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

In 2008, Arnold was convicted of repeated sexual assault of his son, M.A., the principal witness at trial. As a persistent repeater, Arnold was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In 2011, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction and the denial of Arnold’s first post‐conviction petition. M.A. then signed a notarized affidavit, recanting his trial testimony. Nearly two years later, Arnold filed a pro se petition seeking a new trial. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of the petition, reasoning that the affidavit was not newly-discovered evidence but was cumulative of evidence presented at trial. The Wisconsin Supreme Court again denied review.In December 2015, Arnold filed a federal habeas petition, claiming actual innocence. The district court dismissed the petition as untimely. Under 28 U.S.C. 2244(d)(1)(A), a petitioner must seek habeas relief within one year of the date that his conviction became final. On remand, the district court heard testimony from M.A., a child psychologist, and M.A.’s former counselor. The Seventh Circuit then affirmed the dismissal of the petition. Arnold failed to meet the rigorous standard for overcoming the time bar. The court properly applied that probabilistic standard on remand; it was not the court’s charge on remand to independently determine whether it found M.A.’s recantation credible or reliable. The court employed the proper standard in viewing the new evidence through the eyes of a reasonable juror. View "Arnold v. Richardson" on Justia Law

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendants in an action brought by plaintiff, an inmate at the Dixon Correctional Center, alleging that defendants violated his Eighth Amendment rights when they were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs by refusing to grant him an exemption to wearing a restrictive security device, a black box, when he left the facility for medical appointments.In regard to claims against Dr. Mesrobian, the court concluded that no reasonable jury could find that Dr. Mesrobian acted with deliberate indifference to a substantial risk to plaintiff's health where the doctor concluded that an exemption was not necessary because the amount of force used was minimal and the security concerns significant. In regard to claims against Wexford Health, the court concluded that Wexford Health did not have a policy or practice of per se denials of black box exemptions or of failing to perform assessments to determine whether an exemption was warranted. In regard to claims against Assistant Warden Steele, the court concluded that prison administrators were not indifferent by depending on medical personnel to make medical assessments and that the IDOC, through Steele in his official capacity, did not fail to implement policies in a way that added up to deliberate indifference. Furthermore, the court did not find sufficient evidence to allow a reasonable jury to conclude that the IDOC had an unconstitutional custom or practice of not giving black box exemptions to inmates with conditions like that of plaintiff. View "Stewart v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc." on Justia Law

Vizcarra-Millan, who lived in Arizona, provided the drugs to Grundy. A network of couriers, including Moseby, brought the drugs to Indianapolis, where Grundy distributed them himself or via a network of wholesalers, including Carroll, who sold to retail dealers, including Atwater and Beasley, and Neville. Grundy and his crew brought at least 280 pounds of highly pure methamphetamine, as well as other drugs, to Indianapolis. In 2017, federal law enforcement obtained wiretaps for the cell phones of crew members and coordinated controlled drug buys from Grundy’s dealers. Most of Grundy’s associates pled guilty. Grundy and four others were convicted.Consolidating the appeals, the Seventh Circuit affirmed the convictions of Grundy, Vizcarra-Millan, Moseby, Atwater, and Neville. The court affirmed the conviction of Beasley on one count but reversed his convictions on two others; the evidence necessarily left a reasonable doubt as to whether he committed those crimes. The court rejected Grundy’s argument that the district court violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel by improperly obstructing him from representing himself; Vizcarra-Millan’s argument that the district court should have disqualified his chosen counsel due to a conflict of interest; and multiple challenges the denials of untimely motions to suppress evidence. View "United States v. Vizcarra-Millan" on Justia Law

Julius was convicted of arson for setting fire to a building where his ex-girlfriend, Noack, was living, twice in the same night. Julius was seen hanging around the building and threw rocks at the apartment window. On the night of the fires, Julius texted Noack repeatedly, asking if she was “coming outside.” He called her five times in a row. After midnight, a building resident woke up to the smell of smoke and found burning coals inside the building’s front door. Shortly after the second fire, an officer found Julius hiding under a car, patted Julius down, and found a lighter in his pocket. Julius was “clearly intoxicated.” Testing revealed gasoline on Julius’s shoes and socks.The government called a state police computer forensic examiner and an ATF agent to testify about extracting text messages from Julius’s phone. . The government did not seek to qualify these witnesses as experts. The ATF agent testified that she could not reach any conclusions as to the phone’s location. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Neither the district court’s failure to qualify the forensic examiner and ATF agent as expert witnesses before allowing them to testify nor the denial of an opportunity to cross-examine the ATF agent about the location data affected the verdict. View "United States v. Julius" on Justia Law

Based on his assault on his wife and her parents, Minnick was charged with aggravated battery, attempted first‐degree murder, and several counts of first‐degree reckless endangerment and attempted burglary, while using a dangerous weapon. Minnick agreed to plead no contest, except for attempted murder, which was dismissed and read‐in, and leave sentencing to the court, exposing him to 73 years of confinement. The court sentenced Minnick to 27 years.Wisconsin courts rejected his argument that his trial attorney improperly guaranteed and unreasonably estimated that he would receive a much shorter sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court denied review. Wisconsin courts then rejected his post-conviction argument that counsel was constitutionally ineffective because she failed to advise him that he could withdraw his no-contest pleas before sentencing if he provided a “fair and just reason” and that, when counsel learned that the PSR recommended a sentencing range exceeding what she had advised, she should have moved to withdraw his pleas.The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of habeas relief. Although Minnick’s claims could have been analyzed differently—including whether the state court’s decision on counsel’s sentencing advice warranted deference under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. 2254, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals did not unreasonably apply the Strickland deficient‐performance prong in concluding that a plea withdrawal claim was not clearly stronger than the argument that Minnick’s postconviction counsel advanced. View "Minnick v. Winkleski" on Justia Law

In each of two consolidated cases, a prisoner seeking a shorter sentence filed, within the time allowed for appeal, a motion asking the district judge to reconsider an adverse decision under the First Step Act of 2018. Each notice of appeal was filed within 14 days of the decision on the motion to reconsider but more than 14 days after the original decision.The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of the motions after declining to dismiss the appeals. A motion to reconsider a decision under the First Step Act suspends the decision’s finality and extends the time for appeal. The prisoners are not appealing from the imposition of their sentences but are invoking the First Step Act, which authorizes the reduction of a sentence long after the time allowed for appeal. Any prisoner serving a sentence for a covered crack-cocaine offense is entitled to ask a judge to treat him as if the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 had been in force on the date of his original sentence. Resolution of a motion under a retroactive guideline is not a form of full sentencing; the procedures applicable to initial sentences do not govern. The court rejected the petitions on the merits, citing one prisoner’s plea bargain and prior felony conviction and noting that the other prisoner’s mandatory life sentence had already been commuted to 30 years’ imprisonment. View "United States v. Turner" on Justia Law

Petitioner sought federal habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. 2255, arguing that his counsel was ineffective by not challenging whether his prior drug convictions were predicates, as Indiana law defined cocaine isomers more broadly than federal law.The Seventh Circuit concluded that, although petitioner forfeited his theory of ineffectiveness in the district court, it is subject to plain error review. The court also concluded that, because it was objectively reasonable for petitioner's counsel not to advise risking a mandatory life sentence to pursue the isomer argument, the district court did not plainly err in ruling that counsel's performance was constitutionally adequate. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief. View "Harris v. United States" on Justia Law

During a funeral, Stevenson drew a revolver, fired one shot into the grave, waved the gun toward the crowd, and fled. Police officers quickly arrested Stevenson and recovered the gun. He pled guilty to possession of a firearm by a felon, 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1); 924(e). The PSR applied the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. 924(e), based on prior Illinois state convictions: a. 1989 conviction for attempted murder; a 1989 conviction for manufacture and delivery of cocaine; and a 2010 conviction for robbery. The guidelines range was 135-168 months but because Stevenson qualified as an armed career criminal—warranting a minimum 15-year sentence—the PSR recommended 180 months’ imprisonment. Stevenson claimed he received an Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) letter restoring his civil rights discharging him from his 1989 convictions. A former IDOC computer programmer testified “the restoration-of-rights discharge letters were generated when an offender ‘completed the term of parole.’”From Stevenson’s “convoluted” history of incarceration, parole, and re-arrest, the court concluded that Stevenson was not discharged from parole on either the drug trafficking charge or the attempted murder charge and sentenced Stevenson to 15 years’ imprisonment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The district court did not clearly err in concluding that Stevenson did not establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the letter in question pertained to those predicate convictions View "United States v. Stevenson" on Justia Law

Grainger, the victim of cyberattacks against its computer systems, isolated the source of the intrusions to a single internet protocol (IP) address, coming from a high-rise apartment building where disgruntled former employee Soybel lived. Grainger reported the attacks to the FBI, which obtained a court order under the Pen Register Act, 18 U.S.C. 3121, authorizing the installation of pen registers and “trap and trace” devices to monitor internet traffic in and out of the building generally and Soybel’s unit specifically. The pen registers were instrumental in confirming that Soybel unlawfully accessed Grainger’s system. The district court denied Soybel’s motion to suppress the pen-register evidence.The Seventh Circuit affirmed Soybel’s convictions under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The use of a pen register to identify IP addresses visited by a criminal suspect is not a Fourth Amendment “search” that requires a warrant. IP pen registers are analogous in all material respects to the telephone pen registers that the Supreme Court upheld against a Fourth Amendment challenge in 1979. The connection between Soybel’s IP address and external IP addresses was routed through a third party, an internet service provider. Soybel has no expectation of privacy in the captured routing information. The court distinguished historical cell-site location information, which implicates unique privacy interests that are absent here. The IP pen register had no ability to track Soybel’s past movements. View "United States v. Soybel" on Justia Law

Kenosha officers McDonough and Kinzer responded to a 911 call from an apartment building’s manager who reported that there was a woman inside Ferguson’s apartment who was “causing problems” and did not live there. McDonough spoke with Rupp-Kent who was alone inside Ferguson’s apartment and who reported that Ferguson had been violent with her. McDonough observed bruises on Rupp-Kent’s leg and neck and saw the knife Ferguson purportedly pointed at her. McDonough learned that Ferguson was on probation for robbery, had his driving privileges revoked, and drove a Chrysler. He reviewed Ferguson’s booking photo. McDonough, in his squad completing the paperwork, saw Ferguson drive past and followed. The parties dispute the events that occurred as McDonough attempted to arrest Ferguson. McDonough ultimately deployed his taser for five seconds.Ferguson sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983. McDonough moved for summary judgment, asserting qualified immunity. The district court denied the motion, concluding that genuine issues of material fact remained for a jury to decide. The Seventh Circuit dismissed an appeal. McDonough and Ferguson offered competing accounts and the dashcam video of the incident did not conclusively support either party’s account. Under one version of the events, Ferguson was not resisting and a reasonable officer would have known that an officer’s substantial escalation of force in response to an individual’s passive resistance violated the individual’s Fourth Amendment rights against excessive force. View "Ferguson v. McDonough" on Justia Law