s request to view the original video. The government served Doe with a grand-jury subpoena for the video.Doe argued that the video was irrelevant to the potential Clean Water Act violations and that the subpoena was for the improper purpose of conducting pre-trial discovery before Doe’s criminal trial or for potential civil litigation over the alleged constitutional violation. The government argued that “the grand jury is entitled to consider potential evidence of law enforcement misconduct in evaluating whether to indict” and that the video could be directly relevant, because it could provide details on what evidence was collected during the search, which employees had access to evidence, and whether anyone tampered with potential evidence. The district court quashed the subpoena. The Seventh Circuit reversed. The grand jury is entitled to inquire into the circumstances surrounding the collection of evidence relevant to its investigation. View "United States v. Doe Corp." on Justia Law

While investigating a heroin distribution network involving Triplett and Collins, investigators obtained court-authorized wiretaps on 12 phones, 18 U.S.C. 2510. In copying files containing the recordings onto optical discs and sealing those discs, the government made mistakes, failing to seal the Phone 5 recordings and those from nine days on Phone 9. The government searched Collins's stash house, and recovered heroin, cutting agents, packaging, and 10 firearms.After the government disclosed its Phone 9 mistake, Collins moved to suppress those recordings and all subsequent recordings which relied on the improperly sealed disks to obtain additional authorizations. The government committed not to use at trial any Phone 9 recordings from the nine-day unsealed period. The district court denied the motion, finding that no later wiretap applications relied on unsealed recordings.The government later discovered and disclosed the Phone 5 error. Collins filed another motion to suppress. The government agreed not to use any Phone 5 recordings at trial but opposed the suppression of recordings from other phones. The district court denied the motion, finding that the government had not yet failed to immediately seal Phone 5 when it applied for another wiretap, that the government’s explanation concerning mechanical error was satisfactory, and that the applications for additional wiretaps did not rely on the recordings. Collins pleaded guilty to conspiracy, firearm, and money laundering offenses.The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The government’s voluntary suppression of the unsealed recordings indicated that they were not central to the case, which supported the government’s explanation. View "United States v. Collins" on Justia Law

Suspecting that Troconis-Escovar was involved in the illegal drug business, the DEA searched his vehicle. Agents found $146,000 in cash, which they believed represented drug proceeds. DEA notified Troconis-Escovar that it intended to effect an administrative forfeiture of the funds (to declare them to be government property). Illegal drug proceeds are eligible for civil forfeiture under 21 U.S.C. 881(a)(6), subject to the procedural safeguards of the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act, 18 U.S.C. 983. Troconis-Escovar’s attorney tried to contest the forfeiture, but filed the wrong form—a “petition for remission” rather than a “claim.” Only a claim may be used to challenge a proposed forfeiture. After the mistake was discovered, DEA gave Troconis-Escovar an extra 30 days to supplement his petition for remission. Troconis-Escovar did not do so and lost the money. He filed a Motion for the Return of Property under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(g).The district court dismissed his lawsuit, finding that it lacked jurisdiction. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The dismissal was correct, but not because jurisdiction was lacking. Troconis-Escovar does not explain why he should be able to obtain relief outside section 983 when Congress expressly conditioned relief from civil forfeiture on circumstances that do not apply to him. He did not explain his argument about the untimeliness or sufficiency of the DEA’s notice. View "Troconis-Escovar v. United States" on Justia Law

Benner was a 43-year-old high school coach. P.A., 17, hoped to use basketball to obtain a college scholarship. A sexual relationship between the two began after Benner resigned from his position but promised to continue coaching P.A.. Indiana law prohibits anyone who “has or had” a professional relationship with a person under the age of 18 to “use[] or exert[] the person’s professional relationship to engage in sexual intercourse” with that young person. Benner was convicted under Ind. Code 35-42-4-7(n). Indiana courts rejected constitutional challenges and affirmed Benner’s conviction.The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of Benner’s petition for collateral relief. The statutory definition refers to the defendant’s “ability to exert undue influence over the child.” Benner claimed that a person of ordinary intelligence would not understand how he might use a professional relationship to engage in sexual conduct with a child when that professional relationship has ended. The court stated: It is easy to see how a coach can use that position to groom a youngster for sex, even if the coach plans that the sexual activity will follow the basketball season’s end. While Benner never had an official coaching relation with P.A. after the statutory amendment added the word “had,” Indiana did not charge Benner with conduct that preceded July 2013. No Supreme Court holding “clearly establish[es]” a constitutional problem with the present tense or words such as “use” or “exert”. Compared with some statutes that the Supreme Court has upheld, "35-42-4-7 is a model of precision.” View "Benner v. Carlton" on Justia Law

Alt, age 26, sent a message to a Grindr account operated by an undercover FBI Agent. The account included a picture of a youthful-looking boy and listed his age as 18. The boy responded to Alt after Alt sent two more messages. The two discussed meeting to engage in sexual activity and smoke marijuana. The boy stated that he was only 15 years old, but Alt continued with his plans to meet. Approximately 90 minutes after the boy first responded, FBI agents arrested Alt outside of what Alt believed to be the boy’s home. Alt had a tablet with the Grindr app and messages, an iPhone, and marijuana.Alt was convicted of attempted enticement of a minor and sentenced to the mandatory minimum, 120 months in prison, plus 15 years of supervised release. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, upholding the denial of Alt’s motion to suppress his statements to the FBI. Alt’s alleged invocation—“real quick, on the, uh, appointed lawyer, do you have a lawyer here?”—does not “indicat[e] a certain and present desire to consult with counsel.” The government did not commit a Batson violation in rejecting a Black juror who stated he had family that had suffered sexual abuse. Alt was not deprived of a fair trial because of the government’s statements about the standard of proof during closing arguments. The court also upheld a supervised release requirement that Alt participate in a sex offender treatment program/ View "United States v. Alt" on Justia Law

Smartt had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old runaway (S.S.) and traveled around the country with her while working as a trucker. He took sexually explicit photos of her. When she got pregnant, he returned her to Alton, Illinois. The FBI investigated when S.S. sought medical care at an Alton hospital. Agents obtained a warrant to search Smartt’s East St. Louis home, where they seized electronic devices containing sexually explicit photos of S.S. DNA tests confirmed that Smartt is the father of her child. Smartt sent letters addressed to S.S. and others trying to influence her testimony. Smartt was convicted of producing child pornography and of witness tampering.The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting Smartt’s claims that the judge erred in referring to S.S. as “the victim” before she testified. During her direct examination, S.S. identified 14 sexually explicit photos Smartt had taken of her. The prosecutor moved to admit only one. The judge asked whether the prosecutor planned to admit the other photos through another witness. The prosecutor said yes. The judge replied: “Just making sure.” The court rejected Smartt’s argument that the comment signaled pro-government bias to the jury. Smartt did not clear the high hurdle of plain-error review; “his arguments are frivolous.” View "United States v. Smartt" on Justia Law